Do you ever watch those cheesy horror flicks on the SyFy channel and

mdin · Apr 12, 2010

then wonder afterward, is my stuff as bad as this?

There's such a thin line between cheesy and cool, and that line is different for different people.

shadowwalker · Apr 12, 2010

They had "Mega Piranha" on this weekend - found myself wondering how people actually got paid to write that. Nobody could write that badly without trying to. I mean... :crazy:

the addster · Apr 12, 2010

I'm always amazed at, and a bit jealous of, the unashamed cheziness. I wish I could be that obviously unsophisticated. There is an art to that.

mdin · Apr 12, 2010

An art, it is.

Regarding Mega Piranha... I've noticed SciFi's newest entries are more deliberately cheesy. They went out of their way to make it bad on purpose. Ever since Mega Shark versus Giant Octopus, I think they realized people love camp.

I watched another movie earlier on Saturday... DinoShark or Sharkosaur. The main character dude in that grew a beard throughout the filming of it, but they filmed it out of order, so he'd be having a conversation and his beard would disappear and come back in the middle of it. That had to be deliberate. It had to be.

FOTSGreg · Apr 12, 2010

I can't help myself sometimes, I just have to watch.

The Hive
Megashark
Dinocroc
Lake Placid 2
Kraken
Octopus

Let's see...there was one about a plesiosaur that was somehow breeding and laying eggs on some island in the middle of a lake somewhere...can't (or won't) remember the name of that one)

Some of the SyFy Channel's movies are as cheesy as Night of the Lepus, Kingdow of the Spiders, The Giant Spider Invasion, and none of them are anywhere near as good as Eight Legged Freaks (which was actually good with great effects, decent acting, and lots of laughs).

mdin · Apr 12, 2010

I've seen some of those, but not all of them. If I'm bored on a Saturday during the say, the first thing I usually do is turn to SyFy and see what's on. There are some movies I actually like that they play over and over, like Ice Spiders. And that time-travel one with Lorenzo Lamas.

8-legged Freaks is one of the greatest movies of our time.

soapdish · Apr 12, 2010

mdin said:
then wonder afterward, is my stuff as bad as this?

There's such a thin line between cheesy and cool, and that line is different for different people.

Hmm, sometimes I do this, I'll admit. And it can be fun. But I don't like to feed myself *too* much garbage, otherwise I'm afraid it will start to come out in my own work. You know? LOL

mdin · Apr 12, 2010

Ha. That's why I listen to classical music when I write. I figure the pulp and the sophisticated even each other out.

Seriously, though. When I read, I like to go back and forth between cheesy and "critically-acclaimed." I love both, and I think that's part of my problem. In college, I took some pretty hardcore literature and fiction-writing classes, but I submitted some pulpy stuff to the workshops. I once had an instructor write, "If you take out the bug people, this will be a brilliant story." I used to have that on my wall.

If I can't live in a world where bug people are respected, I don't want to live at all.

FOTSGreg · Apr 12, 2010

The thing of it is, someone did get paid to write the scripts for those cheesy movies. If you can write a script for a cheesy scfi or horror movie The SyFy Channel might be a great way to break in and make a buck (I'd use a pseudonym though).

Feidb · Apr 12, 2010

I love those cheap B-movies! I don't call them icky bug for nothing. My writing emulates that style except for the naked chicks part.

I've got to say that Megapiranha was by far the worst I've seen in a while. I loved how truly bad it was until the end and how they supposedly killed the piranhas. Huh? It didn't make any sense whatsoever, even by suspending disbelief. I gave it two stars on Amazon where it easily could have been four or five if the ending had made any sense, even vaguely.

Still, I can't wait for the next one to come out, after I have to suffer through a few more weekends of Stephen King marathons or something equally overdone.

mdin · Apr 12, 2010

The "Icky Bug" you call it (or "Daikaiju" as I call it) is the subject of my most recently-finished manuscript. For a very long time I wanted to write a literary giant-monster tale mixing pulp with a storyline beyond just the surface.

Other than stories in the Lovecraft mythos and a few random novels here and there, it's a subject that's woefully underrepresented in literature, and I would love for it to gain some traction.

shaldna · Apr 14, 2010

I LOVE LOVE LOVE those movies. So amazingly awesomely bad. But brilliant at the same time.

Bear in mind that those sort of bad movies have a massive following, myself included in thier legions of fans.

S.N.O.T night is the highlight of my fortnight.

(Scariest night on TV for all you normal folks. Five, count em, FIVE, b movies on one after another. Oh yeah.)

Lyra Jean · Apr 14, 2010

My husband hates those movies. So I don't really get to watch them anymore. I think some of them are awesome and turn it into a game.

Who is going to live?
Who is going to die?
Who is going to die first?
Who is going to fall in love?

PGK · Apr 14, 2010

mdin said:
then wonder afterward, is my stuff as bad as this?

No. But I do wonder why if they can sell that trash I can't sell my gold . . . yet.

Manuel Royal · Apr 14, 2010

Those cheesy movies led to the screenplay I'm working on. A couple of years ago (yes, I'm behind schedule) I was watching one of those on a Saturday. Might have been Ogre; might have been Warbirds or Boa vs. Python. It occurred to me that I could write one, and that if I didn't concern myself about it being any good, that would be a way to break my personal barrier (since I've yet to complete a movie-length or novel-length work).

