Perhaps you may have heard of a little-known film called Troll 2? In case you haven't, Troll 2 is a campy horror film released in 1990 that currently holds a 2.4 out of 10 rating on its IMDB page. It's a very shameful rating, and immediately seeing that, people would typically turn away from it, right? Not in this case. The film is about goblins wanting to eat human beings by turning them into vegetation. Yes, GOBLINS. Not trolls, but GOBLINS. Already, you can tell that you're going to be in for something in which minimal effort was put into if right off the bat, the title of the film is misleading. As if that wasn't bad enough, it was released straight-to-VHS, increasing its camp value to embarrassing levels. Finally, upon actually viewing it, one would notice the lack of any sense in the film's plot, ridiculous over-the-top dialogue, exaggerated characterization, cheap costume design, the whole works. It has all of the makings of an abysmal flick.
However, thanks to the power of social media, Troll 2 has gone from an instant failure to having notoriety within only a couple of decades. YouTube, in particular, has helped make it a laughable phenomenon with various clips from the movie posted on there for laughs, and it has since helped the movie's presence become viral. Thanks to YouTube, as well as various screenings at the Music Box theater in Chicago, new fans have been able to appreciate the film's horrid production values. Also, according to the article, thanks to social media websites, fans have actually contacted the former actors of the film express their fandom. In particular, according to CBS News, people messaged one of the main actors of the film, Michael Paul Stephenson, on MySpace by sending pictures of Troll 2 parties. This eventually led to the documentary, Best Worst Movie, which is about the fan reactions of the film, as well as a reunion of sorts for the original cast members. Not only has the introduction to the Internet Age helped make unknown stars of a cheesy horror movie known, but it has increased DVD sales for the particular movie. Meanwhile, various clips from the movie, such as the infamous "Oh my god!" scene and Troll 2's trailer, have been enjoyed by more than four million viewers combined. Various other videos have helped spread the word as well, such as movie reviews, video remixes, and other ways of making it into one giant Internet meme. Whereas infamously bad movies directed by Ed Wood in the fifties didn't become noticeable until after Wood's death, people's exposure to Mystery Science Theater 3000, and Tim Burton's biopic Ed Wood came out in the 1990's, Troll 2 became an instant cult success thanks to the rapid recognition on the Internet.
The trailer that says it all...
Fast forward to the year 2003. Enter Tommy Wiseau into the picture, an independent film producer who raised a six million dollar budget to produce a film called The Room, a film revolving around a dramatic love triangle. However, based on the critical reactions from the film, it is anything but dramatic. Like with Troll 2, the characters are zany, the dialogue causes a person to take a double-take, and the production simply looks cheap. Unlike Troll 2, though, The Room was lucky enough to be released when the Internet was starting to become an essential tool for everyday life. Within approximately six or seven years after its release, The Room started to become something of a viral fascination. As the author of this LockerPartner article describes, through the use of text messaging, friends were able to inform Jason Harper to check out the bizarre nature of the film through a fan site and various clips on YouTube, which prompted him to spread the word on Facebook and Twitter. Going on YouTube, most of the film's infamous scenes have over one million views, which goes to show the success of spreading the word of a bad movie, even if it isn't even that vintage of a film.
Harper also brings up a good point about the marketability of noticeably bad films through social media. Thanks to the rapid spread of information that social networking can provide, more people are able to appease their curiosity in this day and age than they could when the only ways of finding out about cult movies was through traditional media outlets, such as television, radio, and newspapers, and communicating with family and friends who have seen the movie. Films such as The Room instantly become a cult hit and begin to market themselves through virality. However, Harper points out that negative effects can come about when it comes to unintentional viral marketing, such as ridicule and embarrassment, if the product is bad enough. Fortunately for Tommy Wiseau, though, people seem to embrace him when he attends various screenings, like it was an honor. In fact, people dress for the occasion as characters from the film, similar to screenings for The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and bring spoons to throw inside the theater in (dis)honor of an out-of-place framed photo of a spoon in the main protagonist's living room, further proving its cult status.
Crowds throwing spoons at a screening of The Room
An even more recent example of a bad movie becoming popular due to viral methods is Birdemic: Shock and Terror, and film written and directed by James Nguyen in 2010. It is a film in the vein of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds in which a swarm of birds begin to attack innocents and terrorize a town. The film quickly became known for it's abysmal computer generated graphics, inconsistent pacing, and awful script, but instead of the creator of the film becoming oblivious of its mediocrity and letting it fade into obscurity, Nguyen actually planned to pursue his own viral marketing campaign by covering his vehicle in fake blood and bird droppings, eventually obtaining midnight screenings. It was then that people started to take notice, spreading the word via Facebook and Twitter, and the film's trailer even began raking in thousands of views. It is proof of how fast a mediocre film released in the midst of a social media revolution can become recognizable within months. It also shows how successful a director without any film school experience working on a thin budget of $10,000 can achieve cult status almost immediately. Even celebrities, such as Rainn Wilson of The Office fame, helped spread the word on his Twitter, which was reported to have up to 1.9 million followers in 2010. As this article states, the movie was able to achieve in such a short amount of time through the Internet's social media what vintage cult films struggled to obtain in years of dedication of few devoted groups of obsessed fans watching via television and home video.
As more modern films released to immensely poor critical reception are becoming more and more popular amongst the niche crowd of particular cinephiles, the filmmakers themselves are becoming something of respectable public figures because of their participation at their own screenings and their embrace of fans' support, despite denials of intentionally poor filmmaking decisions. Due to this phenomena, Bilge Ebiri made the remark in a 2010 article that their success is not only due to people spreading the word of what they have seen to other people on social networking, but also because the filmmakers themselves promote the films, questioning whether or not they intended to create such poor cinema. Whereas a film such as Troll 2 came and went without any promotion over the years directly from the filmmakers and gained notoriety from people's personal experiences with seeing the film, Wiseau and Nguyen still embrace the popularity of their respective films and attend screenings proudly while promoting their work on their Twitters. Ebiri relates this self-promotion as a problem that potentially decreases these films' claims of unintentionally being campy and horrible, participating in a trend of creating bad movies to appease those who get a laugh out of it. He says that the passion that filmmakers such as Ed Wood had when making movies that he didn't think were bad is gone, and the novelty of aging films gaining cult status from years of dedicated, underground success is also gone, thanks to the quick success gained from social media and self-promotion as a result of witnessing that spread of word of mouth. Thanks to the way the Internet works, with horrible movies achieving success, they could possibly be competing with quality films, which is what Ebiri is concerned with. Social media and the Internet both have the power to transform something previously obscure and make it into a mainstream success in no time. However, as long as people continue to legitimately recognize what is good and what is laughably bad, both ends of the spectrum can still be enjoyed by movie-goers, and they'll have something to laugh about at the end of the day.
With that said, here is a brief video that sums up how not only bad films gain popularity through social media, but how films in general or people who want to promote upcoming films can use social media to their advantage:
