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"There is hardly a thing I can say in its favor, except that I was cheered by nearly every minute of it. I cannot argue for the script, the direction, the acting or even the mummy, but I can say that I was not bored and sometimes I was unreasonably pleased. There is a little immaturity stuck away in the crannies of even the most judicious of us, and we should treasure it."
There's something lovable about a movie that just doesn't fucking care.
Seanbaby
There are a lot of really bad movies out there. Some of them are watchable in their own twisted way. In fact, there are studios who make movies like this almost exclusively. Many of these have been saved through Ham And Cheese.
Ed Wood's films and Troll2 are so extremely So Bad Its Good, that they're beyond criticism. Seriously, critics can't say anything bad about it because the films just speak for themselves. They're so bad, they're works of art.
- Plan 9 From Outer Space (pictured above) and many of the other works of Ed Wood.
- "Visits? That would indicate visitors."
"Inspector Clay is dead... murdered! And somebody's responsible!"
- "Y'see? Y'SEE? Your stupid minds! Stupid, stupid!"
"Because of death. Because all you of Earth are idiots."
"Now you just hold on, buster."
"No, you hold on!"
- Then there is this sequence:
"Well, let's go down and find out whose grave it is."
"How?"
"By going down and finding out!"
- "A particle of sunlight is made of many atoms!"
- "We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future." And after all this talk about the future, the narrator continues, "And now, for the first time, we are bringing to you the full story of what happened on that fateful day..."
- The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a textbook deliberate case of this. The plot (such as it is) is very like "Manos" The Hands of Fate (probably unintentional, given "Manos"'s cliched plot and utter obscurity until MST 3 K found it) with some homoerotica thrown in. The characters were, for the most part, based on those of the Bulgakov novel The Master And Margarita - itself a modern masterpiece, partly because all of its Narm is deliberate.
- Showgirls
- The Grindhouse movies, Planet Terror and Death Proof, were deliberately made to be So Bad Its Good, and critics generally consider them successful in that regard. Death Proof was actually criticized a bit for not being stupid enough.
- Slumber Party Massacre, a hilariously cheesy slasher flick. It contains panty shots, nudity, gore, and more fake-outs than you can shake a stick at. Oh, and it was originally written as a spoof of slasher flicks - but the directors filmed it straight. The result is unbelievably goofy.
- The Van Helsing movie. Big Bad Dracula is a Large Ham of ridiculous magnitude; the only guy who gets any action is the sidekick; and there's a Frankensteinsicle. Plus, an automatic crossbow.
- Danish monster movie Reptilicus boasts bad acting, horrible special effects (the monster is a giant hand-puppet who attacks with Silly String), and a laughably implausible plot. (A forest in the Arctic?). See jabootu.com for more details.
- The movie Road House has been described as "The best movie ever made in which a philosophical bouncer finds love and confronts his demons while working at a rowdy honkytonk outside Kansas City." That should tell you everything you need to know about it.
- Most of the movies featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 deserved this status as soon as they were made but gained new notoriety after being lampooned by Joel and the 'bots. Some examples:
Martian: The people of Earth do not realize that Santa Claus has been kidnapped by Martians. Tom Servo: You do realize what you just said.
- Snakes On A Plane. The premise itself attracted a massive internet following based on its So Bad Its Good-ness, leading the makers to reshoot certain scenes to make them even more outlandish. Notable additions include a snake slithering out of the toilet bowl to latch onto the expected area of a man using the facilities, and of course Samuel L. Jackson's (in)famous line "I have had it with these motherfuckin' snakes on this motherfuckin' plane!". Did we mention how Kenan Thompson lands the plane safely because he's been playing a flight simulator on his PSP the entire flight? And that upon said safe landing, Samuel L. Jackson shouts in his unparalleled badassedness, "ALL PRAISES TO THE PLAYSTATION!"?
- Many, many 1980s action movies fall under this trope. A particularly impressive example is Schwarzenegger's Commando, which has a veritable battalion of cheesy One Liners, utterly improbable plot progression, and fight scenes beyond ludicrous—with Arnie taking on an entire army of hundreds of opponents in an open field without being hit once, shrugging off a pointblank grenade explosion, jumping out of a starting plane (into a swamp, but still)—and more Ho Yay than anyone could dream of. The One Man Team
 video, which dubs Team Fortress 2 lines into one of the fight scenes, really puts the cheese into perspective.
- The independent film studio Troma Entertainment specializes in films that are So Bad Its Good on purpose, the best known of which is The Toxic Avenger and its sequels. Many an argument is known to erupt over whether their movies stay in that category or cross the point of no return.
- And now there's a stage musical version! Can a radioactive mutant find love in a world that hates and fears him!?
- Troma is now also responsible for Poultrygeist: Night of the Living Chicken, a movie that combines So Bad Its Good, crossed the line twice and possible brain damage for the viewer.
- There are plenty of fantasy movies that fall under this category:
- The first Resident Evil movie was spoilt by occasional moments of competence. Luckily, the sequel was several orders of magnitude worse, and all the more enjoyable for it (at least until L.J. opens his mouth). Sienna Guillory helped.
- The Brady Bunch Movie and A Very Brady Sequel were both deliberate, and successful, attempts at So Bad It's Good.
- The original, English language dubs of Godzilla movies achieved this status by accident. Recent Godzilla movies have a lot more money for props and use good modern CG for energy weapons and vehicles, but you can still see the traditional zippers on the rubber monster suits. The very first movie, if you get the sub instead of the dub, is excellent.
- The American remake of Godzilla is laughably bad to the point of hilarity.
- While some violently disagree, Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter qualifies, very very intentionally. It's a movie about how Jesus returns to Earth to fight lesbian vampires that are immune to sunlight. With the help of an overweight Mexican wrestler. And it's got a few musical numbers. Also the only movie in which you'll hear someone say "We're running low on skin. I suggest we harvest another lesbian!"
