Saturday, October 18, 2014

What's the Worst Horror Movie You Love?

Many of us still love the unlovable.

One thing about being a horror fan is that we tend to fall for movies that we probably shouldn't. They're from the wrong side of the tracks. They spell trouble. They smoke cigarettes and go to third base. But we can't help ourselves -- there's something that keeps pulling us back no matter how much we tell ourselves we should know better.

What are those movies for all of you? The ones you KNOW aren't very good but dearly love anyway?

28 comments:

  1. It's got to be the "Friday The 13th" movies. I don't like any of them, at all. I'm a "Part 2" and "The Final Chapter" kind of guy (because Amy Steel and Joseph Zito), but beyond that there's not one performance, not one director and not one movie I don't outright loathe as trash. And yet, except for the recent remake, I own all of them including "Freddy vs. Jason." What the fuck is wrong with me? :-P

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    1. Good call. I've been thinking this over for a while when the answer (for me) should have been clear: Friday the 13th Part 3. I'm sure it's a nostalgia thing, because that's one of the first horror movies I remember watching, but I will have affection for that movie forever.

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  2. I have a big soft spot for Evilspeak.

    "Data incomplete Human blood Required"

    Its a perfect 80s movies. And the last Ten minutes are fantastic. Cooperdick floating in the air with the massive sword. The pigs. The uncrucifixion. The revenge. The satanic music. I really love it

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    1. I've never seen that, but you deserve a commission on the blu-ray I'm about to order right now because of this post.

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    2. I own the Bluray and its lovely. Great work from Scream factory. I've been watching a Vhs for years because it is soo good. I think if you like 80s horror your in for a real treat. Please let me know how it goes. Ps watch it loud if you can. The music is haunting. A bit like Omen type religeous music

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  3. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master. Yes, it's a demonstrably bad movie and yes, I've seen it over a dozen times easily. It even commits one of my most hated sequel sins (killing all the survivors of the previous movie immediately) yet I forgive it. Why do I forgive Nightmare 4 and not, say, Alien 3? No idea. Something about Renny Harlin's style-over-substance approach, the crazy special-effects work of Screaming Mad George, the foxiness of Lisa Wilcox and Toy Newkirk's giant glasses, the last time Robert Englund appeared to be actually enjoying himself under the makeup, the amount of product in Andras Jones' hair...it all just speaks to me in a way the other sequels don't.

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    1. I think there's something about Renny Harlin's work that makes you forgive a lot. I love Deep Blue Sea way more than it deserves. We should investigate this.

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    2. You beat me to it! I can't defend it, and I would certainly never try to convince anyone that it's a GOOD movie, but it's my third favorite in the series after the original and New Nightmare. It's crazily bonkers and visually interesting, and I know most fans would be ready to fight over this, but I like it way more than 3. I just find it to be more watchable and it takes itself a lot less seriously.

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  4. Hard to say, I've seen a lot of bad movies. Sometimes because I like to laugh at how badly their made, sometimes because I actually like the movie, sometimes because it's on MST3K and I enjoy that show. Given all of that, I think I have an answer.

    I know Maximum Overdrive isn't any good, but I still find it to be a lot of fun. I also think it's supposed to be a little bad, like, 70s drive-in bad. It plays like a parody film, one that wants to be a straight faced satire (but is silly because of all that cocaine) in that it subverts some tropes and takes other tropes so far they become jokes.

    The jokes are hit and miss because Stephen King has a pretty shitty and often twisted sense of humor. He's like an overgrown 12 year old in many, many ways. That was why he could write Creepshow. A movie that goofy and childish (and with the conceit of a comic book) could only be made by a couple of overgrown kids like King and Romero.

    Not perfect, not even very good, but I enjoy it in a very Saturday Afternoon Horror Movie sort of way.

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  5. It's awful, it's reprehensible, it's some of the worst trash you'll ever see, but I cannot make it through Halloween without watching Van Helsing. Perhaps I'm more in love with the kind of movie it COULD have been and wind up replaying the version of it in my mind if it were done right, but it's fun for me. I like Hugh Jackman, I wish Richard Roxburgh's performance was the right kind of hokey, and some of the gadgets are OK.

