Though it isn't always the case, more often than not, producing a successful movie requires an adequate budget and a significant amount of know-how. While films like The Blair With Project and Paranormal Activity made millions while investing very little, dozens upon dozens of terrible amateur films have flopped financially.
Yet, just because a film doesn't succeed in conventional terms doesn't mean it has no value; some fans love the shlockyness and outright hilarity which only unintentionally awful movies can provide. From hammy acting to abysmal directing to an overall air of "what the heck were they thinking," here are 10 horror b-movies that were so bad that they become masterpieces in their own right.
10 Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2
Originally intended to be nothing more than a re-cut of the original movie, 1987's Silent Night, Deadly Nigth Part 2 eventually evolved into one of the most notoriously poorly-acted, poorly written horror movies of all time.
Filmed in just 10 days, the film follows an escaped mental patient questing to get revenge on an abusive nun who tortured him when he was a child. The events leading up to his vengeance see the man terrorizing a suburban town with a revolver, infamously shouting "garbage day" before shooting a man innocently taking out his trash. It's hilariously terrible and one of the all-time greats in terms of the so-bad-its-good pseudo-genre.
9 Basket Case
As silly as it sounds, 1982's Basket Case was the first of a series of movies directed by Frank Henenlotter considered to be the "Henenlotter Cinematic Universe." One of the most ridiculously grotesque body horror projects to ever see release, Basket Case is so ridiculous that it almost warrants multiple viewings just to take it all in.
Featuring a pair of formerly conjoined twins in Dwayne, a seemingly normal man, and Belial, a malformed human blob who lives in a wicker basket, the film is a mess of stop-motion nonsense and laughably over-the-top gore scenes. It's a must-see for horror junkies who love a good laugh.
8 Jason X
A movie that was so early-2000s it actually used Drowning Pool's song "Bodies" in its trailer, Jason X was almost more of a parody of the Friday The 13th franchise than a continuation of it.
Taking place in the year 2455, Jason Voorhees is discovered by a group of student researchers in the ruins of some sort of post-apocalyptic wasteland after having been cryogenically frozen for 400 years. Before an autopsy is conducted on him, Jason senses two nearby teens engaging in sex, and suddenly wakes up to continue his bloody revenge. Yes, it is precisely as stupid as it sounds.
7 The Wicker Man (2006 Remake)
Though the 1973 original British folk-horror film is revered as a classic, the 2006 remake is universally known as an abomination which features perhaps the worst Nicholas Cage performance ever committed to film.
Telling the tale of a detective embroiled in cult hysteria while on the search for a missing girl, The Wicker Man is so bad that it must be seen to be believed. Plagued with logical fallacies and torturously bad writing and delivery, this stinker likely would have killed Cage's career had he not been lucky enough to ride the wave of success generated by the National Treasure films.
6 Bidemic: Shock And Terror
Released in 2010 and allegedly produced on a budget of a mere $10,000, Birdemic: Shock and Terror is one of the most well-known terrible independent films to debut in modern history. A strange take on the formula set up in Alfred Hitchcock's admittedly weird 1963 film The Birds, Birdemic is an epic amalgamation of bad acting, worse writing, and an utter lack of direction.
What essentially boils down to an out-of-place PSA about climate change, Birdemic is what happens when a group of high school students is tasked with making a film for a school project. Utterly terrible, it's only worth watching for the crap factor.
5 Jaws: The Revenge
Often considered to have been the first genuine blockbuster movie, 1975's Jaws was a hallmark horror film that will maintain relevancy in pop culture until the sun burns out. The same, however, can not be said about the trilogy of movies that followed.
The second and third Jaws films are offensive enough in their own right, but Jaws: The Revenge is a special breed of awful which manages to humiliate not only itself, but the franchise of which it is a part, as well. Killing beloved characters offscreen for stupid reasons and telling the tale of a shark out for revenge against the Brody family, it really doesn't get much sillier than this.
4 Smiley
A hopeless relic of early 2010s internet culture, Smiley is a poor man's slasher flick that feels a bit like what would happen if the people behind the Scream movies completely gave up.
Starring controversial YouTuber Shane Dawson—we suppose PewDiePie was busy during the week of filming—Smiley is a story about the titular killer, a man who apparently stitched his eyes and mouth shut in order to look like an emoticon. Full of awful, outdated humor and not scary in the least, Smiley remains as a touchstone for the time period and a grim reminder of how awful internet humor was at the time.
3 The Devil Inside
2012's mishmash of Paranormal Activity and The Exorcist isn't the average so-bad-its-good watch. In fact, it's mostly just bad, though the end is so appallingly terrible that it really must be seen to be believed.
The large majority of the film is a fairly average horror romp. Featuring possessions, exorcisms, and subgenre-mandate contortionist scenes, it's not great, but certainly not unwatchable. That is, until the end of the movie, which we'll spoil here. En route to have an exorcism performed on a woman named Isabelle, all of the main characters die in a car accident. As anti-climactic is it is poorly executed, it almost feels like the writers simply gave up and wrote "everyone died, the end" at the bottom of the script.
2 Ouija
Much like The Devil Inside, 2014's Ouija—which was directed by Michael Bay, of all people—winds up with an ending so ludicrously stupid that it completely ruins what would have been a decent, if not a little boring, horror flick.
A mysterious Ouija board seems to be the culprit for a series of strange deaths among a group of friends, and viewers are told that the angry spirit of a dead girl's mother is responsible. However, in the end, we find out that the little girl was the one responsible, which, in context, is both nonsensical and yet somehow way too predictable.
1 Troll 2
When someone makes a documentary about the production of your movie and titles it Best Worst Movie, well, we suppose you should be praised and scolded in equal measure. Often considered to be the premiere shlocky so-bad-its-good horror movie, Troll 2 is a masterclass in nonsensical filmmaking.
Centering on a town in which goblins—yes, goblins, not trolls—use food to transform people into plant goop for consumption, Troll 2 features some of the worst, most scenery-chewing acting available to be witnessed by human eyes. It almost feels as if the filmmakers were aware of how terrible the project was, but none of that self-awareness actually carries through to the final cut.
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