11 Bad-Good Horror Movies You Need To See
Here are eleven of the worst-best horrible wonderful retarded awesome movies ever made, what makes them bad, what makes them good and why you ought to watch them.
WHY IT'S BAD
This is one Peter Jackson's early films, back before he began winning Oscars for The Lord of the Rings and being the size of an elephant. Believe it or not, Jackson used to make schlocky zombie films (as well as unwatchable puppet movies like Meet the Feebles) instead of epics about little hairy-footed people and CGI-fests about giant apes. Actually, come to think of it, maybe it's not all that hard to believe. Still, this movie is about a thousandth of the budget of Jackson's later films, and it shows.WHY IT'S GOOD
This zombie movie is schlocky in the best sense of the word. There's so much blood and gore that it's beyond ridiculous, to the point of being laugh-out-loud funny. At no point does Dead Alive take itself too seriously, particularly when the best character of all time, Father McGruder, is introduced and says the following: 
WHY YOU NEED TO SEE IT
Just to behold the greatness and awfulness of Peter Jackson before studios started puking money at him.ALSO CHECK OUT...
Bad Taste, Jackson's very first movie, a gross-out extravaganza about aliens. Featuring a young, thin Jackson himself as a guy who loses the back of his skull.
WHY IT'S BAD
Let me count the ways. Not only is it the third sequel to a film that didn't need any sequels to begin with, it also happens to feature exactly zero chainsaw deaths. Keep in mind that the film is titled Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation. No chainsaw deaths. Add to that the fact that the only ostensible plot twist is all but given away on the DVD cover (Spoiler Alert! Matthew McConaughey is crazy!) and that for some inexplicable reason Leatherface has decided to become a transvestite, and you've got one hell of a stinker.WHY IT'S GOOD
It stars Renee Zellweger and Matthew McConaughey as Scared High School Girl and Crazy Tow Truck Man, respectively. Not only that, but these two very young, desperate soon-to-be-stars are just trying their damndest to put something of value into this movie. The result? Some glorious overacting by everyone in the cast, especially one scene where Crazy Tow Truck Man gaudily howls after Scared High School Girl as if he were confused for a moment and thought he was in a werewolf movie.WHY YOU NEED TO SEE IT
To see two now A-listers slumming it in their early careers in what must still serve as a face-reddening embarrassment every time it comes up in conversation.ALSO CHECK OUT...
Leprechaun, which most assuredly still makes Jennifer Aniston have night terrors.
WHY IT'S BAD
Because, as a parody, it fails completely. Made at the tail end of Leslie Nielsen's period of actually making decently funny movies, Repossessed was the beginning of his descent into being involved with embarrassing garbage like 2001: A Space Travesty, with its idea of humor being a priest training for an exorcism by boxing a fast bag and exorcising the devil with rock and roll. That's not funny, it's just...kinda dumb. And including Linda Blair as the possessed housewife (essentially reprising her character from The Exorcist) is not cute or clever -- it's simply a reminder that this movie is a failed parody of a movie that was actually good. WHY IT'S GOOD
Because, despite the fact that it completely falls flat in terms of being intentionally funny, it still succeeds in being unintentionally funny. Leslie Nielsen's mugging performance is so awful that it's actually kind of endearing, and the possession special effects are actually laughably worse than they were 17 years earlier. Linda Blair's attempts a humor are sort of cringingly entertaining as well, and the inclusion of a character who's a stereotype of a stereotype (Ned Beatty's televangelist) is some kind of weird meta-funny.WHY YOU NEED TO SEE IT
Because this movie taught me what an aglet is -- they're the plastic things on the ends of shoelaces. (Linda Blair's character is named Nancy Aglet.)
WHY IT'S BAD
Because it basically all takes place in a warehouse basement, for one thing. Also, there's a scene where some punks go to a graveyard and dance that makes me embarrassed not only for the punks, but for any dead people that they may be dancing on. The punks, also, are the most stereotypical teenagers you can imagine, in the worst possible way. Also, the explanation for the zombies' existence (chemical spill causes rain that raises the dead) defies the zombie movie convention of just having no explanation (there's a reason for that -- the explanations, like this one, are usually incredibly stupid).WHY IT'S GOOD
It has the coolest zombies ever. Forget 28 Days Later, this was the original fast-zombie movie. Not only that, they talk. In fact, to my knowledge, this is the only zombie movie that actually features the zombies saying "Braaaaaains!" which may make it worth seeing in itself. Also, there's a scene in which, after the zombies have killed and eaten a group of paramedics, a zombie grabs the CB radio in the ambulance and insists that the dispatcher "Send...more...paramedics!"WHY YOU NEED TO SEE IT
Braaaaaaaaains!ALSO CHECK OUT...
Return of the Living Dead 3, the greatest zombie love story ever told.
MY FRIEND: Look at that priest, he looks just like the priest from The Exorcist.
ReplyHIS GIRLFRIEND: What do you mean?
MY FRIEND: He's dressed just like him.
HIS GIRLFRIEND: You mean...like a priest?
Lmao, this made the entire article worth reading.
For Jason X- Don't forget the genius ending that lands Jason on a new planet, basically telling us that even hundreds of years into the future, there will be and excuse for yet another Friday the 13th sequel. And the scene with the holographic lake is alone worth the 8 bucks I spent to go see this movie.
ReplyAnother awesome/shitty horror movie about ants is called Phase 4.
ReplyIt's like the Solaris of ants-taking-over-the-world movies, but in a bad way.
Children of the Corn was sucky too, but I still loved it, and Dreamcatcher.
