Movies you loved and later realized were horrible (4 Viewers)

[jbutler]

It was supposed to be cheesy, it's a horror comedy........

My wife was first introduced to Bruce Campbell via the USA tv series Burn Notice, and became a fan. So I made sure she saw the Evil Dead series and fortunately she loved them. I mean, how can you NOT love the scene where his possessed hand is smashing dining plates over his head?

you're thinking of evil dead 2 which was intended as more of a horror/comedy whereas the original, while it had some comedic elements, but more intended to be a straight ahead horror film. raimi even stated in interviews back when he used to even talk about the films that evil dead 2 is more or less a remake of evil dead 1. he said he didn't originally intend the budgetary restraints to result in the campy style that audiences responded to, but when they began making fun of it, he decided to go all out and do a send up of the first film in the sequel.

in any case, i love all three. the remake was not great, but there have been worse remakes in recent years.

 

[grandgnu]

you're thinking of evil dead 2 which was intended as more of a horror/comedy whereas the original, while it had some comedic elements, but more intended to be a straight ahead horror film. raimi even stated in interviews back when he used to even talk about the films that evil dead 2 is more or less a remake of evil dead 1. he said he didn't originally intend the budgetary restraints to result in the campy style that audiences responded to, but when they began making fun of it, he decided to go all out and do a send up of the first film in the sequel.

in any case, i love all three. the remake was not great, but there have been worse remakes in recent years.

Ah, I didn't know he intended the first one to be taken more seriously. Yup, seen them all and #2 was pretty much #1 with him being able to do a little more with the budget.

Have you read Campbells books? The first one (If Chins Could Kill) was pretty good, the second one (Make Love The Bruce Campbell Way) came across as too forced as far as trying to be entertaining.

 

[guinness]

I watched Princess Bride for the first time last night. Everyone swears its the best movie ever but I think its dated for a first timer. I still liked it, but not sacrificing lambs over it. I also think I need to see it again because I can see the repeatability for one liners.

New Jack City still works for me, but I showed it to friends who never saw it and clearly watching it through their eyes the entire Nino Brown escapades are cheesy at times and the crack issue is introduced almost in a PSA manner. I still love it.

We watched Mr. Mom (1983) this week as a family (my wifes' request which was odd) and while its still a middle of the road film for the 80's it didn't hold up for the wife.

Yes, The Warriors always holds up. I don't think a year has gone by since it came out that I haven't seen it. Last year I visited the Coney Island beach areas and wonder wheel that the ending was filmed in and you would have thought I was getting knighted. In grade school I was a baseball fury for Halloween (and yes it was okay to walk around with a bat at night back then).

 

[jbutler]

We watched Mr. Mom (1983) this week as a family (my wifes' request which was odd) and while its still a middle of the road film for the 80's it didn't hold up for the wife.

good story about this movie. my mom and dad went to see it in the theater and either the opening scene or the second scene in the film, michael keaton's character is called from the floor of a plant/factory into the main office. the voice over the loudspeaker says something like, "(so-and-so), please come to the main office." problem is michael keaton's character's name in the movie is my dad's name - first and last - and he thought someone was calling him to come to the main office in the movie theater. when he got back my mom had figured it out and was dying laughing.

Yes, The Warriors always holds up. I don't think a year has gone by since it came out that I haven't seen it. Last year I visited the Coney Island beach areas and wonder wheel that the ending was filmed in and you would have thought I was getting knighted.

walter hill has directed a bunch of great movies - warriors, 48 hrs, streets of fire, brewster's millions, red heat, trespass. one of the absolute best genre directors even if he was been spotty in his later years (supernova, bullet to the head).

 

[Big Jilm]

Contact
Chasing Amy (most annoying movie ever?)
Mall Rats
All 3 star wars (I, II, III)

 

[bergs]

Fletch

You're on crack. Fletch absolutely ages well. Fletch Lives is a whole different story. Hated it when I first saw it, then it grew on me, watched it about a year ago and it wasn't even remotely as funny as I remember it.