- Arguably the entire point of the Scary Movie series.
- Reefer Madness. Of course, it helps if you have actually smoked marijuana at least once in your life (and inhaled).
- Of course, the Showtime musical (based on the off-off-off Broadway musical with Christian Campbell, Ana Gasteier, Alan Cumming and Kristen Bell) was AWESOME! The DVD case smells like brownies.
- Edgar Wright, director of Spaced, Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz, did quite a few little amateur films when he was younger. A notable one is Dead Right, a cop movie that parodies and homages Dirty Harry (the main character is nicknamed "Dirty Barry"), among other movies. It is an extra included on the two-disc Hot Fuzz DVD and includes both a commentary by Wright, which is quite informative, and another commentary by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, which consists mostly of their tearing the movie to shreds. The movie is very schizophrenic, switching between, as Wright describes it, "sub-Zucker Brothers nonsense" with random humor, a cop movie parody, and a splatter film. Notable scenes include the killer, wearing a bright orange raincoat, hiding from a woman by simply pressing up against a doorway (she walks straight past him despite his being in plain sight with no camouflage); Detective Barry Stern being assaulted by a cat; a very lengthy, gory (if food-colouring counts as gore) fight scene where Barry and an MI5 undercover agent (who looks like "every sound-man" according to Frost) decimate a gang of "box-monsters" (all in the killer's gang; the killer kills people who buy Weetabix, so he's a cereal killer); and a scene of almighty Fourth Wall breaking where the murderer kills Edgar Wright himself.
- Killer Klowns From Outer Space. It has to be seen to be believed...
- One hilarious quote from the movie: A tough biker has just crushed a Klown's tricycle. The Klown retaliates by putting on a pair of boxing gloves. "What are you gonna do, knock my block off?" And yes, he does just that.
- Possibly the first Alien vs. Predator movie. Alien and Predator going World Wrestling Federation on one another? Priceless. (It's worth mentioning that the commentary for Alien vs. Predator is genuinely entertaining, which is more than can be said for the movie.)
- Hercules in New York, Arnold Schwarzenegger's first film role. Zeus's lightning is bent rebar painted white, and the fight with the "bear" is simply hilarious.
- Almost every site mentions that John Candy appeared in one scene in the movie. There's been some debate about this since John would have been at least 20 by the time that movie came out.
- Also starring Arnold Schwarzenegger: Jingle All The Way. The "Turbo Man" stuff is particularly hilariously bad.
- Troll 2 has vegetarian monsters that turn people into lumpy green Jello (a plant-based version, apparently) so they can eat them. The monsters appear to be dwarves running around in cheap Halloween masks (actually designed, along with the costumes, by '70s erotica actress Laura Gemser). There is a sex scene that has to be seen to be believed (and even then may require multiple viewings). The line, "You can't piss on hospitality! I won't allow it!" is included and is meant literally. Also, there are no trolls in the movie. Not a single one.
"Nilbog! It's Goblin spelled backwards!"
- Ghost Fever, starring Sherman Hemsley. Hard to find, but absolutely worth the search.
- Night of the Lepus, a film whose plot centers around Arizona being under attack by Giant Killer Bunny Rabbits. Yes, this is a real movie. Starring real actors, like Janet Leigh and Stuart Whitman (not to mention De Forest Kelley), and made by real major studio MGM. It's all made even more surreal by the fact that the Giant Killer Bunny Rabbits are depicted by either (1) cute domesticated bunnies filmed in extreme close-up running around on scale-model sets, (2) hilariously awful-looking gore-smeared puppets, or (3) guys in tacky-looking bunny suits (for the attack scenes, naturally). In the end it has to be seen to be believed.
- The Japanese film Versus is like this as far as its acting, plot, and setting go. The action scenes, however, are spectacular. Another hallmark of it being So Bad Its Good is that the commentary features the director, the producer, and three of the actors, and this editor is pretty certain they were all drunk when they recorded it.
- Space Jam. Something about Michael Jordan's super-mellow attempts at acting whilst surrounded by the biggest hams of Looney Tunes.
- The part where Daffy kisses his own, Warner Bros.-emblazoned arse suggests they knew the film was blatant marketing fodder for all the attached merchandise. Cemented by the point later on, where Bugs and Daffy complain that they don't get any royalties.
- Not to mention that it's completely canon.
- The DVD compilation Sleazy Slashers has six movies, each of which fall into this trope. Well, five movies - the sixth movie, Back Woods, was So Bad Its Horrible. Not to be confused with the Uwe Boll flick Blackwoods, which probably nobody outside Germany has actually seen.
- If you want the best unintentional comedy of the 1990s, see the dubbed version of the Hong-Kong-Funded-Japanese-Manga-Adaptation called The Story Of Ricky (Riki-oh), which is best described as "The Shawshank Redemption Meets Itchy And Scratchy, starring Kenshiro of Fist Of The North Star, live action."
- Ultraviolet. A worldwide vampire epidemic where they never mention the word "vampire". Plus they walk around in the daylight. And when she meets up with the bad guy, he gives her a very swishy, "Oh, it is on" before the big final battle. Not to mention the giant Nestle Wonderball full of vampire ninjas. And the Mama Bear turned up to 11. The coolness of the gravity belt and Violet's arsenal [and her fiber optic hairdos] offset it enough, maybe.
- Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is a ludicrously goofy film that seems to be deliberately aiming for this effect(complete with Lampshade Hanging of its own absurdity).
- The Lou Ferrigno version of Sinbad Of The Seven Seas. How else would you describe a movie where The Incredible Hulk escapes prison by escaping on a chain of snakes?
- The Wizard. A film about an autistic kid who wants nothing more than to play video games. Ninety minutes of Product Placement for Nintendo's finest (Ninja Gaiden, Double Dragon, Super Mario Bros. 3, which hadn't even come out in America at the time yet) and, uh...not-so-finest ("I love the Power Glove, it's so bad.") Don't make fun of this troper for adding the entry to this list. It's very hot...*KO punch*
- And don't forget the classic dialogue: "AHHHH! HE TOUCHED MY BREAST!"
