In Praise of Bad

I have a bad habit. Or rather, I have a habit of bad. Namely, I have a bad habit of watching bad movies. And let's make no mistake, I KNOW that some of the movies that I watch are bad. Very, very bad.

But there is something about those gawd-awful films that brings me back again and again. I take great delight in watching wretched acting and directing combine with a bad idea to become something special. It even predates my love of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (one of the greatest television series in history, if you ask me), as I would drag my friends to the theatre to watch horrible films.

Now that isn't to say that I ONLY like bad films. Not even close. I love a well made, well acted, skillfully written film. I have an extensive DVD collection, and--with the exception of probably the Godzilla collection--they are all quality films in my mind.

So, if I'm not watching them on DVD where do I get the bad films that I enjoy? Why, from the Sci-Fi Channel, of course! Every Saturday night the Sci-Fi channel airs a new masterpiece of drek that keeps me entertained in it's amazing badness. Well, most of the time. Sometimes they air quality movies, and then sometimes...well, sometimes there are moments like the one I have to talk about.

A couple of weeks ago the Sci-Fi Channel debuted a film that they called Stan Lee's Harpies. Um...oh my gawd. I couldn't finish it. It was too bad. It was so bad that I didn't know what to mock. I didn't know where to laugh and where to just sit slack-jawed in shock. It was a movie so bad that it made the bad movies they show seem...good. The acting was deplorable. The directing was amaturish, at best. But it was really the writing that took this film to new lowes. The writing...no, wait, I have respect for writers; the word-assembler that constructed this "story" did an exceptional job of taking every hack premise and phrase and bringing them to a new low.

I really don't have a joke to make about it. Honestly, the movie was just that bad.

But I haven't given up hope. I know that somewhere out there Kevin Van Hook is working on another movie that will bring a smile to my face--just not in the way that he was hoping. But I'm a fan of Kevin's. I've seen The Fallen Ones probably six or seven times. And each time it gets sillier and more inane. And that's just fine for me.