5 Movies So Horrible They're Good

There's something so indescribably fun about watching a truly bad movie especially when it's played as straight as any of the Oscar winning blockbusters out there, not to mention getting all of your friends together to cringe and laugh at the campy and schmaltzy performances always makes for a good night. Here are the top five enjoyably bad movies from a veritable expert:

5. Birdemic: Shock and Terror

This 2008 indie horror film garners a solid 20% on Rotten Tomatoes. Reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, the plot follows the protagonists as they fight a horde of viscous birds attacking their town while falling in love.

The movie was made with a ridiculously low budget, and the cut and paste birds dive-bombing the ground and exploding, or spitting acid are laughable rather than terrifying. If it was made as comedy, this movie would have been destined to fade into obscurity, but since the movie takes itself so seriously, it instead became comedic gold.

4. Troll 2

Made in 1990 and marketed as a sequel to the 1986 Troll, this movie combines horrible special effects, unbearable acting, and a nonsensical plot in just the right ways to become cringingly enjoyable. The movie tells about a suburban family targeted by goblins to want to turn them into plants in order to eat them (because they're vegetarian, and that involves killing people somehow...?)

Apart from the awkward popcorn based sex scene, this movie is most famous for the horrible acting. The most iconic part in the movie is when one of the characters walks in on the goblins eating a girl they've turned into vegetable mush and says, "They're eating her...then they're going to eat me. Oh my goooood."

3. Manos: The Hands of Fate

Made in 1966 on a bet that anybody could make a horror movie, this classic includes technical issues so overwhelming and distracting they take the movie to new heights of horribleness. The plot concerns a polyamorous cult that lures a young family into their clutches in order to make the women the new wives and sacrifice the others to the deity Manos.

The camera used to film the movie was not able to pick up sound, so all dialogue was later dubbed by a cast of four men and one woman, who performed all the parts (including the child). It could also only take 32 seconds of film at a time, so the The character Torgo is meant to be a satyr, and as a result his costume includes a metal brace meant to simulate goat legs under his pants. Instead, it results in giant bulging, awkward tights. The film also lacks continuity, with many unrelated scenes randomly edited in with no relevance to plot, like a couple making out in a car for no reason.

2. The Room

The 2003 brainchild of Timmy Wiseau was an oddly high budget movie made after he went through a breakup. It was written by, directed by, produced by, and starred Tommy Wiseau himself, a pockmarked and indiscernibly accented man that approaches acting like an enthusiastic child approaches a bike without training wheels. The absolute sincerity and naivety makes you feel bad for laughing when the kid wipes out, but maybe makes it a little more funny in the end. The plot is about a man named Johnny whose conniving fiancee seduces his best friend, a double whammy of betrayal against this faultless man.

The laughable dialogue seems to be written by an alien confused about both verb usage and human interaction (a solid case could be made that this is, in fact, an apt description of Tommy Wiseau). Many of the scenes make no sense, such as the characters dressing up in tuxedos then ineffectually flinging a football around in an alley, or two unnamed characters coming into Johnny and Lisa's apartment just to have sex, a scene which is later never mentioned. The clumsy characterization also makes one question Wiseau's understanding of human emotion, such as Lisa's callous brushing off of her mother after she casually mentions she has cancer. The sex scenes are so poorly choreographed, and the music so over the top and cheesy, that one has to wonder how any of the actors were able to play it straight.

1. The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Both a tribute to and satire of B Horror Movies, The Rocky Horror Picture show embraces badness wholeheartedly in a sincerely insincere campy musical that has spawned a giant cult following since its release in 1975.

The plot is about a young, newly engaged couple who get a flat tire in the middle of nowhere and go to a castle for help. Once they walk in though, they find that their host is an alien transsexual mad scientist who has built a muscle man in order to make him his lover.

The campiness of the movie is wholly intentional, and the acting perfectly over the top. The plot is absurd bordering on nonsensical, and the character motivations are unclear at best, not present at worst. Even the most hardcore followers of the movie can admit that it's simply not a good movie. Due to the catchiness of the songs combined with the intensity of the fans, this movie takes its place at the top of this list.