- It's an awesome film, just for the fact that it features Fred "Wonder Years" Savage and Jenny "Rilo Kiley" Lewis. You can't not love it at least a little.
- There was a radio interview with Rilo Kiley where the host brought up The Wizard. Jenny Lewis's reaction was the kind of, "Oh," you make when you've just been caught farting, and the rest of the interview went downhill from there.
- Crocodile 2: Death Swamp! should definitely count. This troper and his best friend wrote a list of who would die, and in what order, and we were right. Also, there were several laugh out loud moments, bordering on Narm. Like the pilot dying, the lawyer screaming "I have shoes! I'm more afraid of than you!" before being eaten, the Crocodile jumping at least 50 meters out of the water to latch onto a helicopter and drag it down, so it explodes, and the finale with the line "LIGHT UP MY LIFE, MOTHERFUCKER". No, it doesn't make sense in context either.
- Superman IV: The Quest For Peace. Terrible if you watch it with the mindset that it's a serious movie, hilarious if you watch it with the mindset that it's endearingly and riotously bad. See: Christopher Reeve's delivery of the line "Stop, don't do it, the people!". Incredibly obvious wires. Jon Cryer calling Superman "The Dude of Steel!". Superman's Rebuilding-the-Great-Wall-of-China-vision. Even so, the sheer brilliance of Superman IV cannot be explained in human words, so look here for a glimpse.
- And all that without even mentioning the whole everybody-breathing-in-space thing...honestly. Space has an atmosphere, in this movie. You really haven't lived until you've seen Supes posing heroically against the star-spangled void, cape flapping madly.
- Breathe in space? In their fight scene, Superman and Nuclear Man walk on space. They walk on an invisible floor in space. They step around each other, in space.
- Finally, the following lines:
Lex Luthor: You know what I can do with a single strand of Superman's hair?
- Although it must be noted that the "Don't do it the people" line was lifted verbatim from Superman II, from just before Zod and Ursa lob a bus full of bystanders at Superman.
- Hackers. A completely clueless look at hacker subculture that still manages to be amusing. Practically defines the Everything Is Online trope and the Hollywood version of the Playful Hacker.
- Heavy Metal is like a parody of those drawings that most of us guys used to draw in 5th grade of guns, dismemberment, and boobs. None of the characters act like human beings. The women are invariably naked or half-naked. The animation is all over the place. It has quite the cult following and one sweet soundtrack.
- Andreas Schnaas's gore movies. They're fun because of their bad dubbed voices, horrible effects (the baby cut into a half a la Kung Lao is a plastic doll!) and even worse titles (Violent Shit, anyone?)
- The Lost Skeleton Of Cadavra is one of those rare intentional examples of this trope, an Affectionate Parody of the worst of the worst B-movies of the '50s and '60s, with nonsensical dialogue, wooden acting, and plenty of Special Effect Failure.
- John Candy starred in quite a few movies with this trope in during the '90s. Notable examples include Nothing But Trouble and Once Upon A Crime. In the late seventies though he starred in a drama-horror flick titled The Clown Murders. The funny thing being that the villain in The Clown Murders is a guy in a clown mask and only appears a few minutes later on in the movie.
- And then there's Starship Troopers. Badass of the Week.com explains best:
"Luckily, the script writers realized what they were working with and wrote some of the cheesiest, most badass dialogue in any movie ever. I don't know how they did it, but every single line in the movie is completely corny but awesome at the same time. This results in the audience getting a good laugh in the fifteen minutes of the movie when people aren't getting their arms ripped off or aliens aren't being exploded into pieces and spewing green fluid all over the place."
- John Belushi starred in four movies that had this: Old Boyfriends, Continental Divide, Neighbours, and the ever memorable 1941.
- Beverly Hills Ninja. Although Chris Farley himself hated the movie, it was still a real laugh riot.
- Flubber, the 1997 remake of The Absent-Minded Professor. Come on, who doesn't love Robin Williams in a flying car with a robot that has a crush on him?
- Same goes for the 1997 remake of The Nutty Professor - only, instead of Robin Williams, a flying car, and a robot, think of Eddie Murphy in a fatsuit, a personality-changing serum, and Eddie Murphy slim and sleazy - and then they end up fighting over who gets to use the body. Fat Is Good. The sequel, even more so.
- Speaking of Eddie Murphy in a fatsuit, Norbit anyone? Hilarious crude jokes, silly gags with humongous Rasputia, this is Refuge In Vulgarity at its finest. Screw all the terrible reviews! This movie is hilarious!
- And it got nominated for an Oscar. For best Makeup. Now that takes some serious balls.
- As Jon Stewart said it: "Too often, the Academy ignores movies that aren’t good."
- A certain Asian grindhouse gem of a movie called Ninja Wars is a fantastic example of this trope. The plot involves a prophecy: "He who wins the heart of Lady Ukyodaio [sic] will hold the world in his hands" and an evil Japanese warlord concocting an aphrodisiac using the famous SPIDER teakettle to further his aims. The movie then veers off wildly and confusingly every which way, including several fight scenes involving the Five Devil Monks, one of whom vomits acit to attack, a plan to put Ukyodaio's severed head on the hero's girlfriend's body to fulfil the prophesy, and more hilariously bad dubbing than you can shake a stick at. The movie ends With a Crucified Hero Shot in a rather confusing case of What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic. Did I mention that the dubbing is universally terrible?
- Ready to Rumble, a movie made to capitalize on the Professional Wrestling phenomenon of the late ninties thanks to the WWF's Attitude Era, was produced with their competition! World Championship Wrestling used this to try to regain their popularity after Mick Foley put their fans' asses in the WWF's seats, and boy did it bomb! The only redeeming qualities about this movie is the unintentional humor and David Arquette attempting the Spear.
