Thanks for so many comments and so much input from the previous post. I have tried to read through all of the comments, weigh the different films and their credentials and come up with a list for people to vote on. The list is going to be broken down into different categories to help it make it easier to compare similar movies.
First, however, are movies that we talked about that don’t make the list.
Princess Bride (we will try and forget who mentioned this)
Caddyshack (too good, too classic, not bad enough)
Batman (it was epic when it came out)
Ground Hog Day (come on people this created a culturally recognized reference for any forthcoming movie about being trapped in time)
Jon Hughes Films (They are dated but they made huge stars out of Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez and more..)
Most Jon Cusack films (Come on show the love for Jon he is an entertaining actor, some of his stuff is bad, but plenty of it is good)
Terminator (Once again seems a little dated but come on this movie was absolutely monstrously huge when it came out. I remember waiting in line for an our on the 4th of July to see the second one. Too good and too powerful in our culture to qualify)
Other limiting criteria:
I have tried to limit the number of finalists from a particular actor or actress, but some people just deserve to be on this list multiple times.
Certain genres lend themselves to this list more than others so not all genres will be represented equally.
I have been scanning late night movies on USA, TNT, TBS, and VS to see what has been playing. Evidently we didn’t give Steven Segal nearly enough credit for being a terrible actor.
Without Further Ado….
Comedies – Teen Movies
Bill and Tedd’s Excellent Adventure
Howard the Duck
Police Academy
Old School (new addition to the list that I watched twice this weekend on cable. The cable version is even more watchable.)
Clueless
Friday
Drama-Mystery-Weird Movies
Heathers
Big Trouble in Little China
White Men Can’t Jump
Fletch
Action – SciFi
Highlander
Bloodsport
Tremors
Blade
Predator
Over the Top
Demolition Man
Legend
Speed
Red Dawn
Roadhouse
Bad Boys (How did we leave this out the first time around)
Con Air
That is a long list, but there are a lot of good candidates. Let’s hear your votes. I encourage you to choose only one movie from each category and to state your case for why it is the Best Bad Movie of all time
December 11, 2008 at 10:54 am
Comedy- Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
Drama/Mystery/Weird- Heathers
Action/Sci Fi- Demolition Man
December 11, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Comedy – Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
Action – Demolition Man
I have no vote for the other category.
See previous comments for arguments for these awesomely bad movies.
December 12, 2008 at 10:53 am
At this point Bill and Ted’s and demolition man are going to have to battle it out if no one else is going to comment. For my money the list goes…
Comedy – Bill and Ted’s
Mystery – Fletch (6′ 4″, 6′ 9″ with the afro)
Action – Highlander
December 12, 2008 at 10:15 pm
A Case for Christ…
A Case for Faith…
A Case for Christmas…
Now… A Case for Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
What more can I say about a movie that brought us Bill S. Preston, Esquire and Ted “Theodore” Logan
It had George Carlin
A phone booth
A mom who was a senior when they were freshman
and royal ugly dudes
As well as such memorable lines as:
Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
Want a twinkie, Genghis Khan?
Who was Joan of Arc? – Noah’s wife
and…You killed Ted, you medieval dickweed!
As for the criteria named by our illustrious host:
That guy – Keanu Reeves – He is both a box office draw (I guess), and “that guy”
Plot – is there something more ludicrous than two high school idiots traveling through time in a phone booth to bring peace to the world through their garage band’s music?
Dialogue – (notes above)
TNT applies only to 90′s action movies – B&TEA is too old
Datedness – obviously, but not in a cool way like a John Hughes movie – in an awkward way that you don’t want to tell your friends you secretly bought this on DVD when you saw it on sale at Wal-Mart (autobiographical?)
Bonus – it spurred a remake with the two main characters, and laid the groundwork for Jay and Silent Bob, as well as Superbad
I can’t believe I put this much thought into this…
December 13, 2008 at 7:24 am
If you vote for Bill and Ted is that also a vote for that ridiculous sequel?
And what in the world is Big Trouble in Little China.
December 14, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Big Trouble in Little China is a classic Kurt Russel action movie. It is ridiculous and awesome.
December 14, 2008 at 7:46 pm
The problem, I realized, in retrospect, is that BTLC actually does what it does…classic B Movie pulp film with kung fu influences…perfectly, as most anything Carpenter does tends to be. So in exactly the same way that Mars Attacks was MEANT to be as bad as it was, and did it perfectly, I can’t really count BTLC on the list, personally.
Demolition Man, OTOH, was intended to be a blockbuster thingy, and was just incredibly bad, train wreck, can’t tear my eyes away bad, and yet is incredibly fun to watch repeatedly.