So Bad It’s Good: Ground Rules for Lifetime Original Movies

How ironic that one of my recent posts was about how cinematic and thematic television can be.  I’m about to show that the very opposite can be true as well.  It’s time for another installment of So Bad It’s Good, where I take a closer, more analytical look at my guilty pleasure – bad movies.  The kinds of things you can only watch with other people who won’t judge you, and with whom you can exchange incredulous glances.

I’m not quite as well-versed in the Lifetime Original Movie as I am in the beloved Syfy Original Movie (because the Lifetime movie is a much more complex art form), but I’ve watched enough to understand that, like the legendary Syfy movie, Lifetime programming has a few revisited tropes that make it truly one of a kind.  Here they are, in no particular order.

Lifetime Rule #1: A True Story (or something that might have happened to someone once, and it was sad)

Did a woman just go on trial for something?  Did two famous people just tie the knot?  Time for Lifetime to swoop in and tell the REAL story.  From huge news events like the royal wedding to little known high school controversies, Lifetime movies run the gamut of ripped from the headlines plots.  William and Kate speculates about events in the private relationship between the royals.  Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy told Knox’s story before her the case was even closed.  And who could forget Fab Five: The Texas Cheerleader Scandal, which told the well-known story of a group of ruthless high school cheerleaders out to ruin their coach’s life?  I know I followed that story for months, didn’t you?

Lifetime Rule #2: A Hot-Button Issue

Whether their movies are about teenage pregnancies or cyberbullying, Lifetime is very topical.  Take the gem The Boy She Met Online, which examines the dangers of interacting with strangers over the Internet.  That boy your teenage daughter is flirting with in a chat room could be a convict with a boy band haircut.  Be on the lookout for prison tattoos.  The Client List, starring Jennifer Love Hewitt, took a look at suburban prostitution.  And then Lifetime decided it was so good, they should turn it into a TV series.  And doesn’t this preview for the show make it look like such a respectable examination of a serious issue?

Lifetime Rule #3: Stupid Teenagers

Ah, Lifetime teens and their shenanigans.  From STDs to peer pressure, they sure know how to make terrible decisions.  An outbreak of syphilis terrorizes a high school in She’s Too Young, as fifteen-year-old girls lament their disappointing romantic experiences as if they were middle-aged.  I unfortunately realize these depictions are based in reality, but that doesn’t mean these kids aren’t ridiculous.  The girls in Fab Five enjoy lollipops while they frame their coach for sexual harassment.  Basically, you just want to slap them all.  And a lot of Lifetime movies feature a nerdy or prudish girl who suddenly gets caught up in something promiscuous.  Like in Walking the Halls, which examines high school prostitution.

Lifetime Rule #4: A Title that Explains the Entire Plot (preferably with a colon thrown in)

What do you think The Boy She Met Online is about?  Or Too Young to Be A Dad?  Exactly what their titles say!  That’s the beauty of the Lifetime movie.  When you flip through the guide trying to figure out what to watch, you don’t even have to read the plot descriptions to figure out that you’re in for a treat.  And don’t forget the colons.  Every good Lifetime movie based on a true story has a colon.  Heck, Lifetime movie titles have more colons put together than the titles of my papers for school.   And I like a colon.  Not as much as a semicolon, but still …

Lifetime Rule #5: An Underdeveloped, Almost Invisible Subplot

The most famous of these subplots, at least among my friends and me, occurs in The Boy She Met Online.  Blink and you’ll miss it.  The mother of the titular “She” has a female friend who’s always at the house.  The girl comes home and said Friend is sitting on the kitchen counter with her leg up Mrs. Robinson-style as Mom makes dinner.  Friend walks around the house holding laundry baskets.  She sits up at night on Mom’s couch waiting for Mom to come home, and then questions her about where she was.  For my friends and me, the movie became less about the boy she met online and more about whether Mom and Friend were in a romantic relationship.  Totally cool if they were, but Lifetime would not address it.  Unintentional?  Maybe, but all the pieces seem to fit together too perfectly.  I guess we’ll never know… until the sequel.