- Sheena, where Tanya Roberts stars as a Faux Action Girl who rides around Darkest Africa on a horse with zebra stripes painted on, while an implausible plot and bad special effects happen all around her. Roberts's nude scene compensates for her lack of acting skills.
- Three words: Turkish Star Wars.
- One can only assume that MST3K never attempted to riff on this one because no running commentary could possibly make this movie any funnier.
- A great deal of Adam Sandler and Rob Schneider films (except the first Deuce Bigelow: Male Gigolo, which has some genuine entertainment value). Farrelly Brothers movies also count.
- Those comedies Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in during the mid-'90s. "It's not a tumor!"
- Spice World.
- Batman Forever and Batman and Robin try to be funny and fail catastrophically, creating something more evil and cruel to moviegoers than anything that has ever been created by man. Still, they brought us such silly concepts as bat-nipples and featured Mr. Freeze spouting various ice-related puns. Because of this, there are many who place them in this category, although they also qualify as So Bad Its Horrible. Joel Schumacher's career has not since recovered.
- Don't forget Star Trek V: The Final Frontier; it is only awful if you're a Star Trek fan.
- Some fans of Star Trek also consider the movie So Bad Its Good-the type of fan who also love Spock's Brain and Threshold.
- While many other tropers may argue that it belongs with the likes of Catwoman and Battlefield Earth in the So Bad Its Horrible section, this troper found cheesy neon auras, roller discos, wooden acting, and general coked-up '80s camp of Xanadu to be positively glorious. Think of it as unintentional, early '80s John Waters.
- Arguably, Battlefield Earth itself. After all, where else can you see John Travolta's career go through a critical meltdown and the most mind-numbing hilarity outside a secret screening of Manos The Hands Of Fate? And then there's the Rifftrax edition...
- Tron.
- The somewhat silly Russian fairy-tale movie Morozko ("Father Frost", or "Jack Frost" on MST 3 K). It aired every Christmas on Czechoslovak TV during the Communist era, over time becoming a cult classic. Not just that televisions continued to air it after the revolution, but a musical based on the movie was made. (Not to mention that the film was recently redubbed into Slovak, so that Slovak televisions don't have to air it in Czech.) Many MST3K fans agree that it's one of the few that were riffed on the show that doesn't seem all that bad in un-MSTed form.
- Jensen Ackles might have tried his hardest and he certainly plays the "pretty-boy woobie with issues" very well, but Devour will now and forever be a hot, yet entertaining, mess.
- Speed Racer
- If you watch The Happening as a comedy rather than a horror film, then it's one of the best goddamn movies ever made. As one person put it: "Never before has a movie made people dying so goddamned hilarious."
- "WHY YOU EYEIN' MAH LEMON DRINK?"
- "Do you like hot dogs? No? I like hot dogs. I think hot dogs get a bad rap."
- Pootie Tang. Perhaps the single greatest concentration of stupid in any one film since the introduction of sound. It's also hilarious.
- 1998's Wild Things. It was billed as a thriller, but it plays like a spoof. In addition to some truly horribly staged scenes and awful dialogue, it has some exceptional scenery chewing from Denise Richards and Kevin Bacon. Only Bill Murray seemed to be aware that the movie was meant to be tongue in cheek. The film's twist ending, though not too difficult to either see coming or figure out once revealed, was fully explained with supplemental scenes in the end credits that fill in the gaps].
- It also has a great story buried under bad writing and mediocre acting. It's like watching a movie of a Carl Hiaasen novel, certainly more than the Film Of The Book of Strip Tease.
- The 1989 film Listen To Me. Other than Denzel Washington's The Great Debaters, it's the only mainstream American film (eg not documentary etc.) about debating, and it is so bad it's absolutely hilarious, especially if you're a debater. It's a cult classic in university debating circles, many debating societies holding regular screenings of it.
- Another niche example: for lack of anything better to do, this editor sat down and watched a screening of the movie Duets, and at first found it to be a corny but endearing spoof of karaoke and the people who take it seriously. Then he checked the listing to see that it was billed as a drama, and he couldn't stop laughing from that point on. To paraphrase Seanbaby, it is to karaoke fans what Over the Top was to arm wrestling fans: a brutal and lasting reminder of why you shouldn't make movies about those people.
- And why the hell not? Let's go ahead and put Over the Top here, too.
- The films of Godfrey Ho, or any of his aliases. His notorious and numerous ninja films especially warrant a mention here, although sitting through a whole one can be So Bad Its Horrible. More watchable are his later masterworks Honor & Glory and Undefeatable, both starring Cynthia Rothrock. The latter film has become something of a sensation of late.
- Mars Attacks! is a clearly intentional case, being a parody of cheesy 1950s sci-fi pictures in general, and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers in particular.
- Liquid Sky, a 1982 midnight movie involving aliens who feed on endorphins released from heroin and sex. It stars Margret, a cocaine-addicted fashion model who "kills with her cunt". Did I mention the clothing and soundtrack is based off the trashiest parts of the early 80s, complete with glow in the dark makeup?
- Starcrash is an Italian Star Wars rip-off that is just mind numbingly horrible in every single way: acting, continuity, props, special effects, plot, hell it even has the robot sidekick. It truly is so bad it's good. Or at least endlessly funny. Don't forget an early appearance of David Hasselhoff.
- Yor The Hunter From The Future; One of the funniest Conan The Barbarian rip-offs of its time, featuring the star of Space Mutiny, and an incomprehensible yet Crazy Awesome theme song:
Yor's world, he's the man!
Yor's world, he's the man!
- Torque - a movie for those who thought The Fast And The Furious was too highbrow and grounded in reality. A movie for which this troper coined the personal catch phrase hypnotically stupid. That Ice Cube is the best actor in the entire movie (by far) is just gravy.
- Crystal meth, bike fights, and motorcycles that move so fast, they can ignite gasoline from DRIVING OVER IT. To put it in a word: "retardalicious".