ReplyReturn of the Living Dead is NOT good-bad, it's flat out one of the top five comedies of all time!! It takes itself serious but its story is logical enough for this to totally work. It never degrades into goofy comedy, it's funny because you can almost believe things would really happen this way if zombies came to life. This filme is easily 20+ years ahead of its time! "Be a man Frank, be a man!!"
ReplyAnyone ever see "Amok Train" ("Beyond the Door III")? The possessed train fails stop at a station and it's a national emergency all of a sudden. The train derails itself so it can run over two people in a rowboat and then returns to the tracks. When making out with a hot chick and she starts ripping her own face off to loose the worms under her skin, the (typical) college student merely looks a trifle unsettled and walks out of the compartment door (walks, does not run, screaming in terror). Lastly, having sex with a ghost (not oral sex because his tongue was cut out) will save the world from allowing the devil (who looks like Mrs. Butterworth's evil twin) to enter our realm of existence. This is a must watch bad movie.
ReplyI don't know if anybody mentioned it below, but you're better off going on eBay and finding the movie Braindead, which is Dead Alive without 10-15 minutes of gore cut out of it
ReplyNo Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn is actually a remake. The Evil Dead Companion, which is supported by interviews with those involved, makes it unequivocally clear that it is a remake and not a sequel. Not sure what your basis is but I'm gonna stick with a proper source instead of some guy just saying something.
ReplyListen to the commentary on evil dead 2. The filmmakers themselves confirm that is NOT a remake. It is a sequel. The flashback at the start is somewhat of a remake, but that ends when the evil spirit possesses Ash, which is how the first film ends. The rest is all completely new.I used to think it was a remake to, but its not.
it was actually a partialreshoot because they couldn't get permission for the original footage to recap the first one, and then it continues into the best Evil Dead, Army of Darkness
What about more recent ones? Feast, Big Bad Wolf, Zombie Strippers (with Robert f*****g Englund)? Ok, so they aren't that recent, but still made with the last few years. Has anyone else seen Vampire Diary? (NOT that show/book)It's one of the few movies that makes being a vampire NOT all fun and sparkles. Lesbian vampire romance? Still a better love story than Twilight.
Reply[adjective] [adjective] romance is always better than Twilight.
Woah. Hold on a minute. Why the cheap shot at Rocky IV? You could write a pretty badass article about the category that Rocky IV belongs to - Cold War Hollywood Presents: American Underdog vs. Soviet Machine.
ReplyThat might actually be my favourite alternative genre of all time.
You guys forgot one.. "The Spookies". I mean, grim reaper, spider lady monster, farting mud men, zombies, skeletons... it literally has EVERYTHING EVER! Plus really really shit-tastical acting. it is RIGHT up there with Troll and Troll 2...
ReplyTheir eating her! ... and then their going to eat me!
ReplyOH MY GOOOOODDDDD
Stunning piece of acting
I'm so happy Peter Jackson's earlier stuff showed up here. Bad Taste is one of my favorite B-Movies of all time. I love the bit when Jackson's character is running from aliens on a cliff. Everything that happens there is funny. Also, I did not enjoy Return of the Living Dead a whole lot, but I can see why it made this list. Its like the cannon fodder of horror movies.
ReplyOh yeah, the Evil Dead movies are some of my favorites too.
I only just now read this article, but it sums up perfectly exactly why I love watching these movies. Just yesterday I had a friend over and before my son got home we watched some seriously terrible "horror" movies on Netflix. Any time I want to watch something and not get seriously involved in the plot or characters I resort heavily to bad-good horror movies. It's something I've done since grade school, since I was a huge MST3k fan as a kid (And still am! woo Rifftrax!). Me and my friend would rent bad-good old horror/scifi movies and just sit and laugh at the terrible awesomeness.
ReplyYou can go through the list of Netflix movies and pretty much figure all of them are good for a laugh, even if they are bad-bad. I just can't help but love them. :D One of my personal favorite good-bads? Stephen King's "Cat's Eye".
Missing Feast.
ReplyStreet Trash! It's the best one and it's not even mentioned here... then again maybe it's not horrorhorror per-say, should still be checked out tho!
ReplyIt goes without saying that Return of the Living Dead will always have a place in my heart for giving a name to the best Zombie-punk band of all time - the now sadly defunct Send More Paramedics. Youtube 'em.
ReplyOk, I know it was just a throwaway line in there, but seriously, The Shining was Not a great horror movie. The bad guy **spoiler** freezes to death in the end. Boring!
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesThe Shining wasn't a good horror movie? The Shining is one of the greatest movies of all time regardless of genre.
This was the ONLY time I read the book before watching the movie and I was insanely disappointed. It was missing some of my favorite scenes and half of the story wasn't even in the book and vise-versa. The ending wasn't even the same. It was the first and last time I read the book before watching the movie, realizing that doing so really ruins everything about movies like that. This is also why I don't argue with "the book is better than the movie"-type people, because chances are it is. Especially... ESPECIALLY.. when it comes to Stephen King.
However, I was pleasantly surprised with the made-for-TV miniseries remake of The Shining which was spot-on accurate.
Okay, you're disqualified from talking about movies. Forever.
Best lines from Troll 2:
Reply"Nilbog is goblin spelled backwards... it's their keen dumb!"
"They're eating her...then they're gonna eat me...oh my gooooooooooooooooooooood."
In ROTLD the naked punk chick that both dances and then stays naked for the remainder of the movie, had to wear a latex twat cover because a bushless one was too much for the MPAA. But a fake bald one was ok. Figure that one. And Evil dead and it sequels are the greatest films ever made.
Reply