Imaginary Worlds - Guilty Pleasures

Episode Date: June 10, 2021

Sci-fi and fantasy genres have come a long way from their pulp fiction and Saturday matinee origins to become respectable genres. But sometimes you just want to see something awesome, weird or shocking. That’s where genre films can deliver -- even if the movie isn’t good. I talk with five listeners about their favorite guilty pleasure films. Also, Lou Hare of the podcast Guilty Pleasures breaks down the difference between a guilty pleasure and a cult classic, and we discuss why ‘80s movies are a treasure trove of excess and bad taste. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Craving chips? The app will suggest some on sale. To get started, just open the app. It's as easy as that. See the PC Optimum app for details. You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief. I'm Eric Malinsky. A few months ago, we put a call out to you, our listeners, to tell us about your favorite guilty pleasures.

We heard from a lot of people, including a few of you, that were against the premise of this episode because you said nobody should feel guilty about liking a work of pop culture so long as it's not harmful or offensive. But what fascinates me about the concept of guilty pleasures, especially with science fiction and fantasy and horror, is that these genres began with lowbrow origins in Pulp Fiction and Saturday matinee serials. Over the years, creators have tried to elevate the genres to critical acclaim and levels of respectability. And I think many of these guilty pleasures are

really about the pure pleasure of enjoying something that is just weird or shocking or fantastical. And we got submissions about all different types of media, but we're particularly interested in movies because movies work really well as spectacles and they can give you that hit over and over again. So let's begin with Corey Esser. He calls himself a quote, connoisseur of bad movies. In fact, he says he only feels guilt in how much he loves to inflict his bad movies on his friends. And this goes back to when he was a kid. My uncle is eight years older than I am and he he watched me as a kid. So he would get the movies that are like, oh, don't tell your mom we watched this. So we'd watch like the Italian sword and

sorcery kind of things like the Death Stalker that was like Conan, but taken to the next level. So those kinds of things, you know, Beastmaster and that's kind of my my niche. Was he the one was he the person who introduced you to the whole idea of the bad movies? I think unintentionally he did just because those are the kind of movies that we would go and get because we weren't supposed to watch them or we couldn't watch them when, you know, there were other adults around. I found out later on, as I got a little older, that my grandmother also had a little bit of that twisted sense of humor to her. I popped in unexpectedly one night and walked in,

and she was watching Pumpkinhead. And I had never seen her watch a scary movie before, and she kind of was like, what are you doing here? Sit down, grab some popcorn, we're going to watch the rest of this movie. So maybe it's just a genetic thing. Years later, Corey was browsing through a video store one day, and he saw a movie that looked like a hideous, off-brand version of The Muppets. It was called Meet the Feebles.

It's about these puppet characters that put on a show while there's a lot of backstage drama. Now, Corey didn't know at the time that this was Peter Jackson's second film from 1989. And it got Peter Jackson a lot of attention because it's really shocking, or as Corey describes it. If the guys from South Park and the guys from Jim Henson studios got together and used a whole lot of illegal substances and then recorded their ideas because it's all there. It's just layers on layers of weird. And they just don't hold back on anything. How dare you speak to me like that?

You horrible spiteful little rat. I've heard better singing from a mongoose with throat cancer it's funny so i'd actually never watched it before i'd always heard of it so i started watching it and at first i was like oh my god this is brilliant this is subversive and after about half an hour i couldn't take how horrible all the characters were except for like their super naive character, like love interest. Everybody else was just like so horrible. Yeah. There are very few redeeming characters. Have people ever had that reaction other when you've showed it to people?

Yeah. A lot of, a lot of people are like, well, if they focused on that part and it was like the love story of the new guy with the, you know, the sweet little hedgehog and, and like show more of him. But then they keep going back to, you know, these awful, you know, the the weasel making snuff films in the basement or the the the fly paparazzi that lives in the toilet tank, you know, things like that. And I go away from that and let's get back to this fun part. So when you show people meet the feebles, is there one scene that's often the deal breaker? Usually it's when they get up to the basement snuff movie with the cow and the cow sits on a cockroach that they're doing like a bondage scene

and accidentally kills this cockroach. Didn't you realize you were sitting on its face? I felt a bit uncomfortable, but I thought it was my hemorrhoid. It's a completely ridiculous scene, and I can't imagine being in the room where they're pitching that or

