Bad Movies

Have you ever seen something and wondered how a it could go so horribly wrong? As I see it there are four distinct ways a movie can be bad.

1. They Never Had a Chance:

This is a category filled with the best intentions of new film makers. You could have the best idea for a screen play and even good directing instincts; yet if you have no money you can't succeed. Lets face it there are a lot of films out there that could have been amazing had they simply gotten a better budget. I actually wrote and directed a small film, so I can tell you how hard it was. My movie wasn't very good, but I'd like to see what Spielberg could do with one week to shoot, no crew, a crappy hand held camcorder, a non professional cast, a budget of nothing, and shooting that all had to be done guerrilla style.

A bigger budget means better actors, better equipment, more takes, more time available, and often a better crew. Every once in a while you get a small low budget film that everyone loves, but for every "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" there are thousands of even lower budget failures.

2. They were incompetent

Sometimes a big budget is not enough to save you. It could be the script, it could be actors, but a lot of time I place the blame on directors. Take for instance the infamous Uwe Boll director of such abominations as "House of the Dead", "Blood Rayne", "In the Name of the King", and "Bloodrayne 2." Admittedly it is a difficult task to translate a story from video game format onto the big screen. Yet even with access to big budgets, and great actors like Ben Kingsly he still managed to make something that was beyond horrible. The stories were flat, the acting was flat, the transitions rarely made sense, and the plot was barely held together.

If you combines problems 1 and 2. That is to say having someone both broke and incompetent that is sometimes the area where things go so wrong they go right. everything Ed Wood made is in this category, as is Manos Hands of Fate, and many other complete disasters.

3. They knew exactly what they were doing

"Snakes on a Plane" was actually made on a bet of who could come up with the worst pitch for a movie. When a big actor like Samuel L Jackson signed on for it, they wanted to change the name to something more respectable. Yet being the great man he is Samuel L Jackson stood up and said, he signed on to do this only because it was called "Snakes on a Plane." Sometimes there is a lot of Joy to be had in awesomely bad movies, so if you can't be good why not be amazingly bad.


I have to believe that half of the movies made by the Sci-Fi Channel fall under this category. I mean when the script for "Heatstroke" arrived on the executives desk I have to imagine fits of giggling. "A movie about aliens that look like dinosaurs causing global warming, and terrorizing a bunch of hot models. Genious!" They know they are going to be making something terrible so why not have some fun with it all.

4. They tried to make everyone happy.

Immagine a board room meeting.

"Alright we need a new movie and we need a hit. Give me ideas here people."

A person raises their hand "Ok, why not a movie about the mob and gangers, The Sporanos are really hot right now."

"I like your thinking, but women never go for movies like that. We would loose the entire female demographic."

Another person speaks "What if we made it a romantic comedy about the mob. A woman falling in love with a hitman."

"No, No I got it the woman will be the hitman it's a nice twist." someone improvises

"I don't know team, we may be loosing the men on this one." the executive says pacing the boardroom

"Ok what if we make the woman a smoking hot Lesbian. Like Jennifer Lopez or something." suggests mail room guy who wandered into the room for no apparent reason

"Would anyone believe Jennifer Lopez as a tough hit woman?" suggests a woman

"Why not, I think she'd look good in leather pants. And, uh, we'll pair her with a wimpy guy who will make her look tougher, why not Ben Afleck or something. and she he decides to sleep with the guy ... we'll figure why she wants to do that later. But it's hot right, that would totally bring back the male audience." explains the mail room kid

"Brilliant, we'll call it something kooky but mysterious Gigli. Yes, I like it it sounds bouncy like Jennifer Lopez's ass." replies the executive

Thus began the birth of one of the worst movies ever made. If you try to make everyone happy, you end up failing. Gigli is the best example of a movie that tried to appeal to too wide of a demographic, but there are definitely others out there if you look around.