People need entertainment to make it through their daily lives. Many of us find that entertainment in movies and television. That’s why streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney+ have become such a staple of so many lives. Movies and television are an outlet after a hard day’s work. They’re a way to get away from the troubles in your life, even if only for a half hour episode or an hour-and-a-half feature. People can escape their worries through what they watch.
This cultural reliance on movies and television as an entertainment outlet bred many conversations about what people were watching. Those conversations came both from the people who watched and enjoyed a specific work, or from the people outside discussing the people who had seen it. Reviews, think pieces, analyzation, conversation… All of that has come from the love people have for the big and small screens.
Leaning specifically into Sunday “Bad” Movies, some movies managed to have a deeper cultural impact than others. There have been movies that squirmed their way into people’s heads to the point that other filmmakers couldn’t help but feature those movies in their work. Both good movies and bad movies got that treatment. A bunch of the movies covered in this blog were featured in other works. Art inspired people. Sometimes it inspired them while they made their own art.
This whole discussion came care of Manos: The Hands of Fate, this week’s movie. Michael (Harold P. Warren), his wife Margaret (Diane Mahree), and their daughter Debbie (Jackey Neyman) were on their way to Valley Forge. They got lost in the desert and stumbled upon a house watched over by Torgo (John Reynolds). He warned them to leave before The Master (Tom Neyman) returned. They didn’t heed his warning and were in for a lot of trouble come nightfall.
The main issue with Manos: The Hands of Fate was the editing. With proper editing, the film could have been trimmed down to a fifteen, maybe twenty, minute runtime. There were shots that went on for far too long. Things like a car doing a full five-point turn because it was lost, all in one shot. There was a single shot of Michael parking the car, getting out, walking around it, opening the door for Margaret and Debbie, them getting out, Michael closing the door, and all three of them walking away. It was either a case of no coverage or padding the runtime. Then there were the unnecessary shots in the movie. The many, many shots of Michael and his family driving through the desert with seemingly no end. Things like that. Everything could have been trimmed for a more streamlined and exciting movie.
That’s not to say the performances and story were great, either. Or the music, even. The combination of all the bad parts led to a memorable movie. The reputation of how bad Manos: The Hands of Fate was helped it stand the test of time. It led to the movie sticking in people’s minds, which then led to people using it as a piece of their own art. A prequel and sequel were made to the film many years later. But it also made its way into completely unrelated works as well.
In the middle of season 3 of How I Met Your Mother, a new romantic interest entered Ted, the main character’s, life. Stella was his dermatologist, helping him to get rid of a lower back tattoo. They went out to see Plan 9 from Outer Space (there’s one Sunday “Bad” Movie!) with a group of Stella’s friends. Ted wanted more. He wanted to go on a date with Stella. She didn’t have time for a dating life, so Ted set up a quick two-minute date that involved watching a quick-cut, short version of Manos: The Hands of Fate. Stella agreed that it was worse than Plan 9 from Outer Space (a discussion they had during Ted’s dermatology appointments), and they moved on.
Both Manos: The Hands of Fate and Plan 9 from Outer Space made an impact on the writers of How I Met Your Mother. The movies were two of the worst movies ever made, but they were also memorable enough that the writers name-dropped them in the episode. They even showed pieces of Manos: The Hands of Fate. It was new art influenced by old art. It was the bad movies that the writers had seen making their way into the stuff the writers were creating because of the impact they had.
A lesser example happened in the film Remote Control. It was a mostly forgotten 1980s film that involved aliens trying to take over the world by possessing people through a video tape. With the video tape being an important tool for the aliens’ plan, and the movie being set in the 1980s, there would be a video store connection. The main character worked at a video store that his friend owned. They figured out the implications of the video tape and went to other video stores to get rid of any copies.
Video stores were places where people could get almost any movie they wanted. Well, not really. They could get any movie that the store offered, though, and the stores tended to offer a lot of options. This meant that the set design for Remote Control would feature a lot of movie cases and posters. There was likely to be something from Sunday “Bad” Movies in the mix. In fact, there was. One of the posters adorning the window of one of the video stores was for Hamburger: The Motion Picture.
