# Movie so bad you had to keep watching **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [November 18, 2020, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-so-bad-you-had-to-keep-watching/925848 "2020-11-18T02:11:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2020, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-so-bad-you-had-to-keep-watching/925848/102 "2020-12-13T20:22:42Z")
> [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](#): > > “I’VE COME FOR YOUR HEAD, FAT MAAAAAANNN!!!” (Incidentally, Mel is at his normal weight throughout.) This was the part that killed me. They keep referring to Gibson as fat - in fact, he refers to himself as fat - and he isn’t fat. He is quite obviously basically the same size he’s always been. My girlfriend and I watched it last week in the hopes of having a terrible movie to make fun of. We certainly got a terrible movie but it was just kind of confusing and pointless. The movie didn’t seem to know what it was trying to be. Was it a black comedy? A Christmas movie? A nightmarish farce? I couldn’t tell; the movie couldn’t get a consistent theme kept up for ten minutes. ---
**Author:** ![Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/face_intentionally_left_blank/32/288_2.png) [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2020, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-so-bad-you-had-to-keep-watching/925848/103 "2020-12-14T00:50:37Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > My girlfriend and I watched it last week in the hopes of having a terrible movie to make fun of. We certainly got a terrible movie but it was just kind of confusing and pointless. The movie didn’t seem to know what it was trying to be. Was it a black comedy? A Christmas movie? A nightmarish farce? I couldn’t tell; the movie couldn’t get a consistent theme kept up for ten minutes. I haven’t been able to make heads or tails of it either. If it’s a black comedy, it’s utterly lacking in comedy. If it’s a nightmarish farce, where’s the farce? They dwelled on how bad kids were nowadays. The movie had Santa make a deal with the US military to help make weapons, and that plot went nowhere except to a payday for Santa. Santa drinks, smokes cigars, has a gun collection and enjoys shooting. He’s a tough guy trying to do good by his (extended) family, and is put upon/let down by the evil world. By the end of the movie, he’s had enough. He fights the assassin, and says he will be more proactive in the future. “The Fat Man has his eye on you, kid.” Maybe this was a disjointed, scattergun attempt at a Republican Santa, in the same vein as Republican Jesus. ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2020, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-so-bad-you-had-to-keep-watching/925848/104 "2020-12-14T01:48:28Z")
I don’t know if it counts as a movie, but I currently have _Recipe for Seduction_ on my DVR. I’ll report back once I’ve watched (or tried to watch) it. I did sit through the entire Grumpy Cat movie. It didn’t take itself too seriously, and wasn’t awful except for the inexplicable operating room scene. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2020, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-so-bad-you-had-to-keep-watching/925848/105 "2020-12-15T19:58:47Z")
> [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](#): > > They dwelled on how bad kids were nowadays. The problem with this one - aside from the fact it’s a complaint that 1. Seems more suited to 1987, when youth crime was rising, than 2020, and 2. Missed the mark even in that regards by presenting bad kids as violent in an out of touch, old timey way, shooting at someone with a rifle … is that we don’t SEE any of this. We only see Santa bitch about it. The only kids we see are the bad kid and the perfectly nice, seemingly hard working girl he kidnaps. The other kids at the science fair all seemed okay. Where are all these bad kids? This is Cinema 101. Show, don’t tell. They told instead of showing and, hell, it was hearsay. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2020, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-so-bad-you-had-to-keep-watching/925848/106 "2020-12-16T14:59:25Z")
The 1994 classic videogame movie - Street Fighter. JCVD, Kylie Minogue, Wes Studi, Ming-Na Wen are wonderfully absurd and over the top. But once the great Raul Julia starts chewing his way through the culturally appropriated pan-Asian scenery, I can’t stop watching. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2020, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-so-bad-you-had-to-keep-watching/925848/107 "2020-12-16T15:00:16Z")
Reminds me of the fake Christmas movie from Scrooged: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/g0QVJOEwXac/hqdefault.jpg "The Night the Reindeer Died") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0QVJOEwXac) ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-so-bad-you-had-to-keep-watching/925848/108 "2020-12-22T02:19:57Z")
