There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a miserable film. Just don’t tell your friends about it, or they’ll clown your ass until you lock yourself in your bedroom with a bottle of Jack, wiping away a fusion of sweat and tears, writing suicide notes.
Ready to be done with all the shame and your embarrassing habits once and for all? Despite the fact that you know, deep down, those buddies of yours have a handful of crap flicks that they themselves tune in to on a regular basis, they just happen to be smart enough to avoid airing that info out to their friends and associates. Clever bastards.
The truth is, sometimes we need brainless fodder. Intense films can weigh heavy on the mind, there’s no doubt about that. Ever watched Cannibal Holocaust? It’s an atrocious film that leaves the abdominal regions writhing in disgust. Ever seen Martyrs? While a genuinely ingraining piece of cinema, it’s so vivid and impacting that it summons legitimate feelings of poignancy. I love the film, but it’s an acquired piece, and it sure as shit doesn’t fiddle with the funny bone in the manner that a guilty pleasure pic does.
There’s room in the horror landscape for all assortments of films: serious, humorous, gory, desolate, and yes, the almighty guilty pleasure. It’s time to take a brief hiatus from the more penetrating offerings and focus on the movies that probably shouldn’t entertain but do so regardless. Here are 10 awesome guilty pleasure flicks perfectly suited to carry a beer-craving genre fanatic through a slow weekend.
Season of the Witch: There’s something strange going on with Nicolas Cage, and I believe it to be Jedi Mind Tricks. Really, he has this mystifying way of capturing the attention even when the last face you hope to look at is that of Nicolas Cage. Cage is one of the hokiest guys in the business, flat out. I’m not sure if he even takes any of his own onscreen insanity seriously anymore because his performances reflect a guy who is out to have nothing but a silly, good time rather than turn in an edgy, memorable showing. And still, a couple of his features remain magnetic. Take for example Season of the Witch (Drive Angry gets a nod as well), an abomination of a feature that captivates me at every turn. It looks miserably awesome, Cage is miserably awesome, and I just feel flat out miserable having to admit that I love it. All of it. Every last second of this stinker.
Constantine: Talk about defecating on an iconic comic book character. Nothing about Warner Brothers’ Constantine felt faithful to DC’s own Constantine. It felt as though the entire character had undergone a personality transplant. John’s smoking habit is even altered as a result. Anyone who thought they’d watch this movie and see Constantine smoke less than 7,000 cigarettes is out of their mind. And yet, that’s what happened, a bad habit victim of the Hollywood makeover. The CG looks awfully damn abysmal as well. To be entirely honest, I can’t remember how I felt about the visuals the first time I checked this one out back in ’05, but it hasn’t looked good to these peepers in years. But you know what? There’s something about Keanu Reeves’ one-note delivery that gets me, the insane, almost Matrix influenced action scenes are hypnotic, and both Shia LaBeouf and Peter Stormare deliver just the right supportive flare to win me over. The real John Constantine wouldn’t be too pleased with this one, but it’s got a place on my shelf.
House of Wax (2005): Jaume Collet-Serra’s House of Wax is nothing like André De Toth’s House of Wax. It’s also noticeably juvenile with some very, very sketchy screenwriting and a preposterous premise. Some of the acting is solid, and some is forgettable, which shouldn’t surprise anyone as the cast is a spotty amalgamation of rookie performers and annoying faces (Paris Hilton is at the forefront of this category). There isn’t a single thing about the picture that consumers can truly buy into, and that’s part of the reason the movie feels so weird. It’s unbelievable… but it’s enticing as all hell. Turn the movie on; you’ll probably find that you really want to see these characters killed. Really, homicide will compel you to sit through the film. And what the hell, if the death scenes can be done in creative fashion – something accomplished on a few occasions throughout the flick – all the more reason to sit down and tune in. Sometimes all we really need is a brainless slasher with a few performers that demand groans of disappointment. Funny how that works…
Doom: Having grown up during the heyday of both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, it was impossible to avoid addiction to kick-ass action flicks. It also ingrained in me an ability to immediately spot wildly entertaining action-oriented pictures, even if they don’t necessarily fit into the action category alone. Doom, despite the myriad of flaws you’ll find in it, is one of those flicks that gifts the action elements great nurturing but doesn’t neglect the obvious horror elements of the story — and it works to create one of those ludicrous movies that I’ll still be watching 10 years from now. I don’t need to tap into the laundry list of things gone wrong for the production; most will acknowledge the fact that it’s something of a dodgy piece of work, but I cannot get enough of a rapidly mutating Rock toeing the line with the rugged underdog Karl Urban. That faceoff alone propels this picture into the regions of unexpected greatness.