- The Super Mario Bros picture. Just read this article.
- The 1993 Made For TV Movie The Man from Left Field. A bunch of poor kids looking for a baseball coach find Burt Reynolds, a Mysterious Figure who has gotten Easy Amnesia and forgotten everything but his Good Solid Values. Since it's three times as long as your typical Very Special Episode, they compensate by having three Very Special Storylines. One kid is teased by the obligatory rich rival team about his working-class father, cuing an Author Filibuster from Burt about how Money doesn't matter as much as Values. Another kid is abused at home (his alcoholic father beats him with his fists, which somehow results in the kid getting lash marks on his back) so Burt kicks the dad's butt. The token black kid loses his grandfather to Soap Opera Disease, which is somehow resolved by Burt saving the kid from drowning (no, you read that right). In the midst of all this, the film achingly struggles to be "cute" and there's also a lame Token Romance with Reba McEntire thrown in for good measure, even though the film seems to be aimed at ten-year-old boys (the kids have no girls on their team). Finally, the scene where Burt regains his memories has to be seen to be believed.
- The animated version of The Hobbit. Here's Bilbo.◊ And this is Gollum.◊ Now imagine sitting through 90 minutes of that, including songs.
- You want a real Christian preaching MST3Kable film? Look no further than Meggido: The Omega Code 2. This movie truly has it all: acting and dialogue so awkward and bad you wonder if the writers, actors and the director were somehow deprived of human contact and think people actually act like that; Udo Kier playing a character that does nothing but follow the Big Bad around wearing a Black Cloak and sounding like he had just left the Command And Conquer: Yuri's Revenge soundstage; R. Lee Ermey playing the President of the United States (sadly only doing so for 5 minutes before getting offed by the Big Bad); and best of all, Michael "Basil Exposition" York playing the Antichrist as a Large Ham of truly planetary proportions.
- Oh god... The Apple, just... The Apple A disco musical about the futuristic world of 1994 that's also an allegory for the book of revelations. Really, every single element of this movie is the epitome of .
- "Gameraaaaaaaa! Gameraaaaa! Gamera is really neat! Gamera is filled with meat! We've been eating Gameraaaa! Long story short, the Gamera films of the 1960s had even worse effects than the Godzilla films of the 70s, really bad dubbing, and some of the most ludicrous plots ever (For example, the ending of the first movie has Gamera being tricked into a giant spaceship and launched into outer space.). Of course, this doesn't stop the movies from being cheesy fun for people of all ages.
- A couple of the James Bond films fall under this:
- You Only Live Twice. Blofeld's plot is to capture space pods in the middle of their missions (and this is shown with rather stupid-looking special effects). Bond is given a short training period to learn the ways of the Ninja before getting one of the dumbest looking disguises as a Japanese man (which didn't change that he still towers over everybody else). Even the villains weren't fooled. The film ends with a Battle Royale With Cheese in the famous hollowed out volcano lair, with dozens of ninjas fighting with traditional swords and shuriken against the assault rifle armed Mooks... and winning. Of course, the script was written by Roald Dahl.
- Diamonds Are Forever has gay assassins, James Bond in a moon buggy with flailing arms, Blofeld dressed as a woman, and missiles exploding due to laser satellite with really cheap and dated effects.
- The Big Bad of The Man With The Golden Gun is Christopher Lee as an assassin with a midget butler and a flying car who faces Bond in a duel in a funhouse.
- Octopussy. Nothing else needs to be added, really. It doesn't cross into any worse category due to the surprisingly solid plotline under all the cheese.
- A View To A Kill. Worth seeing if only for Christopher Walken as a hammy Nazi Super Soldier. Actually, most of Roger Moore's Bond movies are replete with this trope (with two possible exceptions).
- Casino Royale (no, not the 2006 one) is an odd example, being a shot at deliberate So Bad Its Good... that failed miserably. Normally, this would be the quickest way to So Bad Its Horrible (Looking at you, Seltzer And Friedberg), but thanks to Development Hell (the film went through six directing teams, and it shows), a cast studded with wasted talent ranging from Woody Allen to Orson Welles, an incomprehensibly muddled "plot," and a finale that completely defies description, it manages to be So Bad Its Good at being So Bad Its Good.
- Kunoichi: Lady Ninja is about a bunch of women becoming ninja to get revenge for the sacking of their village with the help of a one-eyed samurai, or something like that. Not much stuck with me except for the thing that makes it awesome: one of the women had some kind of power that related to her virginity, so when she and the samurai were trapped, she told him to bang her so that blood from her torn hymen would fall on his sword and save them.
- Three words: vagina tractor beam. The clip has been removed from You Tube, unfortunately.
- A great many educational films are so campy and badly made that they end up being just plain funny. This troper remembers one in particular about electrical safety, with a Jerkass villain reminiscent of Beetlejuice called Electrojuice.
- This troper remembers watching a home ec. video where the narrator said, "Quiche. Pronounced...keesh" in a monotone. Our class still mentions it from time to time, and we saw it six years ago. Also, possibly in the same film, the narrator says something about never touching pans in the oven with your bare hands and then proceeds to do so, going "Ouch. That's hot" again in a monotone.
- The 2008 film Doomsday. Scottish cannibal ninja strippers? Check. Malcolm McDowell as the nutty king of Medieval Land (for about five minutes)? Check. Auto-targeting machine gun turrets vaporizing a cute widdle bunny-wunny? Check. If there was ever, ever a film crying out for the MST3K treatment, THIS IS THE ONE.
- It could also be argued as a deliberately over-the-top Rule Of Cool. The bunny thing, for example, was supposed to be funny.
- Overlords of the UFO[1] is a rare So Bad Its Good documentary, though I do use that term lightly.
