Have you ever seen a movie that made you laugh because of how it was made, even if it wasn't its purpose? One that, if you had to put it in a genre, you could only describe as crappy? If you are a movie regular, surely the answer is positive. And you probably didn't know either There are lovers of these tapes.
Still from 'Power Rangers: The Movie'.
The room perhaps the most famous especially thanks to the recognition given by the recreation made by James Franco in The disaster artist. Some films in which it is normal to find scripts with little sense, absurd interpretations or unbelievable costumes. Or all at once.
But as it says Carlos Palencia, director of shabbycon, the Madrid International Cutre Film Festival which will take place between February 23 and 28 in the capital, "this type of film is those that make you laugh without intending to”. Most are usually low budget, but it does not always have to do with the money invested.
CutreCon, the great Festival of crappy cinema.
And proof of this is Battlefield, which cost almost 100 million and starred John Travolta, but “with which you laugh because the script is absurd, the production design is totally wrong, the assembly is a disaster and it is difficult to follow it”, the director tells Condé Nast Traveler.
Thus, between laughter and laughter, it ended up being one of his favorite genres. And that of many more people. “The love for seedy cinema is born in those who have seen many films, who know about cinema, and discover that there are other types of films. Tapes that do everything they shouldn't. Fascinating titles that you can have a lot of fun with.” he explains.
Turkish Star Wars poster.
THE CUTE CINEMA ON THE BIG SCREEN
That love for crappy movies led him to create the website cinecutre.com 20 years ago. where he commented on films of this type in humorous articles. When the page turned 10 years old, he came up with an event to celebrate it.
“An appointment that got out of hand, since We thought that few people would come, but it was a resounding success. Then people insisted that we do it every year,” he says.
Until today, which CutreCon has become a five-day event that will take place in venues as diverse as the Faculty of Information Sciences of the UCM, the Slaughterhouse Cinematheque or the Cinema Peace, among others.
And, for this eleventh edition, there will be international guests, official competition section, almost 30 films will be viewed... In other words, what started as a joke has turned into something very serious.
Poster for 'Trog' (1970).
In addition, it is an event for both those who like these films and those who do not. As Carlos Palencia points out, “Apart from the fact that they are films that everyone can enjoy, the festival encourages fun and a festive atmosphere. People shout and comment loudly. The spectacle is more in the theater than in the film”.
Every year the festival focuses on one type of film. And this, the great protagonists will be the dinosaurs. Because of a very specific quality: because most of the films they show are low-budget. “When you don't have much and you try to show a believable dinosaur, it usually doesn't work out, since it is not easy to represent. Therefore, the result is usually unfortunate.
Víctor Matellano and Álex de la Iglesia on the set of 'My beloved Monster'.
Proof of this is Saurians, in which, according to Carlos Palencia, the dinosaurs look like oven mitts. “I don't understand how it is possible that without having money you launch to record a movie like that. You have to be very daring. Or have very few lights”, he laughs.
THE 'TURKISH STAR WARS', A NONSENSE
In addition to tapes of these extinct animals, They will also screen what is for him the craziest movie of all time: Dunyayi Kurtaran Adam, known as the Turkish Star Wars. A film that had not yet been taken to the festival because there were only yellowish VHS copies, but now they have remastered in 2K, so the mistakes will stand out more.
Still from 'New York Ninja'.
As Carlos Palencia explains, in the 80s in Turkey they were dedicated to copying all the American hits that were slow to arrive in the country or did not arrive. Like Star Wars, many other films such as The Exorcist, Superman or Wizard of Oz were also plagiarized. “There are hundreds and hundreds of shamelessly plagiarized American blockbusters, with stolen music and a montage so incomprehensible that you burst out laughing”.
Poster for 'Once upon a time in Uganda'.
“I highlight the one we are going to screen because it is a professional film in quotes. It is not that it was shot by four colleagues, but that it was released in theaters in Turkey in 1982. Its authors, before recording, suffered an accident and lost the scenarios.
So the director came up with the brilliant idea of stealing from a movie theater an original copy of starwars, to cut out ship scenes and to return it to the theater as if nothing had happened, so that cinema was showing the film without several scenes”, he laughs.
Poster for '2019: After the Fall of New York'.
The cuts that he had taken from the original were put into his, which made the montage really incomprehensible. "In the film, maybe they're in a desert and suddenly the imperial ship appears or a guy running with a motorcycle helmet. The music is also stolen from other movies, like Indiana Jones. And to top it off, the design is really crappy.
The monsters look like stuffed animals, the swords look like they are made of cardboard, with impossible shapes, the robot is full of dents... they have no scruples. It is a delirious experience that those who have not approached Turkish Star Wars are not aware of how far crappy cinema can go, ”he summarizes.
New York Ninja poster.
The crappy movie genre is also made up of tapes that were successful at the time, but have aged very badly. As is the case with the 1995 Power Rangers movie. there is a generation that remembers it fondly, as the director of the festival explains, “you see it now and it doesn't stand up. Unless you're five years old. It's terrible".
And he jokes: “With this film we are going to destroy the childhood of many”. Cinecutre promises a lot (badly) movies and laughs. What better plan to close February?
'The Phantom Empire'.