Worst 80's Film That's Become a Cult Classic
 

There's been a lot of traffic suggesting the best 80's film, but how about the worst? To add a little spice to the question though, I want one which for some weird reason, or another, has become something of a cult classic!! Let me begin with my nomination and I defy you to not hear the title song echoing in your brain: Flash Gordon!! :p :D

In my book: one of those Gremlins-wannabe s*ts, like:
Critters, Ghoulies, Troll
Excellent for drinking games: down the hatch when someone screams in terror!

On a more educated level:
Flashdance
An amazingly bad movie, with an amazingly good soundtrack, catching the amazingly crazy 80s zeitgeist.

Flash Gordan was the greatest Sci-Fi movie ever made. Haven't you watched Ted? Man, you are old and senile ;) just kidding.

I never could get thru Footloose.

There is only one Cult Classic for me, evvah.
It is from 1975, but I never saw it then. First time I saw it was twenty years later, I think. Never considered it to be an awful movie though, I thought it was marvellous from the very first time I watched it, and I have done so many times.

He's asking about worst cult classic, not about best ones. ;)
I mean guys, those movies mentioned (Rocky Horror excluded, it's not 80s) are not the worst ones at all, and those worst are not cult classics. Sure some of those bad ones were all superpopular at time of release, that doesn't make them cult classic - who would want to watch them today? :p

My pick would be Lady Terminator.

Well, joxer, Corwin’s question is rather impossible. I mean, the worst 80’s movies, that were considered bad at the time of release… are still worth throwing in the trash can!
And your pick is even so bad I am sure it never got out of there, it was made in a trash can. ;)
A cult classic has to be at least a movie that I am willing to pick out of the bin without being scared of getting tainted with… eww, yuck. :)

Too many to even mention. I've been really into youtube shows like Red Letter Media https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrT…3tPTdQ5XgmmWjA and Good Bad or Bad Bad https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5n…Q22tTpzyFT4ORg
highly entertaining if you're into bad movies (not all the movies they review are from the 80's though, but many).

I liked Flash Gordon and i even liked Howard the Duck :D There was just so little to choose from if you wanted e.g fantasy or sci-fi. These two movies might be bad but in comparison to what else there was - then they were actually quite decent!

Its hard not to like all these campy movies. There are so many B movies produced in the 80's because VHS and rental stores demanded PRODUCT and as long as the cover looked good you could pretty much rent out anything :)

https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/…4224716_sa.jpg
https://unitedmonkee.files.wordpress…rrorvision.png
https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/799…a32ede53e.jpeg

I used to buy Variety back in the day because it was basically the equivalent of "comingsoon.net". Full of pre-production posters. The campiest producers back then included Empire International Pictures which had a great run in the 80's with Ghoulies and the Reanimator.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped…tor_poster.png

Redneck Zombies -1989. TROMA DVD.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093833/
https://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/M…_V1_SX214_.jpg

For all you DnD geeks (like me) Empire also made this gem (aka turd) in 1984. Its been years since I've seen it I'm going to have to find it now!

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/…zNDI@._V1_.jpg

The answer to this question is easy.

The Thing (1982) Dir. John Carpenter. Star. Kurt Russel.

You literally cannot move for people saying how much they love this movie today, there are die hards out there that will put out a contract on your favourite pet if you so much as indicate you were slightly bored by it. It has an 8.1 rating on IMDB, supposedly putting it up there with the gratest movies ever made.

When it was released?

It charted at just 8th upon it's opening weekend, stayed at no.8 the following weekend, dropped to 9th the next, then drifted out the charts.

It had to have last minute desperate reworks because everything was going wrong in the pre-screenings:

The critics pretty much hated it & it got a widespread panning for all the right reasons: it was boring, it was cold (emotionally), it was a bit late to the space monster party, etc etc.

It even got nominated for a razzie for it's musical score.

