There’s nothing me and my younger sister love more than watching the worst possible movies we can find together. From outrageously cheesy romcoms to low budget films on Tubi, we find great entertainment in laughing about how bad these movies are and are quick to send each other recommendations whenever we see a promisingly bad movie online.Â
Last month I began to see promotion on social media for a movie called Pretty Lethal with a plot that appeared to be centered around a group of ballerinas fighting for their life in a secluded inn. The cast was stacked with actresses such as Maddie Ziegler, Lara Condor, and even Uma Thurman and my sister has been doing ballet for years so it seemed like the perfect movie to watch together.Â
The movie itself was by no means good on any level. The plot barely made sense and the acting wasn’t particularly good, but I still found myself glued to my laptop screen, laughing and gasping at every outrageous twist and turn of the film. There was a particular part at the end where the dancers strapped knives to their pointe shoes and used their dance choreography to fight off a group of men that was so incredibly outrageous that it was incredible. When the film ended I turned to my family (who had come in and had also gotten drawn into watching the movie) and stated, “well, I really liked it.”
Later that night, I went on TikTok to see how other people felt about the film and was surprised to find a video review with a girl stating that the whole movie was bad from start to finish and that she didn’t enjoy it at all. While everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I don’t think she fully understood that the movie was supposed to be bad and was entertaining due to how camp it was.
In a world of people who take pride in consuming high quality and critically acclaimed media with long and well thought out letterbox reviews or drawn out think pieces on everything they’ve watched, I think it’s important to remember that not all media is necessarily meant to be “good.” That’s not to say that watching well made movies is a negative trait, but I believe that diversity in everything is good and we as a society need more campy outrageous movies.
So what exactly defines a movie as “camp”?Â
In 1964, writer Susan Sontag published her essay “Notes on Camp,” stating that “the essence of Camp is its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration,” which I think sums it up perfectly.Â
The camp style refers to an aesthetic whose entertainment value derives from heightened levels of exaggeration and irony. Simply put, it’s over the top and dramatic entertainment that still manages to be self aware.
Cult classic films such as The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Death Becomes Her, and Heathers are all good examples of classic camp movies, and some films that have been released in the past few years such as Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, Do Revenge, and Lisa Frankenstein are some hilarious modern masterpieces in my eyes. I firmly believe that the 2023 film Bottoms starring Ayo Edebiri and Rachel Sennott is one of the greatest films of this generation. The concept of high school losers starting a fight club to beat up football players and get their crushes to like them back is hysterical and it’s one of my favorite movies to watch over and over againÂ
While camp movies are often widely critiqued, given low ratings, and aren’t winning any awards or getting widespread acclaim, they’re still widely loved among those who enjoy them and are incredibly fun to watch.Â
Now with so many issues and negative news out in the world I think being able to sit down and watch an admittedly stupid movie is certainly one way to boost spirits and something I think everyone should do once in a while.Â