I fancy myself as something of a bad movie connoisseur. Usually, I actually like bad movies - the wooden acting, meandering plot, horrible directing and illogical editing, when combined in the proper proportions, can make for a truly entertaining spectacle, a comedy where no humor was intended. When watched with the proper attitude, some of the worst films ever made can also be some of the best. (Caveat: Bad comedies are always bad.) This is especially true of science fiction and horror, where the prodigious suspension of disbelief we are asked to adopt means the movie has a long way to fall if that suspension should fail. So I was excited to find this science fiction disaster movie, aptly entitled The Apocalypse, gracing the IMDb Bottom 100 list. I acquired it and settled in for a good time.
As I said, I am a connoisseur. I have seen some truly horrible films. Sasquatch Mountain has some of the most bizarre directing decisions I think I've ever seen. The Beast of Yucca Flats has some very memorably bad lines (Flag on the moon, anyone?). The plot of The Wild World of Batwoman hinges on an "atomic powered hearing aid." The soundtrack of Dead Men Walking is composed entirely of thrash metal. The film quality of Oasis of the Zombies is slightly outdone by the Zapruder footage. And who can forget the set design of Plan 9 From Outer Space? And all these movies are great. I mean, they're bad, really bad, but they're hilarious. So I was surprised when I found that I was actually having trouble enjoying The Apocalypse. Could there be some films so bad that they transcend good-badness?
Now don't get me wrong - there are elements of this film that are hilarious, and scenes that had me laughing out loud. The first five minutes of the film, in which some stereotypical college-aged kids sit around a campfire overacting their incredibly generic lines before getting killed by a bunch of extremely well-aimed meteors is one such scene. The first death of the film involves a guy getting hit in the chest by a meteor while taking a leak in the dark woods. One of the kids at the campfire then startles and says "What was that?" to the skeptical dismissals of her friends. If one had replaced the meteor with bigfoot, the dialogue and tone could have been identical. Classic.
I laughed at another ridiculous scene involving a crazy gun-toting banker who gibbers madly while waving his gun around and repeatedly growling "Liars!" The intended intensity and suspense of this scene fall flat when the other actors in the scene fail to appear more than mildly surprised at the banker's actions, and the poor sound quality reduces anything he says to random croaking and weeping noises, so his terrible performance as a regular man who's lost hope ends up looking like an excellent performance as a strung out crackhead.
A series of scenes takes place in a pile of rubble after a tornado. As the characters try to make poignant comments about the hopelessness of their situation, and talk about how alone they are, and how desolate and quiet everything is, one can clearly hear several airplanes and helicopters passing overhead, as the scenes are clearly filmed near a large population center, and possibly an airport. This is especially comical during one scene at this location when a character waves to a single passing helicopter whose audio has unnecessarily been edited into the soundtrack.
Apart from these few scenes, and the humorously inappropriate musical score (which ranges from Dvorak to 16-bit midi - all royalty-free, as indicated in the credits) there's actually not much to enjoy in this movie. It's not that the dialogue isn't bad. It's not that the acting isn't laughable. It's not that the direction doesn't leave you scratching your head at times. It's not that the special effects aren't as obvious as a gunshot wound. It's that all of this is there, and then some. This movie is actually TOO bad for its own good.
The problem stems from the fact that much of the badness of this film isn't derived from these usual sources. They're all there, to be sure. But this movie is boring. Scenes stretch on for uncomfortable periods, while the actors struggle to hold some distressed facial expression, saying nothing. Characters look out of car windows at things we never get to see, still saying nothing. When there is dialogue, it's terrible - but somehow, unnecessary. Many conversations are superfluous rehashes of previous conversations, which, in movie time, took place a few days ago, but in real time, we sat through just five minutes earlier.
There are some great bad movies out there. The conventional reasons that movies are usually bad make them wonders of comedy. The badness can be forgiven. But The Apcoalypse commits one sin of badness that is inexcusable - it's just not interesting.
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