The reviews for Prime Video‘s new take on War of the Worlds are in, and they are bad. The movie currently has a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, and some are even calling the Ice Cube-led screenlife slog the worst movie of all time. Others find the movie entertaining, not in spite of its flaws but because of them. War of the Worlds is well on its way to joining other famous stinkers, Plan 9 From Outer Space and Troll 2, as a so bad it’s good classic.
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In honor of War of the Worlds‘ new status as trash cinema royalty, we’ve put together a list of movies whose awfulness actually makes them enjoyable — just not for the reasons the filmmakers intended. These aren’t movies that are intentionally “bad” like Sharknado, but honest, earnest attempts to create decent cinema that came out laughably bad for one reason or another. Here are seven “so bad they’re good” movies to watch after giggling through the latest adaptation of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds.
1) Jaws: The Revenge
In 1987, Universal Pictures decided to make up for the critically maligned Jaws 3D with a more personal Jaws film, as in “this shark has a personal vendetta against the Brody family.” Jaws: The Revenge attempts to answer the age-old question, “Do sharks get revenge?” by showing a single great white shark following a family from New England to the Bahamas just to torture them physically and psychologically. If that doesn’t sound ridiculous enough, check out the movie’s insane novelization.
Jaws: The Revenge has everything you want in a so bad it’s good movie — roaring sharks, characters flashing back to scenes from previous movies they weren’t there to experience, and at least one acclaimed actor, in this case Michael Caine, attempting to lend the film some legitimacy.
2) Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros. is often considered one of the worst video game adaptations ever made. The 1993 movie bombed so hard that Nintendo waited 30 years to release another Mario movie. And yet, we’d be lying if we said the film didn’t have a certain charm. A confused mix of Mad Max and Jurassic Park, with only the barest resemblance to the video game it was based on, Super Mario Bros. definitely wasn’t the movie fans were expecting.
If you can look past its faults, however, the movie functions as an entertaining “Baby’s first post-apocalyptic sci-fi flick/acid trip.” Besides, who can pass up the chance to watch acting legend Dennis Hopper chew the scenery as King Koopa?
3) The Pit
The Pit (known in some markets as Teddy) is a 1981 Canadian horror movie about a 12-year-old boy named Jamie who discovers a pit in the woods full of little monsters he calls Tra-la-logs. After a suggestion from his sentient teddy bear Teddy, Jamie decides to lure everyone who’s ever wronged him to the pit and feed them to the Tra-la-logs. Oh, and did we mention that the kid is a creepy pervert?
The Pit is…well, calling it a weird movie seems like a bit of an understatement. It’s unique, we’ll put it that way. If you’re looking for a late-night cheese fest to put on while indulging in some adult substances, this is 100% your movie.
4) The Happening
Is there any horror movie antagonist less threatening than grass? Despite being M. Night Shyamalan’s first-ever R-rated horror movie, The Happening is also his least scary. For 90 minutes, Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel run around trying to avoid whatever the plants are spewing into the air to cause humans to take their own lives.
What keeps The Happening from being so bad it’s just bad is Mark Wahlberg’s memorable performance. Horribly miscast as a science teacher, Wahlberg’s thick Boston accent rambling off long strings of intelligent-sounding botany facts is too funny to pass up. That, coupled with the absurdity of — again — plants as the villains, makes The Happening comedy gold.
5) Nothing But Trouble
On paper, a movie written by Dan Aykroyd starring John Candy and Chevy Chase should be a slam dunk. In practice, however, Nothing But Trouble was an unmitigated disaster both critically and financially. The movie goes out of its way to gross out its audience, and in return, offers jokes that are so painfully unfunny they end up generating laughs solely because of how awful they are.
If giant mutant babies, a death rollercoaster called Mr. Bonestripper, and Dan Aykroyd with a nose so phallic, it would probably have to be blurred on YouTube, sound like your cup of tea, then Nothing But Trouble might be right up your alley.
6) Halloween: Resurrection
After the convoluted mess of Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, 1998’s Halloween: H20 was a breath of fresh air that reinvigorated the iconic slasher franchise. Then Halloween: Resurrection came around and wasted all of the goodwill generated by its predecessor. When John Carpenter was putting the finishing touches on the original Halloween — a horror classic legally recognized as significant art by the U.S. Government — he could have never imagined that 24 years later, Busta Rhymes would be attacking The Shape with kung-fu moves while uttering the infamous line “Trick or Treat motherf******!”
Halloween: Resurrection is — in the parlance of our times — so out of pocket that it’s worth watching just to see what lunatic thing happens next.
7) The Room
Possibly the most famous so bad it’s good movie of all time, The Room is just as unhinged as everyone makes it out to be. From Tommy Wiseau’s bizarre line deliveries — “I did not hit her, I did naaaht!” — to the weird green screening of scenes that were filmed on location, The Room is in a class all its own.
The Room might be a hot mess, but it’s also oddly entertaining thanks to all the weird decisions Wiseau makes. To attempt to describe the movie in words is a fool’s errand, as The Room is the very definition of a film you have to see to believe. We highly recommend everyone watch it at least once in their lives, if only for the infamous “You’re tearing me apart,” scene.
What are you’re favorite, so bad they’re good movies? Let us know in the comments.
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