Field of Dreams was fairly horrible when I re-watched it. So was Backdraft - Baldwin's acting was actually quite a turnoff. Also a bunch of Nic Cage movies - 9mm, Gone in 60 Seconds, and Lord Of War - liked that at first, couldn't get through them on a rewatch.

 

[bergs]

With the exception of some decent quotes, add Harlem Nights to the list. Eddie Murphy was great, everyone else was garbage.

 

[jbutler]

Contact
Chasing Amy (most annoying movie ever?)
Mall Rats
All 3 star wars (I, II, III)

i thought Contact would suck on rewatch, but it really didn't for me. i still love it.

and i hope you're talking about star wars 1/2/3 as in phantom menace/attack of the clones/revenge of the sith and not the original trilogy...

Field of Dreams was fairly horrible when I re-watched it. So was Backdraft - Baldwin's acting was actually quite a turnoff. Also a bunch of Nic Cage movies - 9mm, Gone in 60 Seconds, and Lord Of War - liked that at first, couldn't get through them on a rewatch.

man, i hope that's not true about field of dreams. i haven't seen it in maybe 10 years, but it is currently in my top 5 baseball movies. hopefully it will stay there after a rewatch.

as for nic cage movies, i think some of them are just unique animals. you have to watch them for their schlock value. one that i can say really does still work is Snake Eyes. that movie is ridiculous, but great.

 

[Redbelly]

Contact
Chasing Amy (most annoying movie ever?)
Mall Rats
All 3 star wars (I, II, III)

Still enjoy Contact! Just watched it a couple months back with my 18 year old!

Original Star Wars will NEVER get old... (Saw the original in the theater 11 times! Blue prints of the Death Star etc all over my room!) the others (even the prequels are difficult.). Just can't stand whining Anakin!

A few years ago I thought let's all watch Rocky with my, then 12/15 year olds! Good God that movie just drug on and on... sad really... MUCH slower then I remember... probably too conditioned to non stop action now...

 

[jbutler]

Still enjoy Contact! Just watched it a couple months back with my 18 year old!

Original Star Wars will NEVER get old... (Saw the original in the theater 11 times! Blue prints of the Death Star etc all over my room!) the others (even the prequels are difficult.). Just can't stand whining Anakin!

A few years ago I thought let's all watch Rocky with my, then 12/15 year olds! Good God that movie just drug on and on... sad really... MUCH slower then I remember... probably too conditioned to non stop action now...

loved this post until the rocky bit! i still really, really love the original rocky. i agree that we're generally preconditioned to need constant action now. watch a couple dozen films from the 50s and 60s and then you'll be back in the mindset to love sly's classic

 

[Bloody Marvelous]

Not so much movies, but TV shows definitely.

I was always a huge fan of Eek the Cat, especially Ep. 2 where he first meets Annabelle, and recently downloaded the series. What a pile of horse manure. I might need to watch some of the later episodes to make sure, maybe they just got off to a rocky start.

Also, rewatched the pilot episode of Thundercats lately and despised it. Lion-O's Sight Beyond Sight isn't really that impressive...

My nostalgic feelings about Battle of the Planets were crushed after revisiting it after more than 30 years.

Then watching episodes of Knight Rider (KITT vs KARR), when KARR drives off a cliff after a game of chicken... that's most certainly not KARR. That's a rusty shell of a 1950s car. Not even close.

Airwolf which gets its tail rotor shot off, but luckily they always bring a spare... Really? What else is in you spare kit? Main rotors? Landing gears? A tail boom?

Maybe I've gotten too critical with age, or maybe I just liked everything with colors that moved back then.

 

[grandgnu]

Oh man, I loved Eek the Cat growing up, I wonder if I'd still enjoy it now. Fond memories of Ren & Stimpy as well

 

[snooptodd]

I watched Princess Bride for the first time last night. Everyone swears its the best movie ever but I think its dated for a first timer.

INCONCEIVABLE!

