10 Movies That Are So Bad They're Good
A bad movie can be a disappointment, but it can also be a hoot. Sometimes, a movie is so ridiculous and unbelievable that unintended laughs come easily. The special effects are cheesy, the acting is absurdly ineffective, or the whole vibe is so off that the snickering never stops.
Bad movies can be great for a laugh on your own or an infectious bout of giggling with friends at a party. For that good time, you need to have some bad movies ready whenever you need to feel good in ways that filmmakers could never have expected. These are the best bad movies that were so terrible they've transcended from awful into awfully funny.
Mac and Me
Trying to milk the success of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial , Mac and Me tells the tale of an alien family that lands on Earth. When the youngest alien, MAC (Mysterious Alien Creature), escapes from NASA containment, he befriends the young Eric as he attempts to reunite with his alien family.
There's a lot of laughable stuff in Mac and Me , aside from the easy laughs that come from the freaky, bulgy-eyed, bloated-cheek alien designs that are far from the cuddly nature of E.T. There's one of the most baffling musical sequences in any film as Mac dances while disguised as a bear inside a McDonald's. There's also a noteworthy scene of Eric rolling off a cliff and into a lake while in his wheelchair, a scene so bizarre that it became a running joke Paul Rudd would play every time he went on Conan O'Brien's talk show.
Street Fighter
The popular fighting video game received the most absurd adaptation with Street Fighter: The Movie . The evil General M. Bison (Raul Julia) threatens the world as the ruler of the nation of Shadaloo. A team of heroes led by Colonel William F. Guile (Jean-Claude Van Damme) might be humanity's only hope as they infiltrate and dismantle the empire Bison has amassed.
Street Fighter is a ridiculous movie that was too ridiculous to enjoy beyond being a comedy, even if you're a movie-loving retro gamer . Van Damme puts more effort into his kicks than his acting, but you can't blame him with such a nonsensical script, which features Guile fighting a flying Bison. It's why there's little surprise that the highlight of the film is Raúl Juliá, feasting on absurd lines, where even the most basic lines like "Of course!" are a laugh riot.
Moonfall
Roland Emmerich returned to the disaster genre with Moonfall , an absolutely absurd premise of the moon crashing into the Earth. Like Emmerich's Independence Day , the film follows a handful of knowledgeable and unlikely heroes trying to save the planet. They struggle to keep their loved ones alive while trying to figure out the mystery of the falling moon.
When I saw Moonfall in the theater, I laughed so much that I nearly fell out of my seat. Everything in this film is unintentional comedy gold, from the preposterous science of the looming moon to every laughable line of dialogue involving the moon ("Oh no, here comes the moon!"). I'd highly recommend watching this next to some physics majors, as I did, as they were the first to start bursting with laughter at the first few scenes of citing science facts.
The Wicker Man
The 2006 remake of The Wicker Man features Nic Cage at his most ludicrous. He plays policeman Edward Malu, tracking down his missing girl. All clues point to a mysterious island, where he is met by neo-pagan villagers who refuse to give him the answers he seeks, leading to classic Cage freakouts.
Nic Cage gives one of his most over-the-top performances in The Wicker Man , making it the king of so-bad-it's-good thrillers. Every line delivery dares you not to laugh, from Cage yelling about a burned doll to him screaming about bees stinging his face ("I love my eyes!"). Few films about missing kids and spooky cults are this unintentionally comedic, making this a thriller more hilarious than intriguing.
Plan 9 From Outer Space
Ed Wood made plenty of bad movies in his time, but none were more entertainingly bad than Plan 9 From Outer Space . This sci-fi horror finds California under attack by flying saucers that plan to take over Earth by resurrecting the dead. It's up to a few humans to stop the aliens and zombies threatening Earth's safety.
Plan 9 is one of the most legendary bad movies for all its ingredients. There are some goofy special effects, and the saucers and the ensemble gathered are impressive for their silly roles, ranging from the iconic presences of Tor Johnson and Vampira to one of the last roles of Bela Lugosi. In the category of bad movies fit for fun, Plan 9 has aged well, having never lost its ludicrous luster for the cheap and contrived.
Tammy and the T-Rex
Amid the 1990s obsession with dinosaurs following Jurassic Park , Tammy and the T-Rex is part dinosaur horror and part romantic comedy . Teen cheerleader Tammy (Denise Richards) is saddened by losing her football-playing boyfriend Michael (Paul Walker), but the good news is that he's alive. The bad news is that his brain is inside the body of a robotic Tyrannosaurus rex that has gone on a vicious rampage.
The premise of Tammy and the T-Rex alone is so goofy, but even goofier are the budget special effects called upon for scenes that would be laughable even with the biggest budget. The highlight of the film is when Michael, as the robot T-rex, is able to use a pay phone to call Tammy with an off-screen arm that looks like a sock puppet. There's also the weirdly sexual ending involving Michael's brain, and there's thankfully a director's cut which includes way more violence for some extra campiness.
Cats
The popular stage musical Cats received one of the most surreal adaptations to film in 2019. Director Tom Hooper keeps the story the same: street cats sing and dance for a chance to ascend the Heaviside Layer. A key difference between the play and the movie is that Hooper's film reimagines the characters as CGI creations that look more like the remnants of an aborted live-action Dr. Seuss project.
Cats was so strange that I couldn't help but laugh in the theater, despite how polite I tried to be to the lady beside me, who was a big fan of the musical. It's just weird how this film managed to get top-talent cast for strange cat acts, with Judi Dench licking herself and Ian McKellen lapping up milk. I couldn't hold back the snickers and just accepted the odd musical numbers, singing along to stifle my laughter.
Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2
While the original Silent Night, Deadly Night made waves for posing as a grotesque Christmas slasher, Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 had a different type of legacy. The film takes place years after the killer Santa went on a rampage, but this time, it follows the killer's brother, Ricky. As Ricky recounts his murderous rise to a psychiatrist, we watch actor Eric Freeman go hog-wild with a role where he gets too excited about punishing those he deems naughty, from Mother Superior to random strangers.
Ricky's rampage is a bizarre menagerie of the most ridiculous lines ever to come out of an actor's mouth. While mimicking his brother's Santa-suit massacre and declaration of the naughty, he does so with a permanent smile and cackle in his voice. The highlight of the film is when Ricky goes shooting up a neighborhood, gunning down a resident putting out his trash with one of the funniest battle cries ever heard on screen: "GARBAGE DAY!"
Troll 2
Don't worry, you won't have to see Troll 1 to grasp the laughably cheap charm of Troll 2 . A family goes on vacation in the small town of Nilbog, later discovered to be "goblin" written backwards. Warned by the ghost of his grandfather, the youngest son of the family has to prevent his family from becoming dinner for a town of vegetarian goblins that transform people into plants.
Troll 2 is a ridiculous film about cheap-looking monsters with strange habits about milk and cholesterol. Ultimately, a double-decker bologna sandwich defeats them. There are many more hilarious scenes, ranging from someone's reaction to getting stabbed with a spear to the son pissing on his family's dinner to save them. Adding to this is the amateur line delivery of already absurd lines like "You can't piss on hospitality! I won't allow it!" and "They're eating her. And then they're going to eat me. Oh my god!" It all mixes together to become one of the silliest bad movies for its slapped-together nature.
The Room
No bad movie is more quotable than Tommy Wiseau's misfiring masterpiece, The Room . Wiseau plays Johnny, a banker whose fiancée has grown bored with him and has favored a romance with his best friend, Mark. But Johnny's life turns chaotic as anger and jealousy make him grow increasingly hostile, becoming fed up with this world.
Wiseau's absurd delivery makes every moment of drama comedy gold. Everything from the simple "Oh, hi, Mark" to the dramatic "You're tearing me apart, Lisa" has the most memorable lines for how Wiseau aims for over-the-top acting. Since its debut, the film has become a cult classic among bad-movie aficionados, becoming a staple of midnight movie parties and previously airing as an April Fool's gag for Adult Swim.
Bad movies have sometimes been called guilty pleasures, as though you should feel bad for taking pleasure in such a picture. I find such a label a misnomer, considering I find no guilt in laughing at movies about CGI cats, vegetarian goblins, and a howling Nic Cage. These are films best watched with some friends for a good laugh, unintentional though they may be.
