Introduction to bad movies

[LordGraal]

I wonder if gen-z watch and enjoy modern bad movies.

A couple of YT channels I watch would suggest some do.  And I wonder what the age demographic for Asylum movies is.

[pacman000]

I'm curious how people got into them.

I've always liked sci-fi stuff. A lot of old sci-fi films were B-films, done with limited budgets. Limited budgets often resulted in lower-quality films, but I still liked the imagination, so here I am.

There used to be a ton of Bad & B-Movie sites; if you looked up "Star Wars Ripoff", "dinosaur films", "Monster Movies" or other similar terms, because you wanted something sci-fi-ish, you wound up on them. Today, Google favors larger sites; if you tried those terms today you'd probably wind up on IMDb or Letterboxed or Rotten Tomatoes today.

Bob Burns' book, It Came from Bob's Basement also helped; it's a history of AIP's early years, told from the perspective of a collector who knew knew Paul Blaisdell, the guy who made/played a bunch of their monsters.

[LordGraal]

I'm curious how people got into them.

I've always liked sci-fi stuff. A lot of old sci-fi films were B-films, done with limited budgets. Limited budgets often resulted in lower-quality films, but I still liked the imagination, so here I am.

There used to be a ton of Bad & B-Movie sites; if you looked up "Star Wars Ripoff", "dinosaur films", "Monster Movies" or other similar terms, because you wanted something sci-fi-ish, you wound up on them. Today, Google favors larger sites; if you tried those terms today you'd probably wind up on IMDb or Letterboxed or Rotten Tomatoes today.

Bob Burns' book, It Came from Bob's Basement also helped; it's a history of AIP's early years, told from the perspective of a collector who knew knew Paul Blaisdell, the guy who made/played a bunch of their monsters.

Yes the 50's was flooded with B-movies and I agree about the imagination whatever the decade.  I remember watching the 1930's and 40's serials on TV in the 80's and still really enjoying them.

Searching for "Star Wars Ripoff" still brings up some interesting results on the first pages.  Not that I'm defending Google.

I liked the Golden Turkey Awards book and that was part of my introduction to bad films.  But when it went onto TV I was disapponted with the pantomime presentation of it.

[Dr. Whom]

I've always been a great SF/Fantasy/Monster fan, and it sort of grew out of watching Dr. Who (the Tom Baker years), Space 1999, Blake's 7, together with reruns of Star Trek TOS and the Addams Family. Watching just about anything that had a spaceship or a monster in it, you sort of naturally drifted into B-movie territory.

Hearing Cheepnis by Frank Zappa helped me to articulate what I liked about these things. So, here I am.

[LordGraal]

I've always been a great SF/Fantasy/Monster fan, and it sort of grew out of watching Dr. Who (the Tom Baker years), Space 1999, Blake's 7, together with reruns of Star Trek TOS and the Addams Family. Watching just about anything that had a spaceship or a monster in it

I grew up the same. 

you sort of naturally drifted into B-movie territory.

Particularly when home video came out.  Distributors were probably looking for anything to put out so there were some real gems available that we'd probably never see otherwise.  Especially the Italian movies.

[RCMerchant]

I'm curious how people got into them.

There used to be a ton of Bad & B-Movie sites; if you looked up "Star Wars Ripoff", "dinosaur films", "Monster Movies" or other similar terms, because you wanted something sci-fi-ish, you wound up on them. Today, Google favors larger sites; if you tried those terms today you'd probably wind up on IMDb or Letterboxed or Rotten Tomatoes today.

Bob Burns' book, It Came from Bob's Basement also helped; it's a history of AIP's early years, told from the perspective of a collector who knew knew Paul Blaisdell, the guy who made/played a bunch of their monsters.

I liked the Golden Turkey Awards book and that was part of my introduction to bad films.  But when it went onto TV I was disapponted with the pantomime presentation of it.

I never liked that book or it's authors. It seemed way to condescending and glib. And it would be nice if the authors actually watched some of the films they panned.

[M.10rda]

I never liked that book or it's authors. It seemed way to condescending and glib. And it would be nice if the authors actually watched some of the films they panned.

You said it. The Medveds were early adopters of the "Decide on a position and then figure out how to justify it without doing much or any research" style of media punditry. Also the "Punch down on easy targets" style. Michael continued doing that for many decades and continued those bad habits beyond just movies. Maybe he's still doing it if he's unfortunately alive somewhere...

[Rev. Powell]

Yeah, the Medveds were, in a lot of ways, terrible. (They were early trolls, listing the beloved arthousse classic "Last Year at Marienbad" as one of the worst movies ever made.) We still owe them a debt for basically inventing the "so-bad-its-good" genre; or at least, being the first ones to codify it.

[LordGraal]

It seemed way to condescending and glib.

That's exactly how I found the TV shows looking back and I lost interest in the Medveds activities.  The films were something to take the mickey out of without showing any respect it seemed.  I haven't read the book for decades but I don't remember it being as bad.

I'm not sure whether we can name YouTube channels on here but the ones I watch show far more respect and understanding of the bad films they review.