Guilty Pleasures: 10 Terrible Movies That Kind of Rock
Steve Barton
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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.
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