Have you ever sat through a movie so terrible that you would rather keep watching it just to see what new lows it hit instead of turning it off? I'm not talking about blatantly horrible movies (here's to you, M. Night Shymalan), but ones that fall into the notorious "so-bad-it's-good" territory.
Since a lot of my friends are home for the summer and life has slowed down a bit, I decided to have a get-together at my house to catch up and watch bad movies. Since I am a college student and on a very tight budget, I turned first to my DVR in search of movies so bad that they would provide endless entertainment value. Naturally, my remote was immediately drawn to the SyFy network (which seems to have gotten so much worse since they changed the spelling of their name) and was met with the Holy Grail of second-rate, shoestring budget movies.
My search got me thinking about what separates a movie from flat out bad to so-bad-it's-good. After watching Hydra and Black Swarm with a group of my friends, I came up with a list of what makes the ever elusive trainwrecks that can provide just about as much entertainment as Hollywood blockbusters with half the budget and no-name actors.
-A Ridiculous Concept
Sure, numerous movies in the genre already have this but what makes a SBIG (so-bad-it's-good, my own creation) different? On top of a concept that already begs to be laughed at (mutant ants taking over a small town or rabid giraffes terrorizing a zoo), the execution has to be just as comical. If I already don't take the general plot seriously then it makes for a good time watching it. Movies that present a concept that's been done before, but better, just turn out bad. A knock-off serial killer movie on a shoestring budget and terrible acting is just going to be bad because I've seen that type of movie at its best; I've never seen rabid giraffes before.
-Horrible Writing
Inconsistency, thin characters, laughable dialogue. These are all vital characteristics of the SBIG. The writing has to be absolutely atrocious. Not mediocre, not average, but completely terrible. So-so writing just makes a movie boring, because it's not quite bad enough to laugh at but it's not good enough to enjoy either. It's almost like the director of a SBIG employs the most borderline illiterate person he knows with a five-minute attention span and a laptop to pen his screenplay.
-A Group Setting
Friends are a very important ingredient involved in viewing a movie of such low caliber. Watching a movie like Angry Spider Monkeys from Outer Space would be torture to watch alone. I need someone to hear my snarky comments, and laugh with them about how such a movie came to fruition. A large group of people who have the same sense of humor you do make the SBIG the creation that it is. I would never watch a SyFy original movie on my own because I'd either fall asleep or slit my wrists, but with friends the experience is that much more satisfying because I can laugh at it instead of causing myself bodily harm.
These are just a few of the major qualities in a movie that's so completely awful, but still makes you watch it all the way through. What movies would you put in this category? Feel free to add what makes a SBIG movie to you.