This example wasn’t so much about the people involved in Remote Control seeing a movie and having it influence how they made their own film. It wasn’t a mention in the writing or an homage where a scene matched a scene. It was a movie poster. It was simple set design. The people dressing the video store probably looked for the posters for any movies they could get the rights to. Since Remote Control was made two years after Hamburger: The Motion Picture, it was likely easy to get the poster to use. It had nothing to do with the cultural impact. But it was still a bad movie appearing within another movie.
Of course, this discussion could not be had without mentioning The Room, one of the most influential bad movies to be made since the turn of the millennium. Anyone who had even a remote interest in bad movies knew this one years ago. It took a few years after its 2003 initial release, but The Room permeated the culture as much as anything in the new millennium. It later had a book and a movie made about it, as well as a video game and comic book based on it.
The Disaster Artist was a book written by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell, based on Sestero’s friendship with Tommy Wiseau and their time working together on The Room. It would go back-and-forth between chapters about their history together and chapters about making the movie. It was filled with insight for anyone who was interested in The Room and the people involved. The book would later be adapted into a semi-successful movie called The Disaster Artist, directed by James Franco and starring Franco as Tommy Wiseau, as well as his brother Dave Franco as Greg Sestero. That’s two later works based on The Room.
Things weren’t going to stop there. Philip Haldiman played Denny in The Room. Around the same time that The Disaster Artist was released as a book, Haldiman was working on his own project. He had created a comic book series about his time trying to start a career in Hollywood. Of course, that comic would tie into his time working on The Room. It was inevitable. That was an important moment in his career. There have, so far, been seven issues of My Big Break released. That’s about one per year.
The final bit of The Room influence was a little, mostly unknown video game that came out in 2010 called The Room Tribute. It was designed to look like a 16-bit game and was made by a few people who worked at Newgrounds. A point-and-click adventure game, it was a fairly faithful adaptation of the movie. Well, faithful with a bunch of additions and backstories to flesh out things that were confusing in the movie. It was just one last thing that showed the legacy of The Room.
Miami Connection flew under-the-radar for most of its existence. The movie was forgotten for two-and-a-half decades after its release. When it was uncovered in 2012, it became a sensation within the niche genre fandoms. That sensation led to an appreciation of the action, the writing, and especially the music in the movie. The action got attention for being just the right amount of over-the-top, but at the same time, skilled with the martial arts aspect. The writing got attention for being terrible, but in a sincere way. Then there was the music. The two songs by Dragon Sound got attention for being two bangers. They were good music.
The music made biggest the impact on people and got used in different projects. The most notable was Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. At the end of the video game, as the credits came up on screen, Friends started to play. One of the songs that Dragon Sound performed in Miami Connection was being directly used for the end credits of a notable video game. Another instance of Dragon Sound being featured in someone else’s work was in the video for Pharrell’s Happy. One of the early dancers in the video wore a Dragon Sound shirt. Miami Connection had made its mark on other art.
Reefer Madness had a slightly different influence over art that followed. This might not be seen as so much of an influence as a direct relation. It wasn’t that the art was made separately, and a part of Reefer Madness bled into it. It was practically a remake of the movie. The 1936 anti-drug propaganda flick became widely known for its outrageous depiction of people smoking marijuana and how it affected their personalities. Yet that was not where things ended.
There was a stage adaptation of Reefer Madness in Chicago in 1992. The more well-known adaptation, however, was a musical spoof in 1998. It premiered in Los Angeles before getting an Off-Broadway stage for a little while. It wasn’t hugely successful in the Off-Broadway scene, but managed to get enough of a following to warrant a television movie adaptation. All-in-all, Reefer Madness ended up getting a couple stage adaptations, a stage musical adaptation, and a television movie adaptation of the stage musical adaptation. That was a decently sized influence over the 1990s and 2000s for a propaganda flick from 1936.