the writing team going, all right, here's what we're going to do today. But a lot of times that's the one where they're like, nope, gotta go. So how come the things that bother everybody else about the movie that they're like, nope, gotta go. So how come the, you know, the things that bother everybody else about, about the movie, you know, that make it like they often can't even get through it. How come those don't affect you? I think it's because I like to look at where they come from and what they were doing with

it because, you know, for the time it was made, it really kind of hit home a lot of issues. And you have the subplots of like the promiscuous rabbit host that ends up with, you know, the big disease and, you know, they leave it go unnamed. They kind of tackle interracial relationships by having an elephant that had a baby with a chicken and it pushes envelopes on things like that. So I kind of tie into those and say, you know, this was doing things that people appreciate when they see it on like South Park

or, you know, they see something more modern doing something that pushes that envelope. This was just, you know, 15 years earlier. That's the other reason he loves Meet the Feebles. It was made by a good filmmaker early in his career who had nothing to lose. It kind of was the catalyst for some of the things that came later. So a lot of the people that worked on Meet the Feebles

carried through with Peter Jackson's whole career. So some of them worked on Lord of the Rings and King Kong. So it's not like this is just a disposable college independent movie kind of thing. These were people that were trying to get together and put together a serious film studio career. And it worked. Even for just that little nugget of trivia that you can watch through their credits and see, you know, some of the people that built puppets for this built the puppets and the feet and the prosthetics for Lord of the Rings. Or they did effects work on King Kong.

So if people who went on to make Oscar-winning movies began with Meet the Feebles, I wanted to figure out what defines a guilty pleasure. I decided to check in with Lou Hare because he hosts a podcast called Guilty Pleasures. And this is a question they talk about a lot on his show. First of all, I guess I should qualify. I don't think guilt is associated.

I don't feel bad for liking some of the movies that I like. I don't think anybody should. But it's the commonplace holder for what I qualify as like a bacon cheeseburger type of a movie. You know it's not good for you. You shouldn't eat it all the time. You shouldn't base your diet around it. But man, you bite into one and it's incredibly satisfying. What I say on my podcast is a guilty pleasure is a movie that you love

despite what critics, public opinion, or even your own God-given sense might tell you. If guilty pleasures could be considered a genre, there are certain movies in the canon, like Roadhouse, Con Air, and Grease 2. But the one that he's not comfortable with is The Room, which was a low-budget movie by an indie filmmaker named Tommy Wiseau. In fact, The Room was such an infamous flop, there's a Hollywood movie about the making of The Room where James Franco played Tommy Wiseau. But the more you learn about the making of it, the more you learn about Tommy Wiseau, and it becomes like you're laughing at something and you're dunking on somebody and be like, oh,

and you're dunking on somebody and be like, oh, look at how awful and how untalented you are as opposed to, oh, look at how fun and silly this is. And I think I veer more towards the fun and silly. So if something brings you joy in a positive way and isn't problematic to other people, I have no problem telling people I had a thoroughly lovely time at Cats. Did you really?

I did. It's one of the worst movies ever made, but it was so insane. I loved my, I had a lovely experience at it. Wow. But I also know in the back of my head, I'm not going to tell people Cats is a legitimately good movie. You shouldn't go there expecting to see a good piece of cinema, you should go expecting some bonkers stuff that you've not seen in another film before. I do think for me, I get less pleasure from watching amateurs make a bad movie because of that punching up versus punching down mentality. I would rather say A-listers swing for the fences and miss, which is again, one of the reasons I love cats so much

because everyone from that movie is going to be fine. Yeah. Laughing at the movie is not as bad as say, you know, this was somebody's dream and they just, it didn't pan out. Like what is the difference between a cult classic and a guilty pleasure? I think a cult classic is a movie that maybe wasn't given its due in its time, but then finds its due as the years go on. The Big Lebowski is kind of the big gold standard, I think, for a cult movie, because no one knew what to make of that movie when it came out. And now it's so often quoted and nobody says, oh, it's so bad, it's good. People genuinely like that movie.

Well, does Rocky Horror Picture Show kind of walk that line? Oh, yeah. A hundred percent. Because I think they lean into the camp of it, too. And that's, I guess, some people's flavor of guilty pleasures is do you want a movie that knows it's silly and leans into it? Or do you want a movie that takes itself seriously and becomes silly accidentally? Oh, that's so interesting, right? Because I think it's more of a cult classic because they knew exactly what they were doing.