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    1. Alright! I really thought I was the only one who liked that movie. And I don't like anything else Stephen Sommers has done. Makes me look forward to seeing what kind of mess they'll make of this new Universal Monsters "Universe" situation.

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  6. This is tough, because I'm not sure how to equate how much I actually like some movies to how much I enjoy them. For instance, I've seen the new Texas Chainsaw movie like....4 times. Do I like it? No, it's stupid and terrible. But Alexandra Daddario is so damn cute, I can't deal with it. I can't even, you guys. #doyourthingcuz

    The obvious answer here is any of the original 8 Friday the 13th movies. I'll go as far as saying 2, 4, and 6 are actually good movies regardless. But parts 3 and 5 are particularly bad, and I love, love, love them.

    However........the correct answer is Sleepaway Camp. Sleepaway Camp fucking rules.

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  7. I would say the Saw series as a whole is bad, but aside from the last outing I have a certain amount of affection towards all of them. While the intertwining connection between the series plays part of that, I

    also like the rube goldberg contraptions, the basic philosophical nature, and even the simplicity of the plots. Sure the movies always end with a twist (which usually works), but they're usually easy to follow along, and are just an easy choice as a guilty pleasure.

    Now I don't actually take much pleasure out of watching them as there's obviously better material out there worth watching; the acting is usually bad, the films are ugly, and it's difficult watching so many suffer, some of the deaths even anger me (Dina Meyer's in particular), but it's still just a movie. I just wish the series would actually play by its own rules. No one has been better off after being placed in one of his traps, either their lives are ruined, or they die in later entries; I wish occasionally John's "prophecy" would rein true.

    Like others I will check out the re-release if the first entry (although II is my favorite), and it's a series I wouldn't mind if they brought back. They just need to move in a completely different direction than Saw 3D, as there's nothing worth watching in that one.

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  8. I have a morbid fascination with The Human Centipede 2 and I genuinely enjoy watching A Nightmare on Elm Street 2. I like to think there are kernels of an idea amongst the dreck in each movie.

    But Brian Sager is right: Sleepaway Camp fucking rules.

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    1. The baby scene in HC2 nearly made me fall out of my chair; don't know if I could make it through that movie sober (haven't tried.)

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  10. Sleepaway Camp isn't a bad movie at all, it's a great film. Worst Horror film I love is "The Forgotten" (2004) Directed by Joseph Ruben. Ruben has directed these:

    1998 Return to Paradise
    1995 Money Train
    1993 The Good Son
    1991 Sleeping with the Enemy
    1989 True Believer
    1987 The Stepfather
    1984 Dreamscape

    These movies were seen by most people and are for the most part successes and at the same time, pretty much awful films. I love Dreamscape and Money Train, the others I like/dislike to varying degrees. The Forgotten is just that - forgotten/forgettable. No one even thinks of this movie much less brings it up when talking about bad or good horror films.

    I've seen it 4 or 5 times randomly. I saw it in the theater on it's initial release and hated it. Since then, I have watched it over and over because I come across it on cable or TV and I find that I can't take my eyes off of it. It's actually starting to become a good film in my mind!

    Not scary, not a good story. Corny as all hell. But there is something about it (and not just Julianne Moore) that keeps me intrigued to watch. BUT, I advise, do not watch this, cause it's the "worst horror movie I love".

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  11. Shocker. First horror film I fell in love with as a kid. Scared to revisit it, but not because I think it will be scary.

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  12. For me this has to be Tremors 2. It wasn't any good and honestly toes the line on even being horror, since it plays more like an action comedy. This movie had a shoestring budget, lost its lead character, and had to implement alot of CGI because they couldn't afford the practical effects. The premise makes the same mistakes of the later Alien movies by complicating the life-cycle in an attempt to up the stakes but ultimately just coming off absurd.

