Terrible, terrible Movies, why bother?

Greg Hook

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For anyone with a Netflix, Amazon or Now TV subscription, you will have undoubtably seen a massive list of movies available of which the majority are complete and utter garbage.

I’m not talking about movies that should have been good but turned out bad, it’s the ‘straight to video’ guff that usually features one person you may vaguely have heard about any many others you won’t have a clue about.

The whole industry behind these sort of movies I find interesting. Do people set out to make something that is garbage? Do they know at the start that this is a piece of crap and are just churning it out to make a living? Do these movies ever make any money?
 
I'm astounded by some of the stuff that gets made, who in their right mind agrees to finance some of the stuff that ends up on screen?

There must be so many great scripts out there being passed over while bland rubbish gets made.
 
Bit life would be much duller without the Sharknado movies and all those other movies on the SciFi channel :)
 
I think their alway has been this kind of movie,mainly put out as an B movie,to the attraction of the main movie at cinema in the old days,now they just go straight to video or Netflix etc :)
 
They get made because believe it or not, they have an audience.

I work with a middle age guy that has the worst taste in films I've ever witnessed, he laps this crap up like it's going out of fashion. If he's watching a slow burner like Heat or No Country for Old Men, he'll actually fast forward until he sees some action, I shit you not.
 
Also known as the channel 5 afternoon movie[emoji33]
 
Can't beat a bit of afternoon SyFy crap. :smashin:
 
There is a difference in my mind between "bad" films (Asylum productions, all of Uwe Boll's output) and joyless, cynical and appallingly made trash that populates so much of Amazon Prime's library (particularly the horror selection).

There is zero fun to be had with many of them - not even the often amusing "what were they thinking?!" element that you can often get from "bad" films... they're simply downright unwatchable and have no redeeming qualities at all.

I appreciate that bad films attract a certain market (raises hand) but as for this other stuff... I have no idea.
 
There are actually people who watch these kind of B,C,Z grade movies. I used to actually enjoy them when I was a kid, and video shops were at their peak - I'd happily rent a DTV title as much as your Predators and Robocops. I'm more selective these days though. ;)
 
There are actually people who watch these kind of B,C,Z grade movies. I used to actually enjoy them when I was a kid, and video shops were at their peak - I'd happily rent a DTV title as much as your Predators and Robocops. I'm more selective these days though. ;)
Yes Bruce
 
As most others have said, these films have always been around in various forms or other, but due to streaming services like Netflix and stuff, it feels like there is lot more out there than there has ever been.

They are pretty much made for the lowest common denominator and truth be told, they are thriving so they would be silly to not take advantage of people like that. We have to remember that for the most part while this is a creative industry, it is still just that - an industry - and one that simply thrives on profits. If the numbers show up the way they want to, they'll do the same thing again and again and again until audience members mature and demand more interesting content.
 
They get made cus there cheap to make have an audience and earn a bit of money .

Who would of thunk it that the director of Bad Taste would go onto the LotR trilogy .

Cus sometimes they also find talent.
 
Asylum have never made a loss on a film they've made. If they do, they go bust :eek:
 
What annoys me more with Amazon isn't just the endless junk movies, it that almost anything worth watching is an expensive rent or buy on top of your prime sub.
While I can just about stomach renting something now and then, I do deeply resent 'buying' something at a price that often higher than a blu-ray when all you get is the right to stream it (at dubious quality) and download a poor transcode it to a very limited range of devices (NAS for eg is a strict no no). If I could download a original quality version to my NAS, then I would be OK with this 'buying'.

This used to annoy me with sky as well when they started to charge to 'rent' for almost any decent movie rather than just movies that had recently come out as was the case in their earlier days.

While Netflix is more expensive, at least it includes everything they stream. And yes a lot of it is garbage as well. They at least seem to me to have the most watchable content.

TBH most of the problem I have with a lot of the content on Netflix and Amazon isn't the subject or even the filming, it the utterly bland actors that breath no life into their characters even when the subject should have been an interesting story.

My other pet hate these days is this fashion of trying to be suspenseful by simply making everything really dark visually and HDR/DV only seems to encourage them to exaggerate this even more. You get scenes where there is bright sunshine outside visible through a large windows and yet the actual inside scene still looks like it was filmed in the middle of the night during a power cut.
 
