Welcome back to “What Makes Bad Movies Good,”  in which I present to you terrible films that are hilarious in their ineptitude. This week’s subject is a gem that I only discovered mere months ago. I’m quite glad I did, as any fan of bad cinema is sure to love it. I’m talking about the 2006 thriller “The Wicker Man,” based on the British cult classic. (Click here to read more…)

“Darkman” (1992) is not very well-known, which perplexes me on two levels. For one, it’s a mainstream film with a well-known star and director (Liam Neeson and Sam Raimi, respectively). More importantly, though, every scene in the movie is accidentally hilarious on an almost staggering level. I would have thought one of these two facts might have propelled the film into at least the lower-stratosphere of moviegoer awareness, but sadly, it remains a lost relic; a largely unseen, mostly unknown masterpiece of bad cinema. (Click here to read more…)

Some of the best comedy in cinema comes from films that aren’t intending to be funny. Films like this are a delightful treat; however, I don’t believe enough research, if you want to call it that, has been put into determining why this is. After all, not all bad movies are entertaining in their badness. Why do some terrible films make us laugh, while others simply bore us? What factors make a bad film enjoyable in its incompetence, and what factors make it just plain bad? How come “Perfect Stranger” is a brilliant piece of unintended comedy, while “Alone In The Dark” is just aggressively boring?

Through what will eventually be a series of blog posts, I hope to answer these questions. The best way to go about this, I think, is for me to watch as many bad-but-good movies as I possibly can, and report back to you on what exactly makes them so enjoyable. So sit back, relax, and get ready for some truly awful filmmaking.