The term "cult classic" gets tossed around a little too much, but is it really always
justified?
On occasion, a movie is so poorly made that it finds its way into the "cult classic" conversation
by way of the "so bad it's great" loophole.
More often than not, "so bad" just means they're actually terrible films, kinda like the ones
on this list.
Children Of The Corn
Adapted from Stephen King’s short story, Children Of The Corn takes place in an isolated
Nebraska town and follows a child-led religious cult, hell bent on ensuring that the town's
corn crop remains robust.
Of course, they have to sacrifice all of the adults to make that happen.
That last bit bodes poorly for an out-of-town couple driving through their fields.
“We must sacrifice them both tonight.”
“Amos will satisfy him.
We need the woman, she’ll bring the man to us.”
“No...”
So what went wrong with Children of the Corn?
King tried to adapt it for the big screen himself, but the author's moody, character-driven
screenplay was tossed aside in favor of George Goldsmith's ludicrous, hyper-violent, narratively
flimsy take on the tale.
Even if some of the film's imagery still colors the pop-culture landscape, Children of the
Corn is a stagnant and ugly film to look at, leading us to question just how this film
managed to inspire its own straight-to-video franchise.
Grandma's Boy
There's no accounting for taste when you're talking about cult classics.
Still, every once in a while, a film claims cult status that just makes you want to hold
people accountable.
Case in point: 2006's stoner comedy Grandma's Boy.
Understand that we're using the word "comedy" loosely here, because there's really not much
to laugh at in this tale of a 35-year-old slacker forced to move in with his Grandma.
Realistically, there are only about four actual jokes in Grandma's Boy, and the film simply
recycles them over and over and over again.
“What’s in here?”
“That’s just the kids in the their break room, or as I call it the stupid idiot room.”
We get it, they smoke a lot of pot, play a lot of video games, and that one guy acts
like a robot.
What else you got?
The answer is a resounding "Nothing."
The Room
In 2003 Tommy Wiseau unleashed The Room on the world, and almost in spite of itself,
it's become a bonafide cult sensation over the years.
James Franco even took on the feature-length re-enactment of what went on behind the scenes
with The Disaster Artist.
We can't help but be a little worried that people are taking Wiseau's disasterpiece seriously.
Wiseau's tale of a good man losing it all looks and feels like a no-budget TV show from
the early 90s, the dialogue is often unintelligible, and the acting is embarrassingly over the
top.
“I did not hit her.
It’s not true.
It’s bulls---.
I did not hit her.
I did not.
Oh, hi Mark.”
To make matters worse, it doesn't look like any of the cast, save for Wiseau, has a clue
what's going to happen from one moment to the next.
We get it, everyone loves to watch a disaster, but that doesn't mean the disaster deserves
to be celebrated.
Showgirls
So you've got a friend who read a book that says Paul Verhoeven's 1995 sexploitation satire
Showgirls is a misunderstood masterpiece?
“Nomi, what kind of turn was that?
Do a pique turn.
That’s it.”
With all due respect to your “friend,” here are three irrefutable facts that prove
just how bad Showgirls is.
One: Kyle Maclachlan is still shocked by just how bad it turned out.
In a 2012 interview he admitted to being "gobsmacked" after seeing it.
Two: Elizabeth Berkley, a trained dancer in real life, gave up dancing for years after
the film's release.
Three: Showgirls basically ended the career of Berkley, as well as screenwriter Joe Eszterhas,
who was one of Hollywood's hottest writers at the time.
Although one could argue Verhoeven was brilliant to exploit the script's ridiculous plot and
misguided sense of feminism, its record-setting run at the 1995 Razzie Awards proves our point.
Dune
There's not a filmmaker on this list with more cult-cred than David Lynch, but even
the famed auteur couldn't "cult" his way into bringing a successful version of Frank Herbert's
sci-fi novel Dune to the big screen.
Lynch's big-budget debut hit theaters in 1984 and was immediately marked as an epic misfire
by critics.
In his one-star review of the film, Roger Ebert stated,
"This movie is a real mess....One of the most confusing screenplays of all time."
If you've sat through all two hours and 20 minutes of the film yourself, you know it's
true.
Though Lynch shoulders much of the blame, he's not entirely at fault.
Dune was, after all, just his third feature film as director.
After small-scale successes with Eraserhead and The Elephant Man, Dune was a dramatic
shift in both scale and story for Lynch.
Maybe a little too big.
Matters only got worse in post-production when financiers wrestled control of Dune away
from Lynch.
The result was an absolute mess of a film.
The sort of mess that makes us wonder whether its "cult classic" status isn't merely a reflection
on the man who directed it.
Mommie Dearest
Even if you haven't seen bizarro 1981 melodrama Mommie Dearest, you can almost certainly quote
its most famous line.
“No wire hangers!”
Please trust us when we advise you to leave your exposure to Mommie Dearest to that singular
moment because the rest of the film only gets weirder, and not in a good way.
Part soap opera drama and part psychological horror film, Mommie Dearest takes its story
from a memoir penned by Joan Crawford's adopted daughter Christina.
At the center of it all is a performance from Faye Dunaway that can only be described as
really, really big; so big it ends up dwarfing the work of everyone she shared the screen
with.
It's the sort of performance that most directors would beg an actor to tone down.
Unfortunately, Mommie Dearest director Frank Perry let Dunaway run with it, and she ran
his film right into the realm of caustic, unwatchable camp.
Howard The Duck
Howard The Duck was destined to claim "cult classic" status before cameras even rolled,
mostly because the Marvel comic that spawned it was the very definition of cult fiction.
At the center of that comic was a wise-cracking, cigar-chomping, kung-fu-fighting fowl who
goes by the name of Howard.
“Fly away!”
“Shoo!”
“No one laughs at a Master of quack-foo.”
Yes, Howard The Duck is every bit as bonkers as it sounds.
It was produced as a live-action feature even though director William Huyck believed it
would work better as animation.
The film's producer George Lucas was the one who insisted that the project go ahead with
bold, practical effects and, um, a dwarf in a duck suit.
We're pretty sure Lucas regretted that decision once Howard The Duck was finished.
The seemingly ready-made "cult classic" proved an absolute eye-sore of a film.