- Heartbeeps, a somewhat obscure 1981 movie about two robots - played by Andy Kaufman and Bernadette Peters - who fall in love and build a child (whose beeps and boops were provided by Jerry Garcia). And it's scored by John Williams. Watchable only for the gorgeous costumes, Stan Winston's Oscar-nominated makeup work, and the excellent soundtrack.
- Collision Course. A buddy cop comedy from the '80s that has Jay Leno teaming up with Pat "Mr Miyagi" Morita to restore a stolen car.
- Fright Night. A classic '80s vampire movie featuring Chris Sarandon as a vampire, lots of Special Effects and a wacky character named Evil Ed. It also features a character from Ghostbusters; the rejected librarian ghost puppet.
- The oeuvre of one Roger Corman generally falls into this category.
- Flash Gordon. The ratings prove it!
- Deathstalker II was an over-the-top parody of the first Deathstalker movie. You don't have to see Deathstalker to appreciate Deathstalker II; it's a great parody of adventurer movies with silly plots and premises, bad acting, and bizarre scenes that don't match up with the rest of the movie. But then they went and made a third just like the first, ignoring that the second existed.
- Oh, the first Deathstalker belongs here too. Where else can you get a movie with an immortal guy being killed, a random fight scene in a brothel where everyone pauses to let Deathstalker and the immortal guy chat before going right back to fighting, and the witch who Deathstalker tells not to speak in riddles, although everything she says is perfectly understandable?
- Deathstalker 4, also known as Troll 3. What kind of fool tries to capitalize on Troll2?
- Surf Ninjas.
- Fatal Deviation is without a doubt the most incredibly awesome Irish martial arts movie to ever exist. See for yourself!.
- Fantasy Mission Force is a completely incoherent mess that tries to be a war movie about a band of mercenaries trying to rescue Allied generals (including Abraham Lincoln) from the Axis, who took them to Canada. . Just watch the restaurant scene.
- Jackie Chan himself gets about fifteen minutes of screen time as a minor character, who apparently wins at the end after all the main characters die. The movie includes such gems as sudden and inexplicable barbarian raiders, the Great American General Abraham Lincoln, and the deep and startling realization that a Chinese actor will never ever make a convincing Scotsman, even if you do dress him in a kilt. Watching the dubbed version just makes it all better.
- The movie Wolf staring Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer and James Spader is about a man who loses his job and his wife and just to make it all worse, gets bit by a werewolf. He then uses his increased strength to regain his lost job as he deals with his transformation into a werewolf. Simply put, it's about werewolves and the publishing industry.
- The whole concept is parodied in the French movie La Cité de la Peur (The City of Fear): the horror movie Red is Dead is a textbook example of So Bad Its Good and critics hate it with a passion. Then someone dressed up as Red 's serial killer starts hacking projectionists to bits with a hammer and a sickle, and it's instant glory. The star and publicist of the movie get to walk on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival.
- Dragon Wars, also known as D-War. Lots of convoluted Korean mythology, plot holes as far as the eye can see. It's unintentionally hilarious.
- Twilight - What if the vampires of Anne Rice's works were heterosexual and about seventeen, then added poorly contrived excuses for further angst and worse acting? It's hilarious.
Edward (sparkling): "This is the skin of a killer, Bella!"
- In the case of Edward's actor, it was intentional bad acting. He said in an interview that he purposely played Edward as a manic-depressive hundred-and-eight-year old virgin who hates himself. It was the most accurate portrayal possible.
- Machine Girl. Gatling Gun Arm attached to a schoolgirl, Ninjas that look like Football players, and 1970s violence despite being a 2008 movie, and a Drill Bra. What makes this so hilarious, is its genre is listed Action/Adventure.
- Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare, also known as The Edge of Hell. It's a 1987 Canadian horror film that was filmed in seven days and went straight to video. Features Jon Mikl Thor as Triton, lead singer for a metal band, who fights Satan himself. Clad a cape, studded codpiece and tons of makeup and hairspray. Includes Muppet demons, cycloptic starfish creatures and the line:
- The Nicholas Cage remake of The Wicker Man. As far as this troper is concerned, it is the best comedy of 2006.
- Body Rock. A 1984 break dancing movie about a guy named Chilly who finds fame and then forgets his friends, although it takes a few viewings to actually comprehend this. Features terrible dialogue, an ostensibly crackhead mother who doesn't care what her son does with his time, a random black child who inexplicably hangs out with 20 year olds and gives dancing lessons in the street, a gigantic boombox, rhinestones adorning the face of the male protagonist, a pleather trench coat with "Chilly" graffitied on the back, and a really frightening song.
- Shark Attack 3 Megalodon is most notable for featuring some of the most stupidly hilarious special effects and an infamous cheesy line from a pre-Doctor Who John Barrowman among other silly things.
- Flight Of The Living Dead. Snakes On A Plane with zombies instead of snakes, and without high production values and any shred of self-awareness.
- ''Kazaam'', a 1996 movie about a rapping genie that's released by a kid. Some of the scenes are strange and even extremely creepy. Not to mention about Shaq's god-awful rapping skills. "Let's green egg and ham it" indeed.
- Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon. The Hero is a Bruce Lee fanboy and the main villain claims to be "The Shogun Of Harlem". And then there's The Glow. How can you not love this movie!?
- Stan Lee's Harpies: Bad acting, ridiculous plot, and the most cheesiest special effect in town. Pretty much screams TV movie.
- Note also that the Romanians of several centuries ago in the film somehow speak American-accented English.
- Most Sci Fi Original Movies in general shoot for the "So Bad It's Good Trope," though a few fail epically even at that.
- Ben 10 Race Against Time: The TV show was cliche enough but as a live action flick its fall flat on it cliche ridden fridge logic face. Least it had some decent SFX. And then there's Lee Majors as Grandpa Max.
