The Concession Stand

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Signs of a Bad Movie- Bizarrely Specific Elements

They always say that you should write about what you know. This will ensure a more authentic book or script. However, some auteurs take this advice too far and cross over the line from authenticity to WTF.

You'll see this fairly often in bad movies; the writer is so enamored with his or her "cleverness" or with a particular aspect of the script, that they spend far too much time on it, much to the detriment of all else.

Take The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!?? Ray Dennis Steckler seemingly had a love of peep shows in which women put on more clothes than they normally wear to church, so he inserts scene after scene of bizarre, choreographed dances at a "peep show" that has an audience filled with more middle aged women than young perverts. (Was this a sly depiction of lesbianism, or were these the only people he could get to sit and watch these lavish dance numbers?) It's almost as if Mr. Steckler was making a film about dancing that he put a cheesy horror film into, rather than vice versa. Regardless of his intent, it still made for a lousy film.