Remember when 'so bad it's good' meant a VHS tape and a group of friends?

We used to just grab whatever looked terrible at the video store, like 'Troll 2', and laugh together. Now my friends try to curate 'ironic' streams alone, and it loses all the messy, shared fun. What's the last movie you watched with a group that had everyone howling at the screen?

3 comments

3 Comments

ray_king1mo ago

That bit about phones is the real killer, but I think it goes deeper than just people scrolling. The old magic of a bad movie night came from everyone being stuck in the same bad decision for two hours, no escape. Now it's like we're all too scared to commit to a truly terrible pick because we know someone will just pull out their phone and check something better, killing the mood. Did you find that forcing people to put phones away actually brought that old feeling back, or was it still missing something because everyone was already too distracted to start?

the_michael2mo agoMost Upvoted

Totally, and spencerl32 nailed it about the phones.

spencerl322mo ago

Honestly, I used to think streaming made bad movies more fun because you have so many to pick from. But you're totally right, the magic was in the terrible VHS box art and the group commitment to a single awful choice. Last one that had my friends dying was "The Room," but we had to force everyone to put their phones away to even get close to that old feeling. That shared misery, where you're all groaning at the same dumb scene, just doesn't happen when someone's scrolling on their laptop. It turns a party into a bunch of people alone in the same room.