Yesterday, I finally saw something I’ve been hearing about my entire life. Well, not as a baby (I’m a little older than Star Wars) but as long as I can remember anything at all. At long last, I saw the [Star Wars Holiday Special](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Holiday_Special) (Link to Wikipedia entry). It’s very well known for being bad and that reputation is totally deserved. It was honestly difficult to get through but I had to since I consider myself a casual fan and had a lot of the toys as a kid. It’s long (over 90 mins), Bea Arthur & Carrie Fisher (among others) sing songs for some reason, the main characters are unintelligible Wookies, Mark Hamill phones it in, the technology depicted hasn’t aged well. Just terrible. Search ‘Star Wars Holiday Special, The (1978) [Nice Copy]’ for an eyeful of blech. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-so-bad-you-had-to-keep-watching/925848/109 "2020-12-22T10:00:58Z")
> [@jnglmassiv](#): > > Yesterday, I finally saw something I’ve been hearing about my entire life. Well, not as a baby (I’m a little older than Star Wars) but as long as I can remember anything at all. At long last, I saw the [Star Wars Holiday Special](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Holiday_Special) (Link to Wikipedia entry). It’s very well known for being bad and that reputation is totally deserved. It was honestly difficult to get through but I had to since I consider myself a casual fan and had a lot of the toys as a kid. It’s long (over 90 mins), Bea Arthur & Carrie Fisher (among others) sing songs for some reason, the main characters are unintelligible Wookies, Mark Hamill phones it in, the technology depicted hasn’t aged well. Just terrible. As always, [there’s an xkcd for that](https://xkcd.com/653/). ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-so-bad-you-had-to-keep-watching/925848/110 "2020-12-22T10:29:04Z")
I just watched a double feature of _Porn Shoot Massacre_ and Ed Wood Jr.'s _Orgy Of The Dead_. You know that drug that erases short term memory? I could really use a dose or two right now. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-so-bad-you-had-to-keep-watching/925848/111 "2020-12-22T10:51:29Z")
this weekend on syfy I watched "satan clause is coming to town " The premise seemed to be that a little girl had an unhappy Xmas and she wrote some hate mail asking for revenge to santa … Well the girl couldnt spell so somehow santa became satan The catch was she lived/grew up in one of those obnoxious christmas every day towns you only see in tv movies and came back as a bitter sarcastic drunk and swearing reporter and satan still had her letter and thought it was time to fufill it … What it ended up being was a gory slightly amusing over the top parody that took shots at every lifetime/hallmark xmas movie trope ever made in the last 20 minutes for Example the town typeA beauty queen who happened to have recorded a innuendo filled xmas song (and was revealed to be the mayor) that played almost 24/7 well the horny teen couple who worked in the coffee shot was bitching about it so satan clause jacked it up to 11 and compelled the pair to jab candy canes in their ears so deep and hard that they killed them selves with a explosion of blood and at the end after she mended some of her ways and they won and everyone was brought back to life she didnt go with the overly obvious love interest saying he was too bland and she hated his kid … jumped on another younger guy and turned to the mayor asking " hey just in case i get bored do you “swing”? and she says back " yeah leave ne your number " ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-so-bad-you-had-to-keep-watching/925848/112 "2020-12-22T10:58:33Z")
sorry it was called "letters to satan claus here’s something on it : > **[SYFY Releases New Letters to Satan Claus Trailer](https://comicbook.com/movies/news/letters-to-satan-claus-trailers-syfy-horror-movie-parody-christmas-holidays/)** > > For some, the notion of a man sneaking into your house at night while you're asleep ignites joy \[...\] I haven’t seen something so dumb since “moose 2 the movie” ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-so-bad-you-had-to-keep-watching/925848/113 "2020-12-22T15:16:51Z")
> [@jnglmassiv](#): > > Star Wars Holiday Special > [@Gyrate](#): > > As always, [there’s an xkcd for that](https://xkcd.com/653/). And there’s a shout-out in “[White & Nerdy](https://youtu.be/N9qYF9DZPdw)”. (2:22 - 2:32) ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-so-bad-you-had-to-keep-watching/925848/114 "2020-12-22T15:46:40Z")
> [@jnglmassiv](#): > > For reasons I won’t detail, after a sporting event I was watching ended, the video feed changed to a movie already in progress: Expendables 3. I really don’t watch movies but I noticed some familiar faces and then some more. It was a terrible shoot 'em up movie but a really solid cast. The Expendables series are the closest thing we have to the old blockbusters with Heston, George Kennedy, etc where they drag out every name actor they can book. Every Expendable adds a few more action stars. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-so-bad-you-had-to-keep-watching/925848/115 "2020-12-22T16:12:56Z")
