Sunday Times
The Bad & The Beautiful

Did you enjoy the climax of the film awards season? A triumph, of course, for the movie which collected in 4 of the 7 categories it was up for (cue drum roll): Basic Instinct 2! These were, of course, the Razzies - the Golden Raspberries lobbed at the most execrable films of the year since 1980.

Amazingly, a few ‘winners’ even turn up - most famously Halle Berry, who collected her 2005 Worst Actress gong for Catwoman with a parody of her 2002 Oscar-winning weepfest, clutching the famous  gold statuette alongside its new friend, a gold spray-painted raspberry above a mangled film reel.

For many film fans, the Razzies are a welcome antidote to the schmaltz and egotism of the Oscars. And for those unable to make it to LA, there’s now a homage to Tinseltown Turkeys on this side of the Atlantic - the Bad Film Club. 

The brainchild of Cardiff-based comedy duo Nicko (Nicola) Vaughan and Joe Timmins, the BFC’s premise is that, rather than making the audience suffer in silence, some films are better for having invective hurled at them with the active encouragement of a commentary from professional stand-ups - or, in this case, sit-downs - in the front row.     

Nicko and Joe honed their bad film antennae with jobs inside the film business before founding the club - Nicko as a script supervisor, Joe in post-production work. So what makes a Bad Film? “It’s a film written in seriousness which turns into a comedy,” offers Nicko, before passing the baton to Joe to add: “We just interact with it in a way that makes it even funnier.” 

As with any club there are rules. No films before 1975, for example, because laughing at vintage sci-fi films is as cheap as the effects they often used.  ‘No comedies’ is a more curious rule. “They just don’t work in a Bad Film Club,” explains Nicko. “A bad comedy turns full circle and becomes something really boring, like those Czech animations of a dancing marionette.”

Just as many sequels obey the Bad Film law of diminishing returns, Nicko and Joe believe whole genres such as “creature features” and disaster movies lend themselves to producing rotten reels. “Those films have to have effects,” says Joe, “but try and do something like Jurassic Park with the budget of a PlaySchool episode, and  you get Raptor or Carnivore 1,2 and 3”.    

Money - or lack of it - isn‘t everything though, and Joe is quick to point to low-budget gems like Man Bites Dog. “Truly bad films have no heart or soul,” he says. “What’s really annoying is when a film  has loads of money but just doesn’t try.”

While the duo have ultimate say over which movies are acknowledged as Bad Films in the club pantheon, there are lively debates with film fans who suggest others on the BFC website. Joe has repeatedly rejected requests, for example, to add Tremors to the Bad Film list (“It’s a great film!”).

Carte blanche applies, though, for the BFC screenings which feature guest stand-ups alongside Nicko and Joe. Amounting to personal vendettas - billed as So-and-so Comedian vs. Whatever Film - the policy can provide unexpected billings. Stewart Lee, for example, insisted on March Of The Penguins for a 2006 screening on moral rather than aesthetic grounds. “He said it was a horrible prop to right wing values,” explains Nicko. “It was weird, though, heckling baby penguins.”

Whatever your views on Antarctic wildlife and politics, many would agree with Lee‘s assertion that high production values can be mere surface polish on a festering heap. “Ed Wood’s 1959 film Plan 9 From Outer Space regularly features in bad movie polls, “ says Lee, “but it displays imagination and energy absent from most Richard Curtis films.” Clearly a case of No Love Lost, Actually.
  
While Joe admits the strong personal element in judging the badness of a film, he suggests many BFC selections are beyond debate. “I’d love to hear someone stand up and argue that Leprechauns In Space is a good film!” He’s quick, though, to stress the fine line between love and hatred. One fan comment summed it up on the BFC website: “You know it’s rubbish but you can’t stop watching”.

It’s a feeling shared by John Wilson, founder of the Razzies. “These awards don‘t come from a place of hatred. I love a good film but I also want to have a good time,” he explained. “My parents were raised during the Depression and movies meant a lot to them. I got a real sense of the value of movies.”

Do the Bad Film Club duo ever wonder how some of their films even saw the light of day? “God, yes,” says Joe. “But there was a really great quote from someone: ‘Every film’s a great film before the camera starts rolling.’ Studios try and rescue films like Battlefield Earth by marketing - $40m making it, $30m hyping it.”

Even a talented star or decent director is no guarantee that things will be OK. Worst Actor nominees for this year‘s Razzies included the likes of Nicolas Cage for The Wicker Man remake and Danny DeVito (Deck The Halls), actors whose previous credits suggest they should know better.  And is Michael Caton-Jones (Worst Director nominated for Basic Instinct 2) the same person who gave us This Boy’s Life and Scandal? Even Worst Actress winner Sharon Stone has shown more talent than flesh in films such as Casino.     

Settling  down to watch Basic Instinct 2 - rechristened Basically It Stinks, Too for the Razzies - it soon reveals its mastery of key elements of the Bad Film genre.  AA (Awful Acting) - check. PP (Pathetic Plot) - check. DD (Dreadful Dialogue rather than a reference to Sharon Stone’s breasts - nominated, unsuccessfully, for a Razzie as Worst Screen Couple) - check.

Comedian Phil Nichol leads the assault to an enthusiastic crowd at the Brixton Ritzy, offering front row prompts that quickly have the audience joining in with their own stream of contributions. It’s all rather cathartic not having to sit in silence. “It’s payback,” says one smiling punter afterwards, “ for all those films that treat the audience like morons.”

I ask Joe about the best audience contribution they’ve had. “It was during Jaws 4 in Winchester,” he says, after a moment. “There’s a bit at the end when the shark explodes and the cameraman cuts to Michael Caine, when someone yelled out ‘You’re only supposed to blow the bloody jaws off‘.”

If you don’t get the last joke you’re reading the wrong article. Not everyone, though, likes the idea of heckling in a cinema, however bad the movie. Sunday Times film reviewer Cosmo Landesman, for example, is aghast when I tell him about Bad Film Club behaviour. “It’s just about the most awful idea I've come across in ages”. 

The public, however, seem to enjoy the experience, from Battlefield Earth in Edinburgh to Anaconda in Swindon.  A book looms too, with Nicko and Joe newly commissioned to produce The Bad Film Club Bible. “Any titles you think deserve a place, let us know,“ says Nicko. Can I nominate Titanic?