Lifetime Rule #6: At Least One “Did That Just Happen?” Moment

There’s always a great twist in a Lifetime movie.  Some of them are more complicated than others.  And some of them are downright crazy.  At the end of Sexting in Suburbia, a girl’s private photo is forwarded around the school, but no one can figure out who sent it.  At the end of the movie, we find out who it was.  I don’t want to ruin the surprise, because I know you’re about to go watch it, but let’s just say it’s one of the last people you’d expect … and it’s kind of creepy.

Lifetime Rule #7: No Dads

Lifetime movies rarely have dads.  There’s always a single mom struggling to raise her teenage daughter and possibly a bratty younger son.  There’s often no mention of where the dad is.  You know how none of the Disney princesses have mothers?  None of the girls in Lifetime movies have dads.  One exception is Walking the Halls, in which there’s a dad in the picture, but he’s pretty terrible.

Lifetime Rule #8: Not all Lifetime-worthy movies premiere on Lifetime.

I consider Cyberbully, which premiered on ABC Family, to be an honorary Lifetime movie.  It tells the story of a teenage girl whose life spirals out of control when she joins a social networking site called Cliquester (Yep…) and her classmates begin to bully her.  She posts a video announcing her suicide, and when her best friend (and emergency personnel) arrive at her house, she’s having a little trouble.  She can’t get the cap off the pill bottle.  Yeah…

Let’s just say it’s a good thing I don’t get Lifetime Movie Network.

So Bad It’s Good: Ground Rules for Syfy Original Movies

Admit it.  You know there are some movies that are so bad they’re good.  The kind that you just want to watch with a group of friends and laugh at because they’re so ridiculous.  The kind with terrible acting, corny dialogue, and cheap special effects.  These movies are definitely better if you watch them with other people.  I once watched a midnight television showing of Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat!  Kill!  Kill! (1965) by myself.  It was quite the experience.  I had no one with whom to confirm, through laughter or exchanged glances, that what I was watching was indeed as insanely campy as I believed.  Why else would midnight showings of The Room or Troll 2 (which I’m eager yet frightened to watch, thanks to the clip below) be so popular in movie theaters?

Perhaps no one does bad-good movies quite like Syfy.  The channel has become famous for its corny, supposedly scary movies with increasingly low production values.  They continue to pit mythically large creatures against each other in battles to the death, combine two unlikely creatures into one mass killing machine, or place giant versions of scary animals in places they just don’t belong.  I’ve watched quite a few of these gems.  I’ve learned that there are a number of criteria for a good Syfy movie.  Some fall flat, and it’s probably because they’re missing one of these crucial aspects.  I’ve compiled these rules for your reading (and viewing) pleasure.  Don’t judge me.  It takes a refined skill to make movie so bad that it’s good.  And there always has to be something for The Soup to make fun of.  As Joel McHale says, please to enjoy.

Syfy Rule #1: An Attractive Hero.

You have to have at least one male actor who’s great to look at.  Ruggedly handsome is preferred, but not required.  An actor who’s relatively unknown is a good choice.  The reason for this is simple.  First of all, one might argue that women are less likely to watch Syfy movies.  I wouldn’t argue that, of course, because my female friends and I value them highly.  But some might argue that.  A handsome leading man, therefore, would be very important to bring in some female viewers.  Maybe a girl passes the couch as her boyfriend watches a Syfy movie.  She initially rolls her eyes, but once she catches a glimpse of the sexy man assigned to fight whatever monster happens to be featured in this movie, she’s finds herself seated on the couch, engrossed.  No one plays the part of the strong, handsome hero quite like Kerem Bursin as Andy Flynn in Sharktopus.  He has the dashing good looks, the charisma, and the action hero potential.  And who else could pull off that unbuttoned plaid shirt?  Matthew McConaughey, eat your heart out.

