So Bad It's Good

I recently saw two epic films, Troll 2 and The Room, both which have become cult classics due to their overall terribleness. For films like these to achieve a certain type of campy fame, there has to be an earnestness on the part of the director, a sense of megalomania, the notion that their work will stand next to Citizen Kane and The Godfather in the annals of film history.

The backstories to both films are great (Italian crew who can't communicate with the cast? Bizarre director who raised money through imported leather jackets?), but even without a great backstory, the films stand on their own. Two short reviews below.

TROLL 2

I watched this with my friend Matt, with whom I share a love for bad movies. He is the one who introduced me to this scene from Mac and Me, a blatant rip-off of E.T. He is the one who would entertain us in college by reading aloud reviews of Duncan Checks In on IMDB.com. He also just generally makes me laugh, to the point of embarrassment.

So in this grand tradition, we settled in to watch Troll 2, on Matt's recommendation, and it turned out to be one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. I swear, I did not stop laughing for that entire film. It is so utterly ridiculous, with a plot that makes no sense, and awful acting, and monster masks that look as though I painted them. (Like, fifteen years ago. In fifth grade art class.) Without giving anything away, I'll just say that there is a lot of green food, an incredible love scene involving corn, and not a single troll anywhere in the film.

GRADE: A+

THE ROOM

I saw The Room in a completely different environment: a post-midnight screening downtown with a bunch of friends and co-workers. I had never been to the Village East Cinema before and although it's fairly unassuming on the outside, the interior is a gorgeously renovated Yiddish theater.

After waiting in line for quite some time, we all clutched our plastic spoons and piled in with our fellow hipsters at around 12:45. From the moment the film started, people did not stop yelling. I guess if I had seen the film before, I might have appreciated it, but it meant I missed a great deal of the dialogue. To me, terrible dialogue is what makes a terrible movie terrible! Granted, you need no words to understand the softly-lit, disgusting soft-core sex scenes, or the completely unnecessary chroma-keyed San Francisco skyline, or the randomness of a bunch of dudes playing football in their tuxedos. But it would have been nice to at least hear some key lines.

Also, a lot of the yelling was directed towards "Lisa," one of the main characters. While she is supposed to be a manipulative and awful person, there was something disconcerting about being in a darkened room while a faceless mass of guys yelled things like, "Whore! Slut! Bitch!" at the screen. I know she's the worst ("You are tearing me apart, Lisa!") but for me, it took some of the fun out of it. Whereas Troll 2 is just pure, unadulterated silliness, The Room is just a few yards away from some terrible student films I had to sit through. (Including my own.)

GRADE: B