The reason these films are made is so the likes of Netflix and Amazon can to pad out their catalogues. If they just relied on mainstream films there wouldn't much on there. From their point of view it's better to have several hundreds of films available to stream than a couple of hundreds. It's the same reason these films were made in the past, to help fill the shelves of video stores.
 
The reason these films are made is so the likes of Netflix and Amazon can to pad out their catalogues. If they just relied on mainstream films there wouldn't much on there. From their point of view it's better to have several hundreds of films available to stream than a couple of hundreds. It's the same reason these films were made in the past, to help fill the shelves of video stores.

They could have saved everyone a lot of time and trouble just by having empty boxes with a special ESRB rating of 'this sux - avoid' :)
 
They could have saved everyone a lot of time and trouble just by having empty boxes with a special ESRB rating of 'this sux - avoid' :)
True, but as others have said, they do have an audience.
 
There are actually people who watch these kind of B,C,Z grade movies. I used to actually enjoy them when I was a kid, and video shops were at their peak - I'd happily rent a DTV title as much as your Predators and Robocops. I'm more selective these days though. ;)
All it took was VHS cover art like this, and I was already sold! Oh , the joys of a trip to the video shop...:)

upload_2017-11-10_8-58-40.jpeg
upload_2017-11-10_8-59-18.jpeg
upload_2017-11-10_8-59-59.jpeg
 
The Room was a special (but not unique) case of a film financed/produced by one person. In fairness, he wanted to make a film with his friends. He had the money so why not? And who are we to judge. Where is the film we made that's better?

Other films just have a niche audience. RedLetterMedia never set out to make a masterpiece, or any money, with Space Cop and I dare say most would think it utter rubbish but I enjoyed it.

In most other cases it's just a case of investors making a bit of a mistake; no one else involved really has much to lose, if someone gave me $5 million to make a film I'm not going to say no!

P.S. 'The Room' isn't even that bad. Production values are very reasonable, as is most of the acting. It makes sense, there is a story (though not a particularly inventive one). The script is weird, but then it was written by someone where English isn't his first language...unless you believe it was deliberately a comedy of course, then it's genius.
 
What annoys me more with Amazon isn't just the endless junk movies, it that almost anything worth watching is an expensive rent or buy on top of your prime sub.
While I can just about stomach renting something now and then, I do deeply resent 'buying' something at a price that often higher than a blu-ray when all you get is the right to stream it (at dubious quality) and download a poor transcode it to a very limited range of devices (NAS for eg is a strict no no). If I could download a original quality version to my NAS, then I would be OK with this 'buying'.

This used to annoy me with sky as well when they started to charge to 'rent' for almost any decent movie rather than just movies that had recently come out as was the case in their earlier days.

While Netflix is more expensive, at least it includes everything they stream. And yes a lot of it is garbage as well. They at least seem to me to have the most watchable content.

TBH most of the problem I have with a lot of the content on Netflix and Amazon isn't the subject or even the filming, it the utterly bland actors that breath no life into their characters even when the subject should have been an interesting story.

My other pet hate these days is this fashion of trying to be suspenseful by simply making everything really dark visually and HDR/DV only seems to encourage them to exaggerate this even more. You get scenes where there is bright sunshine outside visible through a large windows and yet the actual inside scene still looks like it was filmed in the middle of the night during a power cut.

I agree 100%. 110% almost except that the problem is the work 'content' in itself. There is no suggestion of art there. Lack of great directors and a mass produce mentality mean that we Netflix/Amazon and the likes are more quantity over quality.
 
P.S. 'The Room' isn't even that bad. Production values are very reasonable, as is most of the acting. It makes sense, there is a story (though not a particularly inventive one). The script is weird, but then it was written by someone where English isn't his first language...unless you believe it was deliberately a comedy of course, then it's genius.

No, no, no, no and no! I love The Room, been to see the group showings many times at the Prince Charles in London and it's great fun. But it doesn't have great production values, doesn't make sense, and definitely doesn't have any acting at all from what I can tell. And that's part of the fun. It's a terrible film, but one with a really interesting background story, and something worth experiencing with like-minded friends.
 

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