I: How to Qualify Badness
What is the worst movie you have ever seen? Perhaps you had a sixth grade history teacher, who, during your unit on the 1950s, showed you a B-movie called The Brain That Wouldn’t Die in an attempt to get the period off to grade. It could have been an action movie that’s plot existed only to string together several large scenes of urban destruction. Maybe this movie was a disappointing remake of a franchise you loved as a child. Possibly, it was an attempt to cash in on a recent fad – vampires, zombies, creatures from the black lagoon, etc. This movie might’ve been an attempted exploration of romantic love that just reminded you of everything that sucks about relationships. The characters could have been flat, the acting wooden, the special effects Paper-Mache. It could have been a comedy that should have been able to make you laugh and made you cry instead, or it could have been a drama that did the opposite. But whatever it was, it failed to engage you in some way.
For the past three years, I have been watching bad movies and writing about them for fun. And what I’ve found is that criticism is mainly difficult because it’s hard to compare different sorts of movies. It can be daunting at times. Even when you lump movies together into genres, each one individually is still influenced by a unique set of economic realities, artistic sensibilities, and cultural context. There are as many different kinds of movies as there are movies, so a rigorous set of critical criteria is necessary.
The variables going into a movie’s Objective Badness are frustratingly complex. Does it matter what the auteur intended for the movie to be? Does a cocky director hurt his cause, and does a humble one help his? How much does the exposure of the movie, and its economic success or failure, play into its quality? Should a cheaply-made movie be treated on an equal level with a movie that has had significant financial backing? Is it possible for a movie hated by critics to be good, simply on the basis of its populist appeal? And does it matter just how painful the thing is to sit through?
I’d argue that there’s not really a formula for this– pretty much every factor has to be taken into account. Context is essentially unavoidable during criticism.
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