- The 2008 remake of the 1980 slasher flick Prom Night is hilariously bad. First off, it's rated PG-13. Let me say that again in case you missed it: it's a slasher flick rated PG-13. As if that wasn't bad enough, the movie plays out almost every possible applicable cliché, but in a tremendously boring way. The plot is lousy, the acting is bad, even for this genre, the suspense is as exciting as watching grass grow, and the teenage melodrama bullshit is pathetic.
- Also, it tried really, really hard to jump-scare the audience with bedroom decor. Lamp DUN!
- Frank Miller's directorial debut The Spirit is by all rights, a terrible film. However, Miller dials the cheesiness up to such ludicrous levels that one can't help but be at least slightly entertained by it.
- Street Fighter is the epitome of this trope. While normally this movie would be another case of Video Game Movies Suck, it casts Raul Julia (who was sick at the time and would die shortly after) as M. Bison. Raul plays it as a crazy over the top villain with such memorable lines as "For you, the day Bison graced your village is the most important day fo your life. But for me...it was Tuesday," and "A Bison dollar. It's worth five British pounds... For that is the exchange rate the Bank of England will set once I kidnap their Queen!" For God's sake, he has a chandelier made out of human bones and he wonders why people think he's a villain?
- OF COURSE!
- There's also just a whiff of Bored On Board about the script, especially with regard to Guile's gung-ho motivational speech.
- One of M. Bison's lines was a Screw Attack.com movie quote of the week, dome by The Angry Video Game Nerd: "FOR I BEHELD SATAN AS HE FELL FROM HEAVEN LIKE LIGHTNING!"
- The Hong Kong movie Future Cops also falls squarely on this trope. WTH Casting Agency with Hong Kong pop singers, every character is a Captain Ersatz of Street Fighter characters, silly humors, messed up character alignments like the above movie and
some A LOT OF wacky non-sensical scenes just doesn't even begin with this movie that takes itself even less seriously than the Street Fighter movie above. Certainly this movie lives on the further end of 'Bad' of So Bad Its Good compared to that movie above. However, some still considers it a good movie for some senseless laugh.
- And who can forget Zangief? There is a scene in the movie when Chun-Li, Balrog and E. Honda have set up a truck full of explosives to be self-driven into a circus tent where Bison and Sagat are negoicating weapons dealing. Ryu and Ken are also spies for Guile. They are told about the plan by Chun-Li so they can get away without getting killed, but they accidentally wonder into the circus tent when Bison and Sagat's deal appears to fall through, both sides about to engage in a gun battle. They break up the commotion and save their own lives along with everyone else's by telling them about "Spies all around us". When told to show these spies, a TV broadcast is heard and then found behind a curtain where Chun-Li (who is a TV reporter in this version) basically mocks Bison and Sagat as she sends the truck rolling to their tent. Zangief is looking at the truck as it comes towards them, and then on the TV. He then drops this piece of gold: "Quick! Change the channel!", with Dee Jay looking at him with an astonished "WTF" expression on his face. Priceless. This troper almost bust his gut laughing at it the first time he saw it.
- The movie version of The Shadow.
- Mister T's Be Somebody...or Be Somebody's Fool. Considering that in many ways T. is either the Anthropomorphic Personification or the patron saint of So Bad Its Good...So yeah...fool!
- Son Of The Mask may qualify as this, although most people are of the opinion that it's So Bad Its Horrible. An unnecessary sequel to The Mask that came 11 years after the fact, took a huge steaming dump on the orignal film's continuity as well as Norse Mythology, and featured an obnoxious title character smack dab in the middle of the Uncanny Valley. Its special effects were top-notch, though, and it can entertain if you're in the right mood for it.
- The Room, which is supposedly 'the best worst movie ever made', dubbed by one reviewer "the Citizen Kane of bad movies." The Onion explains it here.
- Romeo + Juliet, the 1996 one. The transition from street punk fighting to modern corporate warfare to Shakespearean romantic monologues in the span of half an hour quickly go from confusing, to annoying, to hilarious. And if that's not enough, the shotgun longsword is always good for a laugh.
- C Me Dance. Seriously, just... C Me Dance. It's so unbelievable, most people think that link is just a fake trailer or at least a Stealth Parody until they discover otherwise. At first it just seems like your run-of-the-mill shitty cancer story, but then the cancer patient is literally the Messiah and then this makes the devil angry so then it turns into a horror movie, except Satan doesn't do anything. He buggers off to nurse his hurt feelings because the lead calls him a "loser." And the tagline is "A Dance That Shines Through Darkness." Just thought that deserved mentioning.
- Most things featured in The Smithee Awards are bad but have some entertainment value in their badness. (Long story short: a bunch of people look for bad B-movies, take bad moments from them and "nominate" them in categories like Inane Dialogue and Most Ludicrous Premise. Just read the damn website.) Some of the things on this page have "won" Smithee Awards, as a matter of fact; This Troper was there this year, when Troll 2 took Worst Picture.
- Eragon. Yeah, yeah, they mangled the plot of the book, YES. But that's what got it into this catagory! It's just... ridiculous and hilarious and stupid and FUN to watch.
- Not to mention the FINGERNAILS OF DEATH.
- This will almost definitely fit into this category.
- "We're dealing with a menace!"
- Knowing. It starts out contrived, then becomes ridiculous, then becomes... just plain stupid. It probably doesn't help that the freaking movie poster gives away the supposed surprise ending. And then there was the scene with the burning forest full of flaming wildlife.
- Grease 2 makes the first one look like Les Miserables by comparison. Among the changes: an inferior script, much less angst (and most of what is there qualifies as Wangst), far less actual sex, much more singing about sex. It's a good time! This Troper owns it.
- The obscure Sharon Stone film Scissors is full of bad acting and just plain hilarious plot threads like a pair of identical twins whose conflict just comes across as bizarre...but what it pushes it over the top is the ending, where a pair of minor characters, one of whom had only been seen on the side of a bus previously, are revealed out of nowhere as the true villains and the hilariously awful twin plotline made all the more inexplicable for being so irrelevant.
