So Bad It’s Funny Gets A New Rule

“So Bad It’s Funny” is an entertaining article series I enjoy making. The only people who might object to its existence would be my friends who I’ve roped into watching these terrible movies with me.

But, in this quest for the perfect bad movie, I have come up to such an outlier that it requires an article to explore it. And, as such, this article is an addendum, or at least an explanation, of what will not be featured or considered as a movie for the series.

And it came to pass because of sharks.

For So Bad It’s Funny, Sharknado Is Too Good

Recently, I was witness to Sharknado 2: The Second One. And, while that movie is terrible, with bad effects, bad acting, and a moronic plot, it cannot count. The movie embraces the sheer stupidity of its plot. It’s winking at the camera the entire time. You could, maybe, make the argument that the first movie, the original Sharknado, is a valid candidate—but it’s still not quite the right flavor.

The true mark of a hilariously bad movie is the sheer earnestness of it. You can always tell that some poor misguided person out there really gave it some oomph before they failed utterly. And, this means that plain old bad movies—cliché, lackluster, cheap, or just boring—do not qualify. It also means that things that are very purposely bad, or cheesy, also don’t work.

A horror comedy that is full of impossible deaths is not right for the position. Simple as that.

Because it’s meant to be funny.

So Bad It’s Funny Is For Trainwrecks, Not Skits

But, if the horror, like in Troll 2, was planned and legitimately intended as horrific, then it’s gut-busting to watch it all fall apart.

With these rules, I discredit bad action shlock. I cast out gross-out humor movies unless they are truly terrible. I wash my hands of all deep sequels to once great franchises. No Nightmare on Elm Street sequels or terrible continuations of Die Hard.

No matter how funny they all might be.

If the movie is not slowly driving me insane, then I am not going to give it any of my time.

I realize these rules may complicate things. Perhaps discredit something that you, the reader, really wanted me to take apart. But, to avoid simply hashing out all six Sharknado movies instead of keeping the quest alive, I feel it is necessary.

Because, after all, I need to make this as hard on myself as possible.

That’s the fun of it.

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