The normalization of hate-watching and the ironic consumption of media has done untold damage to my generation’s relationship with film. While getting a few friends together and riffing on old Gamera movies isn’t inherently bad, terms like “guilty pleasure” and “so bad it’s good” have made some folks forget that movies don’t have to conform to any set of aesthetic rules in order to be worth watching.
However, with recent releases like The Toxic Avenger remake and The Velocipastor reminding mainstream audiences that B-movies can make for an unironic great time, we decided to come up with a list celebrating six “so bad it’s good” movies that are actually just good! After all, if you left an experience feeling good about it, why the heck would you still say it was bad?
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be defining “so bad it’s good” movies as critically panned films which have amassed a fanbase that appreciates them as either guilty pleasures or unintentional comedies – this means that intentionally cheesy productions like Sharknado are off-limits. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own trashy favorites if you think we missed a particularly memorable one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. Frankenfish (2004)
Loosely based on a real incident involving northern snakehead fish invading ponds in Maryland, Frankenfish is one of the best aquatic horror movies ever released by the Sci-Fi Channel – and that’s precisely why it’s so frustrating to see it get lumped together with less sincere genre efforts such as Sharktopus and Dinocroc.
While the film doesn’t do much to escape the shadow of more popular aquatic thrillers like Jaws or even Lake Placid, Frankenfish’s humorous script and over-the-top deaths make it a surprisingly entertaining romp that embraces its trashy roots without ever resorting to low-effort filmmaking.
5. Thankskilling (2008)
Shot on a budget of less than $3500, this schlocky holiday film tells the story of a foul-mouthed creature that awakens once every 505 years to murder the descendants of evil white settlers. And with a tagline like “Gobble, gobble, mother****er”, I find it baffling that so many horror fans accuse Thankskilling of being a “so bad it’s good” experience when the movie’s grotesque humor is clearly intentional.
The flick isn’t exactly the Citizen Kane of creature features (or even the best Thanksgiving-themed Slasher, for that matter), but Jordan Downey obviously never meant for his microbudget horror-comedy to compete with the likes of Freddy or Jason. Thankskilling is simply meant to be a meta celebration of low-brow filmmaking, and I’d argue that it succeeds as a passionate tribute to the trashy classics of yesteryear.
4. Bloodrayne (2005)
Uwe Boll may not be among the greatest filmmakers of his generation, but the director’s reputation as the absolute worst thing to ever happen to the medium has been greatly exaggerated. I’d even go so far as to say that most of Boll’s Golden Raspberry nominations were undeserved, with one such case being 2005’s Bloodrayne.
While cinephiles love to dogpile on this star-studded videogame adaptation/prequel as if it’s only fun to watch as an unintentional comedy, the fact is that Bloodrayne more than lives up to its B-movie inspirations so long as you can get past Boll’s obvious unfamiliarity with the source material. That being said, I can’t honestly defend the film’s two sequels.
3. Maximum Overdrive (1986)
Yes, I’ve read the deeply unsettling short story that the movie is based on, and I’m aware that going on an extended cocaine bender is not the ideal way of directing your first major motion picture. However, I’m still baffled whenever someone watches a film featuring evil ATMs and a murderous truck with a Green Goblin head and doesn’t immediately understand that it’s supposed to be an over-the-top laugh riot!
Sure, Maximum Overdrive can be a little too cheesy for some audiences, with the odd characters and baffling creative decisions often feeling just as otherworldly as the sentient vehicles terrorizing Emilio Estevez, but I think revisiting the film with an open mind might just convince you that Stephen King wanted his adaptation to be a self-parody with more in common with the comedic antics of this year’s The Monkey than the haunting thrills of Kubrick’s The Shining.
2. Rawhead Rex (1986)
Urinary baptism aside, Rawhead Rex is one of Clive Barker’s most straightforward horror stories. That’s why a big screen adaptation of the tale should have been a no-brainer, as all the filmmakers had to do was translate the tale’s eerie atmosphere and gruesome kills to a visual medium. Unfortunately, budgetary limitations and bizarre creative decisions led to the film becoming something of a trashy parody of the source material rather than a proper adaptation.
And yet, this oddball combination of disturbing Barker-isms and 80s excess remains an exceptionally fun little horror flick nearly 40 years later. That’s why I’d argue that, flawed as it is, Rawhead Rex doesn’t deserve to be referred to as a “guilty pleasure” just because it’s not as serious as the story it’s based on. Of course, I wouldn’t mind a more horrific remake of the original yarn, either!
1. Tammy & The T-Rex (1994)
I originally encountered this ’90s oddity on late-night TV as a kid, and for years I filed it away as one of those terrible dinosaur movies that I only enjoyed because I was an impressionable child with a love for all things prehistoric. Revisiting the movie later in life proved that I was wrong about this, however, as the 2019 Gore Cut of Tammy & The T-Rex quickly became one of my all-time favorite B-movies – as well as solid proof that you can’t always trust the critical consensus when it comes to schlocky cinema.
And like several other entries on this list, I find it pretty obvious that the film was always meant to be an absurd roller-coaster ride of Tyrannosaurid proportions. Of course, even the original family-friendly version of the film remains a highly entertaining romp despite its overall lack of violence and sexual innuendo, with the film still retaining most of its absurdist humor and an iconic performance by Denise Richards.
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