The blood in a saturated shade of red running down the screen in such a way that it looks as if your body is a river of blood; the deaths done in the most ludicrous ways you can imagine; surreal monsters coming from outer space, tomatoes that kill you, and animal combinations you would never think of; plus the most absurd natural disasters like a tornado of sharks, or a tornado of sharks on fire, and finally a plot that exists only to exist the movie, without a moral, without having to read betweens the lines of dialogues. Trash movies are beautiful.
The trash genre emerged in the 1940s in Hollywood as a way to attract people to the cinemas. These movies had as main characteristics, the very low budget, the reuse of sets, the low production quality (they were often shot in 5 days), the exaggeration of the actors, and the focus on being something fast and entertaining before the main movie.
In the 70’s and 80’s the well known trash horror movies came out and you surely saw and loved The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), The Nightmare Hour (1984), Evil Dead (1981), and The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). Unlike 1940, their productions are well done, the dialogues (with exceptions) are better constructed, the story has a beginning, middle and end, but the best thing is that they still don’t follow the Oscar movie cake recipe.
Oscar nominated films (with the exception of the really innovative ones) that follow a recipe to the letter to win like A Star is Born (2018) or any other war film set in the United States would lose badly if The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) or Willy’s Wonderland (2021) were nominated, in my non-technical opinion.
A Star is Born (2018) vs. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
A Star is Born 2018 is a remake of a remake of a remake of a William A. Wellman film released in 1937 and features Janet Gaynor and Fredric March as the lead couple. In the original story, Esther (Janet Gaynor) is a waitress who dreams of being an actress and goes to work at a party where she meets Norman (Fredric March), who falls madly in love with the character, they marry and he leverages her acting career. Because of his drinking problems he begins to feel left out and that he is also hindering his beloved’s career.
In 1976 another remake was released, but now with a musical version and the couple is played by the diva Barbra Streisand and the singer Kris Kristofferson. The story is the same but now she is a singer and pursues a singing career. Years later, original songs and with the couple getting a different name were released the version that ran for the 2018 Oscars starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper.
The story is good, it is no ordinary romance, it is loaded with drama and conflicts that the viewer can identify with, in all its versions. The 2018 song was made to play on the radio and stick in your head, it was a song made to win over the audience, but it’s about time you do the time warp again.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) is a British musical play by Richard O’Brien adapted into a film by Jim Sharman and tells the story of Brad and Janet, a couple played by Barry Bostwick and the perfect Susan Sarandon, who, newly engaged, end up in a house full of wild characters, including a biker and a creepy butler, belonging to the iconic Dr. Frank-N-Furter, played by none other than Tim Curry, who through systematic dancing and rock songs, reveals his latest creation: a blond, muscular man named Rocky.
What strikes me most about the film is how they managed to transfer the theatricality to the screen, and how the romance unfolds. The songs are there because they tell the story (like a good musical), and not because they want a prize or serve as a crutch for the plot to rely on.
You connect yourself with the loneliness of Dr. Frank-N-Furter, who created a being to satisfy himself while he could not return home, Janet and Brad’s confusing and revealing romance is much better developed than that of Ally and Jackson.
It is outrageous how only in the 2000s did it become a “cult” film for addressing issues of gender, sexuality and being a musical film from before 1990. It was not nominated for an oscar and did not win any academy award.
Willy’s Wonderland (2021) vs. Any war movie where the USA “shines”.
But let’s talk about The Hurt Locker (2008), Kathryn Bigelow’s film that won the 2010 Oscar, tells the story of a U.S. Army bomb squad in action in Iraq, consisting of JT Sanborn, played by Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, played by Owen Eldridge, and Matt Thompson, played by Guy Pearce.
They work on destroying an explosive, causing it to detonate without hitting anyone. However, a mistake causes the artifact to explode and thus the plot of the film is created. A war drama where all the surviving men emerge as heroes. I don’t want to belittle the armies that have fought in wars, nor do I want to get into the political side of things. I want us to focus on the film itself.
It is sad how a plot as predictable as Americans at War wins an Oscar. The lines are so unnatural from the actors who play the characters, the slow motions in the explosion scenes that could have been something innovative at the time, have already become something tiresome and a laughing stock for today’s action movies.
And that’s where the difference lies, a movie that was made to be good but is bad, is not a trash movie. And don’t get me wrong, I love action movies, and trash action movies have the best scenes, anyone who disagrees is because they haven’t seen enough movies.
Willy’s Wonderland (2021), a movie inspired by the game called Five Nights at Willy’s, was directed by Kevin Lewis, and has as its main character a mysterious man played by Nicolas Cage, who gets a flat tire as soon as he arrives in town, and as payment for replacing the tire, must work as a janitor at the abandoned (and cursed) Willy’s diner during the dawn.
The film makes you vibrate with the action scenes, the animatronics are clearly CGI, but are done in a way that is the envy of any landscapes that were made in CGI in some production of millions, the clichés are used at the right moments. The story has nothing of relevance, but the arc closes with no openings for a sequel or ambiguities. Nicolas Cage doesn’t have a line in the entire film, his character doesn’t even have a name, and you can understand EVERYTHING that goes on in his head.
Within every genre there are good movies and bad movies, there are trash movies that are not worth our time, but the elitism that exists among a more “cult” audience makes us judge the genre without even giving it a chance, even though the name is not inviting and many people already twist their nose just to hear about it, a good movie is a good movie, trash is not synonymous with bad movie. Bad movies are movies that were made with the intention of being good, but are not: Suicide Squad 1, romantic comedies with Adam Sandler, Raya and the Dragon, and honestly almost all movies with Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt.