Yeah, I would agree with that. So yeah, they knew they were a send-up of those B-horror films and going wild with it. And they nailed that. But it obviously wasn't ready for a mass audience at the time. We'll hear more from Lou Hare and other listeners about movies

that were very silly, intentionally or not, after the break. Fuser Energy beverages made with natural caffeine. They come in two refreshing flavors, Blackberry Yuzu and Mango Starfruit. Try them today, only at Tim's. At participating Tim's restaurants in Canada for a limited time. It's time for Tim's. This episode is brought to you by Secret.

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Allison can't say her last name because of her job, which I know sounds very mysterious, but the truth is actually mundane. It's just a technical issue with her employer. Anyway, Allison grew up in Orange County. Where I grew up is so focused on youth and beauty and me being nerdy and everything. It's, you know, I was a teenager in the 80s and 80s teen movies really captured that whole thing in general. And so the nerdy kid and being in Southern California, you just kind of, you start to realize that you're sort of out of place and don't fit into that whole kind of thing. When she was a kid, she discovered Logan's Run, a movie from 1976 about a futuristic world where everybody is beautiful because nobody is allowed to live beyond the age of 30.

Michael York is Logan. Run, Logan! Policeman in a perfect world. No! Trained to track down runners. Run, Logan! Until he is forced to run himself. Run, Logan!

Allison liked the pulpy aspects of the movie, the cheesy robot, the laser battles, and the men wearing skimpy costumes. But as she kept re-watching it over the years, she began to relate to the message of the film. Like I said, Southern California, plastic surgery, young people, people denying that they're getting old. And then you showed it to your friends and they all said, oh my God, this is so profound. No, no, no, no, no, no. Of my friends, I am actually the oldest one. Most of my friends are at least 15 years younger than me. They grew up in a post-Star Wars science fiction world

that this kind of thing to them is just quaint, I think. Quaint. i've heard people say oh it's so terrible bad you know and i'll say well why and they're like this the special effects are so bad and i'm like well what about the story well it is ironic because i mean the story is all about not looking at superficial things and going beneath the surface and finding depth and wisdom but everyone's judging the film based on like oh those special effects suck or oh my god that fashion is so outdated right correct yes it's like hey this is really of its time and good was it appreciated in its own time when it came out no not at all it you know okay it made it made a decent amount of money, but critics thought it was terrible. One of the critics I remember reading actually said this could have been a good movie.

And I think that was a common sentiment. Do you own any memorabilia of the movie? I do. I do. I have a pin that has the hand that represents the maximum age when they all have like this crystal in their hand that starts flashing red when they reach 30 and that's when basically letting you know that your time is up and so i have this pin of the hand with the red crystal in it i was thinking so you saw this as a kid and it's about people turning 30 now you're well over 30 yes um what is it like uh to keep watching this particular movie as you age

i'll be honest when i turned 30 i cried because i thought i'm old now did you relate to logan's run in that? It's funny because I do remember the jokes about like joking with my friends and family about it. I was like, oh, time to die. I'm 30. But my friends who are younger than me, as they've as each one of them turned 30, they they got a Logan's run birthday card from me involving the hand with the red crystal in it. But as, yeah, you know, as I've gotten older, even though I'm older now, I still have the same affection for that movie. I just cannot purge myself of it. Not that I want to. I just cannot purge myself of it.

Not that I want to. It's hard to put your thumb on why you like a guilty pleasure movie, often because you're feeling contradictory things while you're watching it. But Lou Hare made an interesting point about what all these movies have in common. There's an element of surprise in a guilty pleasure that I think is at the core of why people like guilty pleasures. You walk into a James Bond movie, you kind of know what's going to happen. You don't expect James Bond's not going to get the bad guy or he's not going to get the girl or he's going to die or something like that. You're looking more at the execution and how we get there.

What I love about guilty pleasures is I like getting thrown for a loop. I like getting something that surprises me. And these kinds of movies, because they take such big swings, they grab me in unexpected ways. It was like, I did not see you making that choice. Most likely because it was the wrong choice. And why would anybody make that choice? But I thank you for knocking me for a loop and knocking me on my butt a little bit. thank you for knocking me for a loop and knocking me on my butt a little bit. That's why Nicole Blackburn loves to watch The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension.