Jason X: Todd Farmer, who wrote the screenplay for Jason X, once told me he’d prepared a significantly darker script to be told for the tenth installment of the Friday the 13th franchise. Apparently studio execs weren’t crazy about the bleak tone, feeling compelled to pursue a lighter, goofier vibe designed to empower laughter over fear. Todd wasn’t overjoyed, but I think it might have been the best option for this pic. It seems unfathomable to imagine a straightforward, serious horror piece when you’ve shipped Voorhees into space. In the end the script adjustments led to some outrageous entertainment, a good 90 percent of the story is worthy of the facepalm, and… I loved it. This self-aware departure from the mythos worked because every player involved seemed to say, “Fuck it! If we’re going to make a cheesy movie, let’s at least make a blast of a cheesy movie.” Job well done. Regardless of all the disastrous decisions made, Jason X is still a mandatory good time.
Priest: Excessive digital abuse, completely ridiculous action sequences including showdowns on speeding trains, and wars with massive vampiric creatures… There’s no other way to say this: Priest isn’t a great film. It’s not even a good film. Some of the vocal exchanges are hard to swallow, and a few personalities feel poorly matched to the performers designated to depict them. (And what the hell happened to Brad Dourif? He’s got about 98 seconds of screen time!). If you caught Legion, you’ve already got a feel for the kind of production Priest is although I think it can be comfortably stated that Priest is a piece that’s been pushed two levels too far on the absurdity front. But it’s fucking awesome in its tragically bad assembly! Some of the potentially fabulous visuals that are massacred by computer devils from the mysterious planet Nerdulon will force laughter and a childlike desire to jump right into the cartoony mix. Paul Bettany is an amazing action hero, and his ability to approach horror with complete comfort goes a long way in stealing my heart.
AVP: Alien vs. Predator should likely be viewed while clinging to a chunk of cheese large enough to feed two families. This is a movie that welcomes the idea of being ridiculous but also – in a sense – contradicts itself by creating some dead serious and extremely dramatic scenes. We’re talking serious business here. 20th Century Fox did everything in its power to recreate the magic of vintage monster crossover movies, and it works astonishingly well! While AVP isn’t a Universal film, it has all the charm of a classic creature hybrid piece, and it is never, for one moment, boring. The special effects are a bit up and down, and we’re not gifted much in the way of memorable character development, but those deficiencies fall right out of the memory bank as we witness massive battle sequences between two of today’s most recognizable genre villains. Is it a great movie? Hell no. But it’s a lovable old brute of a pic!
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter: This had to be expected, right? Historical revisionist pieces can be awesome, but let’s be honest. From a technical stance they’re not often too impressive. There are countless unfathomable shots in Timur Bekmambetov’s adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith’s wild telling of one of the United States’ greatest Presidents, but these moments are (somehow) absolutely brilliant. Just the notion that Honest Abe once swung an axe with the intention of chopping vampires to bits is ludicrous as it is, but including the whole slavery element just takes this one to a completely different level. ALVH isn’t believable (despite the inclusion of a few actual facts) for a single second, but I’d be a liar if I said it wasn’t damn engaging watching this iconic figure obliterate supernatural bad guys. It’s terrible… but it’s great!
Dead Silence: It must be confessed that at the point in time when James Wan shot Dead Silence, he wasn’t as crafty with the camera as he is today, and he wasn’t nearly as well known. That’s okay; filmmakers grow and evolve. That said, Dead Silence, as campy as it can be at times, had some amazing moments. Sure it jumped the rails on a few occasions, and sure the grand twist isn’t remotely near believable, but you know what? There’s something extremely creepy about ventriloquists and eerie dummies. They scare the shit out of me, even when featured in a mediocre film with enough plot holes to fall through. But I’ll take those problems right along with the scares, and I’ll carry them with me as I plunge into the depths of average (at best) filmmaking, all the while praising this forgotten flick to high heaven.