16 April '08

In Defense of Terrible Films

The aesthetic of the absurd provides a clearer critical lens than most cinemaphiles are willing to gaze through. It's a shame, because for all the criticisms labeling the publishing world as conservative and befuddled, genre continues to rescue the book industry from the highbrow monopoly. Dumas’ swashbuckling masterpieces are hailed as such, Hammett is given his due, and McCarthy’s The Road is the first zombie novel to win a Pulitzer (and one of the most readable books published in the last ten years).

The canon of “important” films, however, has been penned by critics of the same mind, offshoots if not first cousins of the literary fetish clique in the publishing business. An important film is automatically hailed as a good film. A film that exposes forgotten injustice, that anchors itself in real horror rather than caricatures, is given critical leeway. And perhaps this is necessary. Perhaps this shows the value of art as education, the fictionalized form of truth that makes us let down our guard so the nasty stuff can seep in. 

But there should always be a place in the critical canon for terrible films that are fun to watch. Not shielded by irony or rationalized by contrarians looking for profundity where none exists. Just fun and terrible. By “fun” I mean hilarious and unbound by the constraints of act structure (start watching the film at any time and it’s just as enjoyable). By “terrible” I mean films bearing the mark of low quality. We all know terrible when we see it, yet terrible is not awful. Terrible is the opposite of awful. Awful wears the countenance of quality. Awful is where the writing has gone through the eager hands of a dozen uncredited writers and script doctors. Awful is where the editing is crisp, the actors weep convincingly, and we are left with something that looks fantastic but can’t keep our attention, like a lobotomized runway model. 

The 1989 sci-fi movie R.O.T.O.R. is the opposite of that lobotomized runway model. It’s the earnest, fifteen- years-past-her-prime low-rent strumpet at the end of the bar wearing a bootleg version of Chanel #5. Spend an evening with her and you’ll have a story to tell. As it is with R.O.T.O.R.

A clip for the uninitiated, the skeptical, or the morbidly curious: