I came here to mention this. Altho it also works as a bad adventure film or just camp.
The rumor is that the entire promised sequle had been shot, but then destroyed after the poor reviews and box office. Never edited. Sigh.
I’m not sure if this is precisely what the OP is looking for, but the crowned king of unintentional comedies, at least in recent years, has got to be Tommy Wiseau’s The Room.
I haven’t seen it, but I’ve heard plenty about it and have more than enough info that I know I never want to see it. Several sites have debated whether this movie is intentionally bad-funny or unintentionally so, and I’ve seen it top the list at least once when this kind of question was asked on Reddit. For the longest time I thought it was a Tim & Eric creation, as it had been featured on Adult Swim and seemed to be their kind of anti-humor. It turns out that they did do an episode that featured clips from The Room, but I don’t believe they had prior association.
One of the actresses did an AMA on Reddit and assured everyone that Wiseau is entirely earnest in his film-making. IIRC She was unable or unwilling to speculate on what his “deal” is, other than to say he was a very sweet person.
Aside from the fact that his films are unintentionally funny, he exceptionally good? Isn’t that like saying that despite the fact that the movies he makes are bad, he’s good at making movies?
Wikipedia lists it as a satirical thriller. I do think the comedy is more or less intentional.
Evil Dead 2 is kind of similar, in that it isn’t a horror movie for the most part. It’s a comedy that goes way far into the horror genre.
This was my first thought when I saw the subject line because I actually wasted about 30 minutes of my time tonight watching this. I only watched that long because I could not figure out if it was supposed to be a comedy and thought maybe it would become clear that it was and start being funny. It did not.
Again, the Rifftrax audio does make it nice. I thought it was funny on its own, but you may need Rifftrax to get through it.
No – there’s much more to making movies than “It’s Good/Bad”. He can write good dialogue, set a scene (in dialogue) set up a memorable and significant scene in camera, tell a compelling story, foreshadow, and set mood. He can also get people to agree to put up money to make, advertise, and distribute his work, which is a major and overlooked facet of being a good filmmmaker.
Now the problem is that, since Unbreakable (I would personally say since The Sixth Sense, but I recognize the good features of that film, even though I don’t like it), he’s been giving us films that are alright up to a point, but then have the audiences howling in despair at the end. I think a lot of folks complaining about Signs or The Village would not be doing that if they’d ended differently*.
Of course, with Lady in the Water and The Happening it’s more than just the end. And I’ve been told that The Last Airbender was disappointing all the way through, too.
But I can’t deny that Shyamalan is awesomely talented in most of the areas that define a filmmaker. He just needs someone else to write his scripts and to reign in his WTF concepts.
*I realize that the ending is pretty much inherent in the ideas that mak up the rest of the story, but i stand by the statement. If these movies didn’t have such absurd ideas at the end, the audiences would go away happier.
I just saw Reservoir Dogs for the first time. Was laughing my ass off, the characters were such violent idiots. Was I supposed to be laughing?
I thought the OP meant movies that were marketed as serious non-comedic films but were done so poorly that they there is no way someone could have shot the movie with the intent of it not being a comedy.
Not black comedies. The Room and Birdemic being good examples.
Reefer Madness, seriously the funniest unintentional satire ever made.
Yeah, it’s a Quentin Tarantino movie. It’s supposed to be funny and violent.
You have it basically. Not all movies done super poorly are fit for my description, just ones that actually make you laugh, like the new Wickerman or Battlefield Earth.
It’s a parody of every “today’s young people have lost touch with any sense of purpose or morality” movie ever done. The performances are intentionally overwrought and hammy and it’s a film that 15-25 year olds would think is full of righteous profundity. I know I did. Watching it as a mature adult with an understanding of its context, I can only laugh. Admittedly everything Crispin Glover says was hilarious even back in the day, as was Keanu Reeve’s immortal insult to his mother’s boyfriend, whom he accuses of mooching off the family: “The only reason you stay here is so you can fuck my mother and eat her food. Motherfucker! Food Eater!”
Reading a lot of these answers, the OP may as well have asked “Which movies just barely clipped the top of your head?”
What were the comedic moments of The Shawshank Redemption?
Not actually a movie, but I think most episodes of Charmed work this way. The good ones (mostly in season 3) are legitimately good, but the bad ones are hilarious, and it makes the whole thing feel deliciously campy.
BTW, I’ve started a companion thread based on comments in this thread: Intentional comedies you thought were serious (when you first saw them).
I’d like to nominate the recent Liberace biopic movie that aired on HBO (or Showtime?) Name eludes me at the moment. But I & a couple of friends sat down to watch it when it premiered. We went about 10 minutes before we were devolving into giggles and couldn’t stop. It was kind of too bad because Matt Damon and Michael Douglas were doing their damned-est to give the story some gravitas, but the source material was just too goofy.
Funniest scene by far was Matt Damon sleeping over the first night, waking up in the morning and seeing Douglas leering at him in a creepy, creepy Liberace-like way. None of us could get it back after that.
I’m pretty sure that the OP meant for this to include only films that were meant to be taken seriously, but ended up being humorous, as opposed to darkly humorous movies.
It is in that spirit, that I give you…
The Arrogant (NSFW trailer). For months after watching this, “I am my own king! My own god!” was sort of a catch phrase in my circle. The chopping the obviously fake cat in half scene was just a bonus. Plus, it’s an erotic thriller starring Gary Graham! How could that ever go wrong?
Robot Jox. Because Gary Graham is awesomely bad. This clip is kind of long, but only because it is the most boring fight between giant robots that you could ever imagine. Seriously… two giant robots, face to face, and they shoot… the ground. If you can’t make it through the terrible giant robot fight, fast-forward to 6:29, and bathe yourself in Gary Graham’s emotional response to the horror that he has wrought!
And, finally, we have Zandalee. Just close your eyes and imagine… an erotic thriller starring Judge Reinhold and Nicolas Cage… and they both have mustaches… and mullets… Congratulations! You just made Zandalee!
Shoot 'em Up A parody of well, shoot 'em up movies. And it is awesome.
It’s a TV show not a movie, but Walker Texas Ranger is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. It takes itself so seriously, but it couldn’t possibly be more ridiculous. It’s as if it was written by a home schooled ten year old boy and his illiterate grandmother who both never left their tiny rural hometown and learned everything about the world from watching other bad movies and TV shows.
Some of the movies mentioned in this thread, like Reservoir Dogs or American Psycho, were intentional comedies, or at least had intentional comedic moments.
Showgirls - one of the greatest comedies ever made. With boobies!