Edit to add: My kids watched this movie for the first time a few months ago. They now play Princess Bride all the time, and fight over who gets to be the Man in Black. Not surprisingly, I always end up being Fezzik.

 

[grandgnu]

but I think its dated

 

[snooptodd]

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Funny story about this movie - when it first came out on VHS, one of our lazy HS social studies teachers showed it to his class, because it had historical characters in it, and he asked the class to consider whether the interactions of the characters from different eras were realistic.

 

[Bloody Marvelous]

I never saw The Princess Bride until very recently when I started downloading movies everyone's always going on about. My first feeling was that it was an okay movie, but the more I watched it, the more I loved it.

Speed and Bad Boys, which were my favorite action movies from the 90s, are slowly beginning to unravel with repeated viewings, but I still enjoy them.

 

[jbutler]

Speed and Bad Boys, which were my favorite action movies from the 90s, are slowly beginning to unravel with repeated viewings, but I still enjoy them.

unbelievably i've never seen Bad Boys (or, if Hot Fuzz is to be believed, the more impressive Bad Boys 2). love me some Speed, though.

 

[BiGGyT]

Fletch - it's all ball bearings.

Every 80 action-adventure movie with some sweaty guy on the movie poster comes to mind. I would go about every weekend to the movies and watch Arnold or Jean Claude or whomever do some sort of mass killing, and amazingly enough, none of them ever were arrested for violating someone's rights. No warrant, no probable cause, fuck it, let's shoot all the bad guys dead with only one bullet from my revolver that only holds six bullets but I shoot 87 times over the 20 minute final sequence without reloading. Funny how in real life, getting shot does not kill someone instantly every time and bad guys can shoot heroes in places other than the shoulder.

Still love the true life documentary "Red Dawn". The remake, no. The Chinese got pissed off at the remake that they had to change the troops to North Korean.


I'm going to add a twist to the topic : Sequels I would have liked to have been made.

Lucas - 1986 Cory Haim was the lead nerdy guy who liked Kerri Green but she liked Charlie Sheen. One of the underlying plots was that Lucas was a bug nut and the cicadas were emerging that year. At the end of the movie, Kerri Green's character says something to the effect of " I wonder where we will be when they emerge next time, hope we will be friends" or something like that. Since the cicadas emerged again in 2013, I thought that would be a good hook to the movie, what did happen to the characters over 30 years. Unfortunately, Cory OD'd in 2010 ( or pneumonia, or heart problems, or whatever wiki could claim) so no shooting that flick. Showing the real lives of the actors as the characters probably would have been a better story for the movie.

Expendables 3 - plot twist. Instead of Mel Gibson, it should have been Jean Claude Van Damme's twin brother as the bad guy.

Back to work, I'll see if anything else comes to mind.

BiGGyT

 

[SixSpeedFury]

unbelievably i've never seen Bad Boys (or, if Hot Fuzz is to be believed, the more impressive Bad Boys 2). love me some Speed, though.

Must see Hot Fuzz. It's still funny (well, to me at least) to this day.

 

[manamongkids]

Nothing But Trouble (1991) - Dont know why I loved it, but I did and you cant take that away from me. Now, it hurts my head to watch it

 

[Chippy McChiperson]

Not sure of any movies, but I experienced this with the tv show 1st and Ten. I loved that show as a kid, then I tried to rewatch it a few years ago when I saw it was free on demand, and it was completely unwatchable.

Johnny Dangerously still holds up obviously.

 

[Ben]

I watched Princess Bride for the first time last night. Everyone swears its the best movie ever but I think its dated for a first timer.

Heresy! Everyone swears it's the best movie ever because it is, in fact, the best movie ever.

i thought Contact would suck on rewatch, but it really didn't for me. i still love it.

