c/bad-movie-night

That theater in El Paso had a broken projector and the movie played upside down

I went to a $3 discount theater in El Paso last month to catch a cheesy 80s horror flick, and halfway through the final chase scene the projector jammed and suddenly everything was playing upside down, which honestly made the bad acting even funnier. The crowd started yelling suggestions like 'flip the tape!' and someone threw popcorn at the screen, but the staff just left it running for 10 minutes while they tried to fix it. Has anyone else had a technical glitch that accidentally made a bad movie way more entertaining?

Watching The Room with the commentary track actually made it better somehow

I threw it on for a laugh last Friday with three friends who had never seen it, and hearing Tommy Wiseau explain his own scenes just made the whole thing more confusing and funnier, so now I'm wondering if there are other so-bad movies where the director's commentary is secretly the best part?

That DVD copy with the wrong audio track still cracks me up

Back in 2007 I picked up a horror movie called 'The Lurking Dead' from a dollar bin in Columbus and the DVD had the entire commentary track playing over the actual film, so you'd hear two guys talking about sandwiches during every kill scene. I found out last week that this was a known mastering error from the distributor, and some collectors actually pay $40 for that messed up disc now. Has anyone else ever gotten a bad copy that turned out to be more fun than the real movie?

Sharknado 5 finally made me get the hype

I always rolled my eyes at the whole So Bad It's Good thing, but this weekend my buddy put on Sharknado 5 with a group and the theater-level laughing we did was unreal. The part where the shark eats Big Ben and then it's just flying around London had me crying. Anyone else have one movie that flipped them from hater to believer?

Caught a midnight screening of The Room in Austin, crowd split on the spoon picture

I hit the Alamo Drafthouse bad movie night last Saturday and the place was packed, maybe 200 people. The whole theater was yelling lines but when the spoon picture showed up, half the crowd lost it while the other half just sat there confused. What's the line for you, do you need the movie to be so-bad-it's-great from frame one or is one iconic scene enough to make it worth the trip?

Old VHS rips vs streaming for bad movie night, I switched for a dumb reason

I used to hunt down these grainy VHS rips of stuff like Miami Connection on eBay and spend hours tweaking brightness on my 2006 Toshiba just to get the vibe right. Then last March my buddy brought over a 4K remaster of Birdemic and honestly, the crisp picture made the bad acting way funnier. Now I just pull up whatever's on Tubi or YouTube and call it a night. Anyone else trade in the worn-out look for high def chaos, or am I missing something about the old format?

Hit 100 bad movies logged last night, my best one was a surprise

I keep a running list on my phone of every terrible movie we finish for Bad Movie Night. Last night we crossed 100 total with 'Sharknado 7,' which was somehow the most coherent one we've seen. Number 47 was a cheap ripoff called 'VelociPastor,' and that's still the one I tell people about. We started this two years ago with just me and my buddy, and now it's six regulars every Friday. Has anyone else hit a milestone number and had a weird movie stick with them that you didn't expect?

The day my projector bulb died during the shark scene in Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus

I was hosting my first Bad Movie Night at my apartment in Portland last Friday, the bulb blew right as the shark jumped, and after 20 minutes of panic I just hooked up my 13 inch laptop and we crowded around it, honestly that might have been funnier than the movie itself, has anyone else had equipment fail and turn into the best part of the night?

Hated Birdemic for years, then a live viewing flipped me

Saw it with a packed room at a dive bar in Portland last month and the crowd's heckling turned the garbage into pure gold. Now I actually seek out films with zero plot just to see what the group will riff on. Anyone else convert after a group screening?

Picked the 'so bad it's good' sci-fi over the horror flick for movie night, did I mess up?

For our Friday bad movie gathering, I had to choose between a 1980s robot flick with terrible effects and a slasher with laughable acting in Oregon, and I went with the robot one because the plot was more confusing. Halfway through, everyone was more focused on counting how many times the robot's head fell off than actually laughing at the bad dialogue. Should I have stuck with the slasher, or is a movie that's boring-bad worse than a movie that's funny-bad for your crew?

Paid $12 for a knockoff Sharknado sequel on DVD. Best worst purchase ever.

Picked up a bootleg-looking disc at a flea market last month for $12. It was supposed to be Sharknado 7 but the menu said 'Shark Hurricane: Ocean Fury' and the sharks had laser eyes. My Bad Movie Night crew lost it for two hours straight. The audio was dubbed over in three different accents and one scene reused the same explosion clip four times. Has anyone else found a gem like this hiding in a bargain bin?

So I compared two director's cuts of the same disaster movie

Last Friday I watched the theatrical version of that shark tornado sequel with my buddy for some laughs, then the next night we threw on the director's cut that adds 20 minutes of weird romance subplot. The extra footage made the terrible CGI look even worse and killed the pacing, so the original badness felt way more fun somehow. Has anyone else had a director's cut ruin a so-bad-it's-good movie for them?

Can we talk about the moment you realized you were watching movies wrong this whole time?