That movie came out in 1984, the same year as Ghostbusters, Gremlins, The Karate Kid, and Footloose. Buckaroo Banzai didn't stand a chance. Buckaroo, President's on line one calling about is everything okay with the alien space claw from Planet 10 or should he just go ahead and destroy Russia? Tell him yes on one and no on two. The plot of the movie is kind of a grab bag of ideas, with a mad scientist, evil aliens, and nerdy heroes that save the day, in a Cold War setting, of course.

and nerdy heroes that save the day in a Cold War setting, of course. Nicole had heard people mention the movie before, and the title alone made her curious. And then she saw it one day on a local cable channel. To me, it was like finding a buried treasure. It's just so odd. And like, even to describe the main character, I feel like when you ask a child, so what do you want to be when you grow up? And they just spout off like, I want to be a scientist, rock star, brain surgeon, samurai. Then that person grows up and becomes exactly that. That is the main character. main character. Well, tell me a bit about sort of the elements that were more of the guilty pleasure part, like the things that you're like, okay, so there's one side of my brain that's

telling me, okay, I'm a person with good taste. I normally would not like this. But then there's another side of your brain saying, I freaking love this. Yeah, that was a thought when the movie got over too. I was like, my brain was wrestling. Is this terrible? Or is this amazing? And so I think I immediately hit repeat and I watched it again and I kept like revisiting it because it was so layered but it is bonkers in that it does not stop to explain things and you have no idea where the story it's not the typical the typical act structure I think that we see in a lot of popular films the wardrobe feels like it was from a thrift store the alien ships are made with spray foam and paint and like

whatever they found lying around from other movies and other like production offices and the makeup is very stiff you know on the aliens it's not super high quality but there's just something about that that's endearing well when you first saw the movie was there anything going on in your life that you know made it really stick that that kind of made you feel a personal connection to it? I think I had sort of recently switched jobs and was finding myself in with people who believed in me and I believed in. And it felt like, you know, it's a good group. I work with a very good group of people. And it feels like everyone has different skills and talents. And we're not all just one thing we have multiple things going on in our lives and that's something i'm really drawn to with this movie it's like the people are so

they're not just one hit wonder character you know they're not just uh two-dimensional characters you know they're not just a scientist they're they also good in combat, and they're also a mathematician, but they're also skilled musicians. They all play in a band together, which is so odd, but I find that so endearing in that that's kind of what we're all looking for in a job, is where we all feel like we're working together for something, a common goal. Like it's this core group of people that just work for this institute that treats scientists like superheroes. Like there's literally groupies that hang outside of the scientific institute and like wait to see the people coming and going. It's like, how cool is that? It's like just that it's a world where your nerdiness and like your weird skill or

quirk has value. But not everything from the 80s is retroactively delightful. There are some elements of Buckaroo Banzai that are of its time in a bad way. The main character is supposed to be of Japanese descent. And he's played by

Peter Weller, which last time I checked was not of Japanese descent. The women's played by Peter Weller, which last time I checked was not of Japanese descent. The women in this movie are just sort of pawns or just sort of side characters. The inclusion is not great. Also almost every character, including the nine-year-old, is packing heat, and they will pull out guns at a drop of a hat. I'm like, there are obvious things wrong with this, with this world and scenario, but there's something I find so fun about it.

Lou says it's not a coincidence that many of the guilty pleasures that he covers on his podcast come from the 1980s. Even when he goes back and watches the movies he liked as a kid, they make him cringe because they seem so inappropriate today. I think the one that struck me the most was a film called Little Monsters.

We went back and watched it for the podcast and I was like, oh, there's some fun in this, but there's also some real nastiness to this that like and stuff in a kid's movie that shouldn't ever have been in a kid's movie. And it just kind of made me feel it took the rose colored glasses off. And is there something about 80s movies, too, where it's sort of a combination of excess bad taste and everybody on cocaine? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All and all three. There was such a like a desire for it seemed like the blockbuster era was upon us in the 80s. And so there's just

churning out movie after movie to try to be as spectacular or much of a spectacle as you could. Or even kids were going back to the theater. So a lot more family movies, but they didn't quite know what a family movie should look like in the eighties. And then sequel, the sequel machine really ramps up, I think in that time period.