> [@Yookeroo](#): > > Cats (2019) I actually watched this last week, just to see if it lived up to its reputation. It certainly did, but I ended up enjoying it just for its strangeness. I saw the original production on Broadway, which worked despite the goofy premise because of the immediacy of the dancers bounding about in person. In this case, filming the stage show would have been far better than the weird CGI mess they attempted. It had spectacular sets and production numbers, but couldn’t overcome the uncanny valley. It wasn’t so much the faces, but the hybrid human-cat bodies were extremely creepy. I couldn’t decide whether [Rebel Wilson’s fat cat](https://img.cinemablend.com/filter:scale/quill/a/e/8/e/5/6/ae8e561e380abdf9cd51fca093467f3b4ee52162.jpg?fw=1200) or [Idris Elba’s sleek ca](https://e3.365dm.com/19/11/2048x1152/skynews-idris-elba-cats_4841063.jpg)t were more disquieting. And why did the girl cats have breasts? (That’s a rhetorical question. I know the answer.) And CGI defeats the whole purpose of having human dancers in the first place. Dance numbers show off the actual physical prowess and skill of the dancers. But then they do a CGI move that is physically impossible for any human, devaluing the actual moves we’ve seen before. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-so-bad-you-had-to-keep-watching/925848/116 "2020-12-22T16:32:36Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I ended up enjoying it just for its strangeness. Likewise. > [@Colibri](#): > > It had spectacular sets and production numbers, but couldn’t overcome the uncanny valley. It wasn’t so much the faces, but the hybrid human-cat bodies were extremely creepy. They didn’t fall into the uncanny valley for me; they all reminded me of a [certain skunk](https://zompist.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/pogo-comparison.png) instead. > [@Colibri](#): > > And why did the girl cats have breasts? ['Course, they do on stage as well.](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/07/24/arts/06ALW2/24cats-lead-videoSixteenByNineJumbo1600-v2.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-so-bad-you-had-to-keep-watching/925848/117 "2020-12-22T17:12:02Z")
I tried watching Cats (I think it was on HBO or Showtime) but was distracted trying to identify the big-time actors playing the cats and gave up because the whole thing was so silly. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-so-bad-you-had-to-keep-watching/925848/118 "2020-12-22T17:33:10Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > In this case, filming the stage show would have been far better than the weird CGI mess they attempted. [They did that already](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cats_(1998_film)). I have a copy of it. It’s perfectly fine, if slightly dated. > [@Colibri](#): > > It had spectacular sets and production numbers, but couldn’t overcome the uncanny valley. It wasn’t so much the faces, but the hybrid human-cat bodies were extremely creepy. And they kept changing relative size compared to the surroundings. It was just odd. > [@Colibri](#): > > And CGI defeats the whole purpose of having human dancers in the first place. Dance numbers show off the actual physical prowess and skill of the dancers. But then they do a CGI move that is physically impossible for any human, devaluing the actual moves we’ve seen before. This, I think, is the biggest sin. _Cats_ is entirely a song-and-dance show. It was never about the plot. Putting in people who aren’t top-level singers and dancers and then using technology to “fix” them defeats the entire purpose of the show. Do I hate the new film? Eh. But I didn’t like it. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-so-bad-you-had-to-keep-watching/925848/119 "2020-12-22T18:00:53Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > And they kept changing relative size compared to the surroundings. It was just odd. Yeah, that was weird too. Sometimes the cats were the appropriate size for their environment, sometimes they looked tiny. And the mice and roaches were smaller than they should have been compared to cats, but I think they kept them small in order to not gross people out. > [@](#): > > This, I think, is the biggest sin. _Cats_ is entirely a song-and-dance show. It was never about the plot. Putting in people who aren’t top-level singers and dancers and then using technology to “fix” them defeats the entire purpose of the show. The reverse sin was bringing in Francesca Hayward, a Principal Ballerina at the Royal Ballet, to play Victoria the White Cat. She can dance brilliantly, but she’s not an actress. This was basically her first acting role in a film, and she was nominated as Worst Actress at the Razzies. (She didn’t “win,” although Rebel Wilson and James Corden did for supporting roles.) I was also kind of nonplussed to discover she was biracial (half Kenyan), and so was [basically playing the role in whiteface,](https://i.insider.com/5d31d2ebb44ce70d42248d90?width=1100&format=jpeg&auto=webp) something that received some controversy. But it’s hard to get around when the role is actually called “The White Cat.” ---
**Author:** ![CaptMurdock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/captmurdock/32/11736_2.png) [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-so-bad-you-had-to-keep-watching/925848/120 "2021-01-14T02:05:57Z")
Try this on a double bill with _KISS Meets The Phantom of the Park_. Only do this if you don’t have to be at work for at least three or four days and need the time to recover. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-so-bad-you-had-to-keep-watching/925848/121 "2021-01-14T03:32:06Z")
The “Sharknado” series did the same thing, and also added plenty of 1980s musicians. My favorite moment in all the ones I’ve seen was in “Sharknado 2”, when ZZ Top were extras in a panicked subway scene. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-so-bad-you-had-to-keep-watching/925848.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-so-bad-you-had-to-keep-watching/925848.md?page=7)