I asked my girlfriend to pick an animal. She picked penguins. I wrote 110 pages of dialogue and let it lie for a long time. Finally working on it again, but somewhat hampered by my desire to make it not suck. I got into the characters and themes and started wanting it to be good.

Hey! I see Eric Roberts is working on a movie called Sharktopus. Wonder what that's about?

Feidb · Apr 14, 2010

If the "place your favorite animal here" can't just be a regular one, combine them! Sharktopus sounds like a real winner! I have one genetically mutated icky bug story unfinished, but so far the two MS's that I've completed have been mundane objects controlled by demons. That way I can call each the more politically correct "supernatural thriller." My downfall is that the characters in each are kind of goofy as in Lake Placid. I just cant help myself!

NewKidOldKid · Apr 14, 2010

FOTSGreg said:
Some of the SyFy Channel's movies are as cheesy as Night of the Lepus, Kingdow of the Spiders, The Giant Spider Invasion, and none of them are anywhere near as good as Eight Legged Freaks (which was actually good with great effects, decent acting, and lots of laughs).

Eight Legged Freaks is an awesome movie. Funny, jumpy and just cheesy enough to make it great entertainment.

bettielee · Apr 14, 2010

So bad. Beyond bad. I don't have the heart to watch them anymore.

The miniseries with the magical objects from that weird hotel room was awesome, tho. Wish they would re-run that. And they are going to replay Riverworld, which wasn't bad, except for the 2001 Space Odyssey type ending.

Now... classic cheese, like Plan 9 from Outer Space, Roger Corman's movies, anything with Vincent Price or Bela Lugosi, I'm there.

mdin · Apr 14, 2010

We should write a collaborative screenplay and try to get Syfy to buy it. We'll pick two random animals and throw a bunch of twenty-somethings and one grizzled expert in its way. We'll have a whiny, ditzy blonde girl who gets it only after her shirt gets ripped off.

Porcupines + Gorilla = Gorcupine (I think this one would be awesome.)

Bats + Cats = Uh, BatCats

Spiders + wolves = Spolves

Manuel Royal · Apr 14, 2010

bettielee said:
So bad. Beyond bad. I don't have the heart to watch them anymore.

The miniseries with the magical objects from that weird hotel room was awesome, tho. Wish they would re-run that. And they are going to replay Riverworld, which wasn't bad, except for the 2001 Space Odyssey type ending.

Now... classic cheese, like Plan 9 from Outer Space, Roger Corman's movies, anything with Vincent Price or Bela Lugosi, I'm there.

The Lost Room; yeah, that was far better than most of the crap on the SyFy Channel.

They're doing a new attempt at Riverworld. Let's see if them manage to screw it up as badly as they did before.

FOTSGreg · Apr 14, 2010

While Eight Legged Freaks is wonderfully campy in spots, it has some of the best effects and some of the most chilling scenes of giant spiders preying on humans I've ever seen. The scene where the jumping spiders overwhelm the motorcyclists at their rally point, the scene where the trapdoor spiders are snagging victims pouring out of the bar into the parking lot - those are horrifyingly similar to the way real spiders capture their prey (and maybe how spiders that size would prey on humans if they could get that big).

I've got big spiders in my book Hatchings, but they're somewhat more realistic (I won't go into the science behind how spiders legs move and all that).

Kitty27 · Apr 16, 2010

I love those movies.

Dog Soldiers is my fave,along with The Beast Of Bray Road.

Beauty and The Beast was some serious suck. But I couldn't stop watching. I don;t know what's wrong with me. I watched this perfectly awful movie!

If I ever get that bad,please track me down and administer a strong slap. Repeat,if needed.

There is a thin line between glorious camp(Ed Wood) and heinous suck(BATB).

Shadow_Ferret · Apr 16, 2010

shadowwalker said:
They had "Mega Piranha" on this weekend - found myself wondering how people actually got paid to write that. Nobody could write that badly without trying to. I mean...

OMG. That was HORRIBLE! I couldn't look away. I needed to see how bad it would get and it didn't disappoint. The special effects were absolutely the WORST! But the dialog. It was absurdly painful. Syfy movies are so bad they make B movies look like Academy Award material.

What amazes me are two things:

1) How do those things get that far? I mean, first someone has to write that crap and not think it's crap. Then someone has to read it, not think it's crap, then decide it's worthy of making into a movie. There are so many checks and balances, and for this to make it through, it boggles the mind.

2) Syfy changed it's name from Sci-Fi because they didn't want to be associated with all the geeks in their moms' basements and wanted to get a hipper, more sophisticated audience, and yet they still air crap like this.

zahra · Apr 17, 2010

Kitty27 said:
I love those movies.

Dog Soldiers is my fave,along with The Beast Of Bray Road.

(BATB).

B- But Dog Soliders wasn't SyFy crap! It was a proper movie. You can't lump it in with underdeveloped cheesefests like Raptorstein or whatever! Please say you don't!

BTW, they've only just changed it from Sci-Fi to Syfy in the UK, and I needed a good lie down and smelling salts when I heard about it.

Right, I'm off to make my screenplay brilliant.

regdog · Apr 17, 2010

I love those cheesy movies. They are so bad, they're hypnotic. I must confess, I missed Mega Piranha.

To date, my favorite scene has to be in Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus. The mega shark jumps thousands of feet in the air and pulls a jetliner out of the sky. :roll:

Do you ever watch those cheesy horror flicks on the SyFy channel and

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