On watching bad movies

04/06/2022

Lynn Murphy Mark

Most Friday evenings we can be found with our friend Donna. We get together for dinner and a movie weekly. Most of the time we go to Donna’s house because she is still a working woman and we try to make things as simple as possible for her. Dinner is carry-out, so  no one has to cook. 

Donna is very organized about what she watches, so she usually has several selections in mind for us to choose from. Usually we see some high quality feature shows. Sometimes not. Lately we have picked a series of schlocky movies – not on purpose, but even after we figure out it’s a grade B or C movie we are committed to watch the whole thing. It’s become an art form now, watching bad movies and looking for all the fault lines in the plot. We watch costumes and make-up to find discrepancies that crack us up. We listen to and critique the sound track too.

It helps that she has a pretty big TV with surround sound. So when the spooky music starts, there’s no missing it. Sometimes the music sounds like someone beating on trash can lids, definitely a low budget score. Her sound system makes it possible to really hear lousy sound effects and bad dialogue.

Last Friday we watched a movie “based on a true story” about a robbery gone bad. It was set in the hill country of Virginia. I think the producers rented a section of hillside and used it over and over as the plot unfolded. Basically it was about a deranged couple who invaded a big mansion thinking there was no one home. They were wrong. A woman and her husband were staying at her mother’s house waiting for the mother to return from a short trip. 

The innocent couple was awakened by the deranged people making noise. They got up and tiptoed downstairs to see what the noise was about. The husband gets killed when Mr. Deranged hit him on the head with a flashlight. The rest of the movie follows the wife, who ran out of the house to get away from Mr. and Mrs. Deranged. She ran up and down the same hillside at least three times, wearing only pajamas, robe and slippers. She waded through the same little creek a couple of times but her pajamas  and slippers stayed clean and dry. She cut her face on a branch. There was blood on her face but the bloodstain was different each time she showed her face while running.

By this time, the drama had become a comedy for us low brow critics. We were laughing and debating who, exactly, had picked this movie. Then we had to talk about other bad movies, we have watched,  including one where a woman was sewn into the stomach of a cow. I want to know who thinks of such things? I wonder if the producers know that women in their 70’s who should know better spend an evening watching their creation and laughing through the goriest parts. 

I should probably be ashamed to admit any of this!

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