- Batman The Movie. Where to start? The Exploding Shark warded off by Anti Shark Repellent Bat spray, the over-the-top acting, the surreal dialogue, goofy effects and the bomb you just can't get rid of somedays... But it also has former Ms. America Lee Meriwether in a sexy catsuit and Batman driving a Lincoln Futura.
- This troper found a copy at a local second-hand store, brought it home, and raged when it turned out they'd put the Tim Burton Batman in the Batman The Movie sheath. When you're expecting the sweet, sweet taste of cheesy 60's fun, and you don't get it...it really, really sucks.
- This Troper and his friends quote this movie all the time. The bizarre methods of figuring out which villains are involved are literally roll-on-the-floor hilarious ("It happened on the sea...C! For Catwoman!") as are the amazing speed at which they figure out the riddles ("A sparrow with a machine gun!"). And who could forget the DEHYDRATED PIRATES?
- The Swarm, an Attack Of The Killer Whatever movie which represents the stupidest of Irwin Allen's disaster movies. A cast full of reputable names had their talents wasted on a silly script, one of these names being Michael Caine, who shouts his way through the movie. The killer bees are made of Special Effect Failure. Helicopters and train cars explode dramatically upon crashing (the latter turn into obvious models first).
"I never thought it would be the bees. They were always our friends!"
- Dragonball Evolution is possibly the most over the top film ever made, yet it sucks so hard it's just funny to watch to see what they got wrong. In fact, this movie is So Bad Its Good only when you don't see it as Dragon Ball. But if you want to see a true example, watch the old Chinese adaptation Dragon Ball: The Magic Begins.
- The Springtime For Hitler play (that one) from The Producers.
- Is it wrong that this troper likes Staying Alive better than Saturday Night Fever?
- Ryan O'Neal in Tough Guys Don't Dance.
- Zardoz. It represents the collision of high ideals and low abilities perfectly, and contains the line: "The gun is good - the penis is
bad EVIL!"
- The Fifth Element. Every single constituent part of this movie is terrible, but the final product is sublime.
- Absolute Zero is like The Day After Tomorrow but even worse. Think new Ice Age in Miami.
- Starving Jesus is a film by two pastors trying to get people off the pews and into missions. It starts off by them picking fights with hotel receptionists and ends with one of the pastors sniping about how he thinks the other is sneaking food (they're supposed to be fasting). Generally not something that you want to introduce people to Christianity with. However, amazing to watch, the best part probably being the colonoscopy scene. Awesomeness ensues.
- Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, is known for being campy and emberessing due to the fact, that it ruined the once promising careers of it's four main stars, Peter Frampton and The Bee Gees and many Beatles fans and purists, just don't like hearing other people (badly) sing their idols songs.
- If the movie and the music are so awful, why is Aerosmith's "Come Together" from the movie a pouplar fixture on classic rock radio stations.
- Because one good song and performance do not a good movie or soundtrack make.
- Robo Geisha. The trailer is just so ridiculous, it's hilarious .
- Semi-Conscious Driving in the Real World is a video about driving around trucks shown in driving schools here. Needless to say, it was the highlight of this Troper's thirty-hour driving course. Has anyone else ever seen this?
- Babylon A.D.
- The 2005 Sy Fy channel original movie Alien Apocalypse, starring Bruce Campbell. Astronauts return to Earth after 40 years in suspended animation to find it conquered by alien termites who have enslaved humanity to... harvest wood? Cue La Resistance, cheesy special effects,
Ash Dr. Ivan kicking ass, bad acting, and lots of green ichor.
- The obscure kids' movie Napoleon, which seems to be Homeward Bound-inspired. Where to start? The Random Events Plot filled with Wacky Wayside Critters? The very loud musical score? The fact that the animals seem to have not so much been trained to act as placed on the sets and filmed doing whatever they feel like until something close enough to what's in the script happens? The fact that it was re-dubbed in America despite being made in Australia? This troper had never witnessed a movie so badly made it was genuinely amusing until he saw this one. Here's the kicker: It came free in a box of cereal.
- Beyond The Valley of the Dolls. A Hollywood camp-fest about a band of female musicians, taken to the Nth power and waaay beyond. Infamously, Roger Ebert helped write the script.
"This is my happening, and it freaks me out!!"
- The original Buffy The Vampire Slayer movie. She's blonde, she's a cheerleader, and she slays vampires.
- The Sci Fi original film Vampires: Los Muertos starring Bon Jovi as a surfer/vampire slayer. He tries to stop a vampire takeover with the help of a naive teenage boy, a half-turned woman, a priest Or is he? and a big black guy with a machine gun. Yeah, I think that's all that really needs to be said.
- Okay, so I understand Dragonslayer was groundbreaking in its day. But that doesn't change the fact that I found it absolutely friggin' hilarious. I mean, the part where the evil knight gives a (completely logical) rant about how stupidly credulous everyone's being about the wizard? And the wizard asks him to stab him if he truly thinks he's powerless? And when he does, the wizard keels over and dies? Priceless.
- Good Burger. I admit I liked All That as a child, but even as an adult the movie manages to make me laugh without fail. There's just something wonderful about its silliness and horrible yet hilarious quotes. The clowns trapped by the side of the road! It's so ridiculously stupid that it manages to be amusing. You just can't hate it, if you care at all for the subtleties of terrible movies gone right.
- Tokyo Gore Police, a movie about a virus that has people getting limbs cut off and growing back weaponised, includes gun barrells comming out of someones eye sockets, a stripper with her legs replaced by the top and bottom of a crocodile mouth with vagina in between, a cannon penis, an amputee gimp that walks on four swords placed on each of her stumps and... well honestly I could keep this list going for a while.
- You can watch... Suspiria... you can laugh... at Suspiria... but you cannot escape the bizarre silliness that is...Suspiria!
- Twenty Twelve. It's Roland Emmerich, after all.
- Fridaythe13th eventually settles, and arguably, revels in this.
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