Syfy Rule #2: A Has-Been Celebrity (Or Two, Or Three…).

What fun is a corny movie without someone desperately trying to revitalize their career?  You gotta have at least one celebrity who you haven’t seen in a while.  It also helps if this celebrity isn’t known for acting.  The recent Mega Python vs. Gatoroid featured three has-been celebs who weren’t known for their acting chops: Syfy alum Debbie Gibson, teen pop sensation Tiffany, and former member of the Monkees Mickey Dolenz.  Check out Tiffany’s splendid acting on Hulu.  I find that yelling all of one’s lines usually leads to a great performance, don’t you?

Syfy Rule #3: Terrible Acting.

We already kind of covered this in the last rule, but that’s bad acting on the part of has-been celebrities.  That’s all well and good, but the best bad acting usually comes from the unknown character actors.  Sometimes their delivery is so wooden, robotic, or overly emphatic that I can’t believe what I’m hearing.  Who could forget the woman who incessantly asks to see the room where Elvis stayed in Dinocroc vs. Supergator?  And what about Jerry the poolboy, from the same film?  Even if you haven’t seen the movie, you’ve probably seen this clip.

Syfy Rule #4: Stupid Promiscuous Girl(s).

I already mentioned that Syfy movies need handsome leading men.  Well, they need attractive, scantily clad ladies as well.  These women are usually promiscuous and ditzy, and they usually get eaten.  Whether the inclusion of these women’s fates is meant to inspire sympathy for the women or the monsters who eat them really depends on the viewer.  A classic example comes from Dinocroc vs.  Supergator.  Watch the clip on Hulu.

Syfy Rule #5: People Getting Their Happy Experience Cut Short by Sudden Death.

It’s a rule.  In a Syfy original movie, there will be at least one scene in which someone who’s enjoying themselves and loving life will suddenly be killed.  The people might be in love, on vacation, or simply enjoying a fun, relaxing day out, when out of nowhere a monster or natural disaster swallows them whole or slices them in half.  It’s preferable that they be laughing or screaming giddily before they’re killed.  A sad example is the sledding scene in Ice Quake.  Watch it unfold on Hulu.

Syfy Rule #6: Bad Special Effects.

Perhaps this is what Syfy is best known for.  Nothing makes a bad-good movie even worse-better than some crappy computer generated images.  And there are usually a lot of them.  From the monster itself to the blood that spurts out when it bites someone in half, it’s all bad CGI.  There’s something so wonderful about watching a scene which already lacks believability become even less believable with the help of fake-looking effects.  Below, in a scene from Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, a shark … well, you’ll see … Terrible FX ensue.

Syfy Rule #7: Villains With Personality.

Although the villain is supposed to be someone you root against, it’s always nice when he has some attitude.  Maybe if he’s relatable in some way.  In both Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus and Mega Python vs. Gatoroid, the monsters are lured to their doom by pheromones.  Hey, giant killer creatures get horny, too.  In Dinocroc vs. Supergator, Dinocroc is actually quite cute with his little arms.  Sharktopus gets sassy when he walks on land.  But perhaps no one has more attitude than Yeti of Yeti: Curse of the Snow Demon.  Just watch this trailer to see why.

Syfy Rule #8: A Nerdy Girl Who Takes Off Her Glasses and Looks Hot.

This isn’t present in all Syfy movies, but it certainly makes them better.  It’s the classic sexy librarian cliche.  And Syfy loves cliches, so of course this cliche is included in their movies.  The best example is Nicole Sands, the nerdy scientist girl in Sharktopus who ends up taking off her glasses and letting her hair down.  Surprise!  She’s hot!  Watch a scene with her on Hulu.

Well, now you know what it takes to get a bad-good Syfy movie.  If we’re lucky, Syfy will keep giving us the worst-best of the worst-best, year after year.