Exactly this for sure. If anything it got better - I "loved" it when it first came out (in quotes because I feel like it may have been more in the obligatory sense due to my love of Jodie Foster, aliens, and extra-sensory shit) and I expected it to suck rewatching 10 years later. Not so. Man, John Hurt as creepy-rich-guy just pushes ALL the right buttons...

as for nic cage movies, i think some of them are just unique animals. you have to watch them for their schlock value. one that i can say really does still work is Snake Eyes. that movie is ridiculous, but great.

Con Air is still one of my all-time favorites, even though I realize that, objectively speaking, it's pretty terrible. I don't care. ("PUT the bunny BACK in the box!")

 

[bogart]

Just saw Netflix has "The Warriors" available for streaming. One of my favorites from the 70's. I hope it still holds up.

I still watch The Warriors from time to time. I still love it and it still takes me right back to when I was a kid watching it.

 

[Bloody Marvelous]

Another Rob Reiner flick I only recently watched for the first time is This Is Spinal Tap.

I cannot believe how awesome that movie is.

I wish I saw that ages ago.

 

[grandgnu]

Another Rob Reiner flick I only recently watched for the first time is This Is Spinal Tap.

I cannot believe how awesome that movie is.

I wish I saw that ages ago.

I still haven't seen it, but heard good things. It's a mockumentary I think? I've seen Fear of a Black Hat which parodies the early 90's rap scene, stupid humor, but I love it.

 

[Bloody Marvelous]

I still haven't seen it, but heard good things. It's a mockumentary I think? I've seen Fear of a Black Hat which parodies the early 90's rap scene, stupid humor, but I love it.

You cannot overstate the awesomeness of Spinal Tap. First thing I did was bug all my friends (most of whom already knew), and order the most epic Blu-ray release available.

 

[NiceShot]

The last starfighter. The very idea that by playing a video game, I could be recruited to go on a space adventure to save the universe was intriguing as a child. I watched parts of it again a couple months ago and had a tough time paying attention.


No wonder it was the last.

 

[snooptodd]

The last starfighter. The very idea that by playing a video game, I could be recruited to go on a space adventure to save the universe was intriguing as a child. I watched parts of it again a couple months ago and had a tough time paying attention.


No wonder it was the last.

I watched this on laser disc at my uncle's house (yes, he's one of the several dozen people who bought a laser disc player) when I was a kid. For some reason, I asked if it was rated PG-13 at the end (I was probably 8, so a PG-13 movie would have been WAY out of bounds in my house), and he responded "Are you kidding? That was rated X. Did you see the way she was looking at him?"

I was convinced for the better part of a year that I'd seen an X-rated movie.

 

[Bloody Marvelous]

I watched this on laser disc at my uncle's house (yes, he's one of the several dozen people who bought a laser disc player) when I was a kid. For some reason, I asked if it was rated PG-13 at the end (I was probably 8, so a PG-13 movie would have been WAY out of bounds in my house), and he responded "Are you kidding? That was rated X. Did you see the way she was looking at him?"

I was convinced for the better part of a year that I'd seen an X-rated movie.

I had 2 LD players. They both died on me. I really miss my Pioneer DVL-919. That thing was da bomb. I thought about getting another one, but they're so expensive.

I still have a whole bunch of laserdiscs. I'd love to watch the original theatrical versions of Star Wars again in their epic THX remastered 480i glory (which after letterboxing is effectively reduced to about 240i). And the special edition of The Abyss and its fantastic making of documentary Under Pressure. Why oh why hasn't that been released on Blu-ray yet?

 

[NiceShot]

I watched this on laser disc at my uncle's house (yes, he's one of the several dozen people who bought a laser disc player) when I was a kid. For some reason, I asked if it was rated PG-13 at the end (I was probably 8, so a PG-13 movie would have been WAY out of bounds in my house), and he responded "Are you kidding? That was rated X. Did you see the way she was looking at him?"

I was convinced for the better part of a year that I'd seen an X-rated movie.

Hahaha! I do remember a lake scene or something like that. That or the kid brother had mags. Maybe both.

Wow laser disc. That was spiffy technology. My friend had one, whose Dad was a lawyer. I seem to remember time bandits...