Looked up the runtime for The Room and it blew my mind

I was flipping through IMDb last Tuesday after rewatching The Room for the third time this year and saw it clocks in at 99 minutes. That sounds normal until you realize about 40 of those minutes are just awkward silences and Tommy Wiseau staring at a spoon. It felt like a 3 hour movie every time I watched it. Anyone else get thrown off by a bad movie's actual runtime vs how long it feels?

The Scream 4 re-release made me realize the original is the worst one

Caught a midnight showing at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin last Friday and the crowd laughed harder at the elevator kill than anything in the first three films, so why do we keep pretending the 2011 cut with the dumb ghostface app is the only bad one worth roasting?

Three viewings of The Room before I realized I was watching it wrong

I kept getting annoyed at how boring the scenes were when nobody was yelling. Last Friday I put on the Rifftrax version and suddenly all the dead air made sense, you're supposed to laugh at the awkward pauses too. My buddy Dave had been telling me for a year to watch it with a crowd, but I thought he meant just having people over, not actually commentating along. Now I get why everyone quotes the football toss bit, it's way funnier when you're not waiting for a plot that never shows up. Has anyone else had a bad movie click for them after a rewatch with the right group, or am I just slow on the uptake?

That time the projector died mid-movie and we improvised a horror masterpiece

We were about 25 minutes into a so-bad-it's-great vampire flick at my buddy's garage setup in Dayton when the bulb just popped, loud like a firecracker, and left us all staring at a blank wall. I ran in and grabbed a cheap LED flashlight from his toolbox, aimed it through an empty beer bottle, and started waving it around while someone narrated the plot from memory. Has anyone else had a technical fail that accidentally made a bad movie even funnier, or are we just weird?

The Mystery Science Theater fan who made me mute the movie

At our last Bad Movie Night, this guy who was visiting said my constant riffing was drowning out the actual badness. He told me to let the movie breathe for a minute before jumping in with a joke. I tried it on the next flick we watched, some 80s horror thing with terrible dubbing, and honestly the silence made the cheese funnier. Now I save my comments for the really dumb moments, like when the alien looks like a shower curtain. Has anyone else had to dial back their commentary to keep the group vibe right?

Lost $60 on a knockoff 'so bad it's good' horror box set

Ordered this 8-disc horror collection online last week for $60 because the cover art looked gloriously terrible. Turns out half the discs were just the same movie with different titles and the other half were filmed from a projector in someone's basement. Anyone else get burned by those mystery box sets that promise 50 'cult classics' but deliver one sad zombie flick repeated?

Pro tip: stop ranking 80s horror as "so bad it's good" when it's just bad

I keep seeing people call movies like The Vindicator or The Toxic Avenger part of Bad Movie Night material, but those are genuinely entertaining on purpose. The real gems are the ones where the director thought they were making a masterpiece. Stuff like The Room or Birdemic where the creator absolutely believed in their vision. Has anyone else noticed this mix-up in the community lately?

I finally changed my mind about watching movies from the 80s

I always thought old 80s movies were just boring and cheesy. Then last month my buddy dragged me to a tiny theater downtown called The Bijou that does bad movie nights every Friday. They showed The Apple (1980) and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The dance numbers are nuts and the plot makes zero sense but the whole crowd was laughing and shouting at the screen. I went back two more times and now I get why people love this stuff. Has anyone else found a local theater that changed how you watch bad movies?

The VHS bins at the thrift store changed my bad movie night forever

I used to just scroll Netflix for hours looking for something hilariously bad to watch with friends. Then about 6 months ago I found a bin of old VHS tapes at the Salvation Army on Main Street for 50 cents each. Now I grab random horror and action movies from the 80s and 90s without reading any reviews first. The last one I picked up had a guy in a rubber monster suit fighting a ninja in a warehouse, and it was PURE gold. Has anyone else found a weird hidden gem from a thrift store that totally floored you?

Bought a $15 Blu-ray of The Room and it was the best money I ever spent

I picked up a used copy of The Room at a thrift store in Austin last weekend for $15. Figured it would be a laugh for one night, but now I've watched it three times with different groups of friends and every single viewing gets funnier. Has anyone else had a bad movie become a regular party staple like this?

I used to hate on low budget horror until I watched The Room for the 3rd time

For years I thought bad movies were just a waste of time and money. Then my friend dragged me to a midnight showing of The Room in Austin last month and something clicked. Seeing the whole crowd laugh and throw plastic spoons at the screen made me realize I was taking movies way too seriously. That night I finally understood "so bad it's good" is real. Anyone else have that one movie that turned you from a hater into a fan of bad films?

Wasted $25 on a knockoff 'so bad it's good' horror box set

Bought a budget 8-movie horror collection off eBay for $25 thinking it would be a goldmine for bad movie night. Every single film had audio that was out of sync and one had subtitles for a completely different movie. Has anyone actually found a legit cheapo set that doesn't mess up the basics?