So you get six police Academy movies and four critters movies and all, all that kind of stuff. Well, do you think that there's something about being a Gen Xer? Because I think that, I feel like we had a Stockholm Syndrome, you know, because like there were only, not only were there that many channels,

there weren't even that many cable channels. And I remember when Cinemax first started, the only thing they played was Beastmaster, like all the time. And so I started like watching it. Is there something about being a Gen Xer that these guilty pleasures have a certain place in our

hearts? I think there is because those movies get replayed into perpetuity on those cable movie channels. These kind of mid-tier films that didn't do very well, I'm assuming they were because the rights were just cheaper. And I also think because of that, I don't think our parents were safeguarding the way we do now as parents. We were the latchkey generation. Yeah, exactly. But if you're a millennial coming in cold to an 80s movie, it can seem really weird. Like take Highlander.

It's a movie about immortals who fight with swords in modern day New York and medieval Scotland. There can be only one. mortals who fight with swords in modern-day New York and medieval Scotland. Come on, Twitch! There can be only one! I don't think most Gen Xers see it as a guilty pleasure. I mean, the sequels are considered bad, even among the fans, but the original is usually thought of as a cult classic. But when Derek Byer first saw Highlander as a teenager in the 2000s, he was dumbstruck by some of the choices they made. You have a movie with Sean Connery in it, and the movie is called

Highlander, and Sean Connery plays a Spaniard. It doesn't make any sense, and the movie doesn't care. Now, Pendejo, shall we see what sort of swordsman you've become the main character the highlander is played by a frenchman if it came down to just us two would you take my head and so his accent is kind of a weird scottish as well give me your hand brother even being a movie with sword fighting in it there are some there is actually some fairly clunky sword fighting in it. The very first sword fight in the movie is supposed to be this set piece that introduces you to the whole idea of like an underground, immortal sword fighting club. It's pretty obvious in that first scene when they cut between the actors and the actors stunt doubles. scene when they cut between the actors and the actors stunt doubles you see kind of a guy who's who has kind of stiff shoulders swinging a sword and then there's like a hard cut and that guy is

doing like rubber spined back flipping across the garage so i had amazingly never watched highlander and i there's very there are very few movies in the 80s i missed which is so it's kind of amazing that i hadn't watched it so i watched it for the first time last week and it's so weird to see an 80s movie i didn't grow up with because there's so many things that happened in it that i'm like oh yeah that happened in the 80s all the time not the real 80s but the movie 80s like that that happened all the time did those elements where you're like oh that's such an 80s trope or you're like what the hell is going on why is this happening it is it is such you have two major locations in the movie between the highlands of scotland and 1985 new york and it is so particularly 1985 new york i have been to new York. I have never been to 1985 New York.

It's almost a fictional setting in its own right. It's as real to me as Middle Earth is, because I've never been there and I can't ever go there. When Derek watches the movie, he still cringes at some of the bad tropes from the 80s, like the cop who keeps using a homophobic slur, or the black friend who was introduced and then killed by the villain, or the use of rape as a gratuitous plot point. But those are all terrible things that bad guys did.

The strangest part of the movie for Derek has to do with the hero, Connor McCloud. When Connor first starts getting tailed by the forensic analyst who figures out that something fishy is going on. He as an immortal who's been hiding among ordinary people wants to scare her off. He doesn't want anybody on her tail. And he accomplishes this by kind of stalking her across town. He follows her down the street. She gets uncomfortable. She ducks into a bar. He follows her into the bar and he plays this really cat and mouse game with her.

It's it's really uncomfortable to watch that because the hero essentially intend to intimidate a woman on the street in New York at night. And it just, it doesn't feel like something that a hero does in a movie. It feels like something we could totally see the bad guy doing. And we do see the bad guy do throughout the film, which is intentionally make other people uncomfortable. You know, I understand why he's doing it, but it feels like a choice that the hero should never make in a movie. That's interesting. So have you had situations where you've like tried to convince other people

to watch Highlander and you have, and either they refuse to watch it or they have and they're like, why do you like this movie? I've definitely tried to sell people on it and had them not have any idea what I was going on about, or why I would be excited about this. But I've actually been on a couple of unfortunately, first dates where for whatever reason, I end up telling

the other person about the movie Highlander, because there's so much to say about it. I think that the attitude that really draws me to this film, there's almost like a thesis statement in the movie, which is Connor says to Sean Connery's character, basically like, hey, what's going on? Do an info dump. Tell me how any of this works. Tell me who I am and what immortals are

and what the quickening is. Tell me all of it. And Sean Connery's character goes, what are stars but pinholes in the blanket of night? And that's his answer, which is just kind of like, who cares? It's a movie about sword fighting and chopping each other's heads off. And the soundtrack is by Queen. Do you not understand the appeal of the movie?

