On The Merit Of “Bad” Films/Movies

My buddy and fellow blogger Rich Watson borrowed my copy of the DVD of The Adventures of Ford Fairlane for a part of a blogathan where he was supposed to review a bad movie from a friend’s collection. I have a very vast collection, full of bad films, but I know that Ford Fairlane is up there in being considered one of the worse. I have many more. My collection has Hudson Hawk, the live action Thunderbirds, Agent Cody Banks 2, Stuck On You, Vibes and countless others. That only covers USA ground as well, I have a fair share of “bad” Japanese films, as well as bad Italian and other European films.

For the moment though lets get back to Ford Fairlane. In Rich’s blog post he describes it as such:
“like the class clown trying to get attention by making silly faces and impressions”

To that, I say… Exactly. See, I LOVE that dude. The Class Clown makes me smile. Not always. I mean in the background as I write this is the utterly horrible “The Suit” starring Jackie Chan, which only has the eye candy of Jennifer Love going for it. Chan is totally doing that class clown schtick though, even dragging James Brown in.

In many way Fairlane does the same, but for some reason, it makes me laugh. I like ADC’s schtick, always have. I like his nursery rhymes, I like his bada-bing, I like his never care attitude. He’s the orphan bastard child of Dennis Leary and Arthur Fonzarelli and I love him for that.

Yet, what I really think makes me enjoy the film is Maddie Corman in the role of Zuzu Petals. While she has yet to have another role like that, other than her minor role in Swingers, she is just pure adorableness. Between her and the irrefutably awesome Robert Englund there’s a the spark brought to the screen that make me smile even wider than for Dice Clay. Englund’s “Ello, Ello” is actually part of my personal vernacular even.

I still swear though I have movies in my collection that are way way way worse. I own them more from even some of the worse films in history have something in them, be it an unrealized concept not used anywhere else yet, or a special effect or that great undiscovered actress, or well a lot of things that give it merit… of some kind.

Now I will admit as a viewer I am much more cult than the average viewer. Of course I can’t be too cult, as these bad movies would not get special edition DVDs and blu-rays. There’s a market out there and the filmmakers know it. Some truly bad movies have disappeared. I have certain on VHS that if they’ve come out on DVD it hasn’t been a real product from a legitimacy company from negatives, but some junk Korean company which can make 5000 DVD-R burns off of a beat up VHS tape for 3 pennies. The kind of bullcrap one can buy off the street when they buy those “filmed in the theater” bootlegs of movies currently out, but almost actually worse.

One of my favorite bad films is Rockula. The fact that this movie can even be seen by anyone is a miracle as it never came out in theaters. It was before the days of direct to video. It’s a pure 80’s comedy musical farce and the distributor went bankrupt right before the film was supposed to come out. The only reel I believe was found in some European country. That reel has survived and first came to VHS and is now finally available on Netflix. It will never ever be on DVD I’m betting. It deserves to be though. It’s pure camp, it has Dean Cameron and Tawny Fere, it has some amazing special effects and it’s a true document of its time. It has 100s of fans. Maybe even 1000s… maybe 989 fans? All I know is its a bad movie, but man, it has lots of merit.

At least that’s how I see things.

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One Response to On The Merit Of “Bad” Films/Movies

  1. Carl says:

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