Few movies had as much influence over film as Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo. When people mentioned the trope of saving the rec center, Breakin’ 2 was the movie that they always came back to. It was a trio of dancers helping to save a rec center through what they did best. They danced their asses off and raised the money they needed to keep it open. They provided the community area for the youth of their neighbourhood to hang out. That trope could only flourish because of the success that Breakin’ 2 had presenting it.
That was not the most influential part of the movie, though. Sure, that trope permeated throughout films for a long time after, but it was the title that truly had the lasting impact. Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo quickly became one of the most well-known sequel subtitles. It was a reference to a dance move and found infamy in being what people considered a ridiculous subtitle. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia followed up their Chardee MacDennis episode with Chardee MacDennis 2: Electric Boogaloo. Five Iron Frenzy named one of their albums Five Iron Frenzy 2: Electric Boogaloo. Minus the Bear wrote a song called Get Me Naked 2: Electric Boogaloo. Everyone knew the title. Many used it. Even the Cannon Films documentary used it. It was called Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films. That’s an influential subtitle.
Another movie that had some influence over future work was Troll 2. Few movies have reached the same bad movie pinnacle. It was an unrelated sequel to the film Troll. It didn’t even feature trolls, instead featuring goblins. The movie went out of its way to note that the monsters were goblins. The movie was filled with a non-sensical story and over-the-top poor performances. It had horrible dialogue that was a bad translation of Italian into English that the actors were forced to say as it was written. It was a whirlwind of bad choices and bad decisions that made something magical.
All of that was captured in a documentary called Best Worst Movie, which chronicled the popularity of Troll 2. It was directed by Michael Stephenson, who played the main child character in Troll 2. The main person in the documentary was his father in Troll 2, George Hardy. George went to various conventions, taking pictures with and talking to fans. He also did his dentistry career. People talked about their love of Troll 2 and their love of the people in it. It was a love letter to the fans who were giving their own love letter to the movie.
Every movie can have some sort of influence over someone’s creativity. It doesn’t matter if the movie was good or bad. A movie like Manos: The Hands of Fate could become part of the story of television show forty years later. Hamburger: The Motion Picture could have a poster that shows up in other movies. The Room and Troll 2 could inspire people to make movies and books about them. The original music from Miami Connection could make its way into the end credits of a video game. A movie like Reefer Madness could be adapted into different forms. Or there could be a movie like Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, where the name lives on forever. None of these would be called outright good movies. But they had a legacy that inspired parts of other works.
All artists are inspired by something. It could be something that left a huge impact on the world, changing the way that people looked at things. It could be something as small as a bag floating in the wind. Many times, inspiration comes from art. One piece of art or entertainment begets others. People write what they know and what artists and entertainers know is other art and entertainment. They will mention, show, and allude to other works that helped them get to that point in their lives. That’s the magic of movies. Good or bad, they inspire people. That’s what matters.
There are a few notes before this post closes out:
- The movies mentioned in this post that have been part of Sunday “Bad” Movies were Plan 9 from Outer Space (week 375), Hamburger:The Motion Picture (week 197), Remote Control (week 246), The Room (week 25), Miami Connection (week 23), Reefer Madness (week 339), Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo (week 350), and Troll 2 (week 175).
- Also mentioned were the book The Disaster Artist and the documentary Best Worst Movie.
- Have you seen Manos: The Hands of Fate? What did you think of it? Was it good or bad? Worst movie ever material? Let me know what you thought on Twitter or in the comments.
- If you want to suggest a movie for me to watch in a future week, drop that suggestion in the comments or hit me up on Twitter. I’m open to any and all suggestions.
- Check out Sunday “Bad” Movies on Instagram for more Sunday “Bad” Movies fun.
- Finally, let’s talk about next week. There’s a franchise I got into a while back and thought it was tons of fun. After featuring the second movie, Hard Ticket to Hawaii (week 352), back in August 2019, I made sure to put the first film, Malibu Express (week 383), into the schedule soon after. Now it’s time for the third film in the franchise, Picasso Trigger. That’s coming up next week. I hope to see you here for that one.
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