It temporarily ruined John Carpenter's career:

I also remember it as being a nothing much of a film beyond some interesting special effects at the time & it was never something that flew off the shelves at video shops. And yet, at some point, who knows where and who knows why and who knows when it started, but an extremely aggressive cult now surrounds the movie with the kind of passion one would expect of a religious zealot.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

"They" tell me this is a cult classic, but it's so bad, I'm not sure what "they're" talking about:

I see no one mentioned Little Shop of Horrors.



http://www.gstatic.com/tv/thumb/v22v…73_v_v8_aa.jpg

My pick for cult classic would have to be Withnail & I (1987)
"In 1969, two substance-abusing, unemployed actors retreat to the countryside for a holiday that proves disastrous."

@ToddMcF2002 Reanimator is awesome! That's one of my favourite horrors along with Braindead (aka Dead Alive (1992)), Hellraiser 2 (1988) and From Beyond (1986), which features the same scream queen, Barbara Crampton. :D

Not sure what Withnail & I has to do with worst movies of the 80's though, it's quite far from being a B-movie, it's a critically acclaimed movie, it has a 5/5 rating from even the pickiest reviewers out there. Cult classic i might agree with but it's not "worst 80's movie that became a cult classic".

Samurai Cop would be my choice, that is a truly horrible movie which became a true cult classic because of how terrible it was, but terrible in a way that also makes it funny and therefore not unbearable to watch.

The Thing is one of the greatest movies ever made. The audience didn't like it because it was light years ahead of it's time. What's the name of your pet? I will be over soon. ;)

The Thing is an excellent movie and isn’t really cult at all. The recent prequel is based off the 1982 film not the 50’s one. Critics couldn’t handle the gore. Even Siskel and Ebert panned it for gore. Bunch of babies.

Yup Reanimator! My brother uses the name H_west online. Even I didn't get it at first. We grew up watching this kind of stuff. It didn't make the cut because it was pre-1980 and missed it by a year but we can't forget Phantasm. An amazing movie with the ultimate cheesy scene fighting with the "monster" in his denim shirt :biggrin:

Little Shop of Horrors was OK. Flash Gordon was awesome! (Though the version that plays most now is chopped up quite a bit.)

Well, it's 15 months short, but:

I completely agree that Flash Gordon is wonderful!

Thus proving my point!! :D

Capt. Picard says
https://cdn-static.denofgeek.com/sit…?itok=7K1e-Sq_

Thems fightin' woids!

I always thought it was this one…

…until I discovered that one:


But yeah, I actually like both movies. Though I still like Metalstorm a bit better.

Agreed those are good choices. A lot of these prior responses are actually decent films with substantial budgets, have at least decent critical receptions in their day or have always had a fan following. Dune, The Thing etc. Metalstorm is a complete piece of crap that is so bad its good. Wasn't it a 3D movie to boot? I remember Ice Pirates coming out hot on the heals of this turd. I'm going to have to watch both of them now! True cult classics.

@ToddMcF2002 : Right, it was 3D. And so many scenes were reused it was worth playing a drinking game. The main character couldn't act at all, but the drunkard and the Cyclops were fun to watch. Both were played by comedians I think…

With 'worst film that's become a cult classic' I associated 'cheap', 'camp' and 'trashy', perhaps 'exploitation', yet very entertaining … and The Thing, Hellraiser and others just did not/don't meet most of these criteria. At least not in my book.
'Killer Clowns from Outer Space' (IIRC it was posted here) and the Troma movies might qualify, though. And this treasure, but unfortunately it's a 70's film:
.

http://i65.tinypic.com/21m6ps6.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLGrXGEMOSo


Obviously too few of you had the privilege of seeing Repo Man.

Edit: I also like Flash Gordon, Reanimator, and Dune. The biggest problem with Flash Gordon is that the actor who plays Flash is an abyssmal actor and the actress who plays Janes isn't much better. The supporting cast is very good though.

Repo Man isn't cheesy enough to qualify in my opinion. Its a great flick!

For sure! "Sometimes people just explode. Natural causes."