    Despite all this, I will still watch this movie every time I see it on Syfy or TNT at 3pm on a Sunday. Why? Because it was one of my regular favorites when I was 12 years old. My grandfather was one of the movie pirating pioneers who kept two VCR's stacked on top of one another so he could rent movies and make copies. He used to explain to me the trick of putting electrical tape over the "write protect tab" so you could keep anyone from taping over your movies then change your mind later if you wanted to tape over them yourself. The walls of his house were covered in shelves of VHS tapes, most with 2 or more movies on them, and boxes were shoved under the bed and in closets for movies he didn't care about watching regularly. My cousins and I would browse these tapes endlessly, and had a few favorites which we kept easily findable. Tremors and Tremors 2 were among these favorites, and I couldn't possibly recount how many times we watched them.

    This movie isn't good, but it's a whole lot of fun. First we get some righteous graboid hunting with explosions and "high tech" equipment, then we get some good ol' fashioned monster fighting. Plus some great Burt quotes: "Is it possible he learned to avoid the sound of my Deuce and a Half's Mil-spec engine?" "I am completely out of ammo. That's never happened before."

    No critical justification here. It's just a sentimental favorite.

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  13. I will go ahead and champion Halloween 3 season of the witch. It's incredibly stupid and alot of it makes no damn sense, but was I entertained? Hell yes. Tom Atkins is a pimp in the main role and watching him seduce his way through the movie with girls half his age is incredible. If he wasnt the lead I don't think I would like it as much. One of my favorite parts is when he calls his ex wife to desperately try to explain the bad guys ludicrious plan. i love freking love the performance.

    The plot is so batshit crazy that you just have to throw your hands up in the air and say alright and go along for the ride. Evil masks, bugs and snakes in kids faces, robots, Stonehenge witchcraft, an ending that's bonkers, there's alot to love in Halloween 3 even if on paper it's technically not a very good movie.

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    1. Another vote here for Halloween 3. You summed it up perfectly Travis and I enjoy it for the same reasons as you. Now there is a film that could be an interesting remake if it is made by someone who enjoyed the first one and understands what the fans liked about it

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  14. Though it has been years since I've seen them, "Ghoulies" and "Ghoulies 2". Specifically, "Ghoulies 2" I remember as one of my first horror movie experiences.

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  15. The Fly 2 is a good example of terrible horror movie that I like (such an silly and unnecessary sequel to an amazing movie that I've watched a dozen times), but I don't LOVE it, and I can't think of a single horror movie that I do LOVE that I would consider bad. The closest might be the Friday the 13th Franchise as a whole - none of them, not even the handful of good ones (and there are more bad than good), are movies that I love, but for some reason I do love the franchise - an example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts I guess.

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    1. Aww..you beat me to it! The Fly 2 is one of those movies that I will watch whenever I stumble across it. And it's terrible. Yet it's one of the few terrible movies that I can say has a genuinely affecting scene buried in the middle of it (the dog scene). And the Christopher Young score is pretty good too.

      It also amazes me what they're able to get away with in that movie, specifically the "head crushed like a watermelon" scene and the poor hapless security guard who does his best Toht impression after a run-in with the monster.

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  16. I'm going to go with a Junesploitation discovery, Blood Dolls. I found it so much fun despite it being kind of bad. It does have some cool elements that shows it isn't dumb. Least I don't think so. It's worth your time.

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  17. I just watched Maniac (1934) which is an extremely low budget exploitation horror movie that blatantly mashes up Frankenstein and Poe's The Black Cat. By any definition of cinema it is a "bad" movie, but I found it endlessly watchable and so magnificently weird by the standards of the early 1930s that I ended up loving it.

    I guess a lot of people hate Hollow Man but I think it's still pretty great. From Robocop on Verhoeven doesn't have any misses for me (Black Book comes closest because I think some of the twists are real dumb).

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    1. Guess I should note I haven't seen Verhoeven's crowd-sourced movie yet.

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    2. I liked the CONCEPT of Hollow Man a lot more than the actual product. I guess the "because it's Paul Verhoeven" rule kicked in and can explain the fact that once he becomes invisible, Kevin Bacon spends much of his "slightly sane" period being a creeper. Also I started to get bored by the end.

      I will say that while I do waver on Showgirls a bit, I also like pretty much everything Verhoeven has made, at least between Robocop and Starship Troopers.

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