What world building do you want me to do? God did it. I don't care. So it's interesting. I mean, do you feel like what's so refreshing about it is that now so much of fantasy stories they have to like have this air tight logic or else all the fans on twitter will get really mad and they'll they'll be like 25 minute videos on youtube breaking down why you've broken your own rules and that this is just kind of like a who cares man for sure for sure highlander just it just says that something works a certain way and it just

does and you don't have this complicated continuity of like well they couldn't be there then because the future stone or whatever like and you know not that i've never engaged in that that can be a certain kind of fun in and of itself because you're trying to put together this really complicated thing Highlander doesn't ask you to worry about that and there's something relaxing about that that I don't think you get from a lot of media anymore I like this for what it is. And I don't have to like, justify its literary merits. It doesn't have to be something that my contemporaries are into. It doesn't. I enjoy this. And I really don't care whether or not you think I should. Do you own any memorabilia of it? For sure. I'm actually gonna show you this one because this is something I've had since I was 17,

which is my high school girlfriend got me a letter opener in the shape of Connor McCloud's two-handed sword. And I leave that in my mail bin and I open my mail with that every day. And then you say there can only be one and then you chop off the head of an envelope? There can be only one, and then I open a bill. Yeah. Of all the guilty pleasures that we heard about, there was one story that stuck with me because it didn't quite fit the pattern of the others. And it was also one of the most personal

stories we heard. In 2002, there was a thriller called The Mothman Prophecies, where Richard Gere played a journalist who goes to a small town to investigate spooky paranormal phenomenon. You already have, John. I've seen you afraid. You're frightened right now, aren't you? Drew Shannon watched that movie when it came out. He didn't think it would have an impact on him. He just wanted to see a movie that weekend.

That one just really got to me because the vibe was really spooky. And it was also just about this guy who was searching for answers. And I felt like I really related to that at that point in my life. And how come? Tell me a bit more about that. I grew up in the church and I grew up kind of believing in God and it was kind of a given. And I didn't really question it. And we went to church every Sunday and my family was really involved and it was just part of my life. And it wasn't until I got older that I started to have questions about belief, my belief personally, I guess. It's not that I thought there was something else. I just, I felt like at this point I was starting to really question or not whether these things

were something that I wanted to continue doing or if maybe I was happy just not really knowing for sure. And so how did the movie play into that? There's a lot in the movie about like faith in a weird way. You know, I think Richard Gere's character has an experience that's, you know, first he experiences grief and death. And so I think a natural human instinct is to want to know why and why you and and you have all these questions. And he has a not a religious experience necessarily, but a spiritual experience when he goes to this town and he starts to hear these voices and get these weird phone calls. And he's having a hard time existing in our reality because he's obsessed with finding out, you know, if there's a way to contact another reality. And I think for me at that point, I was like also trying to figure out if there was this other reality and whether or not I wanted to contact it or whether I wanted to have a relationship with it.

whether or not I wanted to contact it or whether I wanted to have a relationship with it. Kind of like Richard Gere's character, it's really hard for him to come back to what is real and what is in front of him and the people that care about him. And I felt like, well, maybe that's where I need to be. Maybe that's what's important to me is just being present for the people that care about me and seeking these answers are not really going to, they're not really going to fulfill me in a way that I'm hoping they will because they don't really for richard gear's character either so uh the mothman prophecies was um not a big hit not a i don't think it was that critically acclaimed it wasn't what i'm sorry i'm just i'm just finding this out now no i yeah i know it sucks but but does it though?

I mean, what do you like? It seems like a lot of people have picked movies that are like super cheesy or over the top. And I think what's so interesting with the Mothman Prophecies is that it's not a bad movie, right? It's just kind of middle of the road. Yeah, I mean, and that's kind of worse in a way, right? I feel like when a movie is bad, you can enjoy that aspect of it. You know, you can watch it. You can hate watch it or watch it ironically and still still enjoy it.

And I think that that makes like there's funny there's there's humor in that because it's like, oh, wow, like how badly they missed the mark on something, how badly they failed. But I think with a movie like Mothman, where it's just like, it's fine. It's like it's worse because it's easy to ignore. Maybe maybe that's it. Maybe it's just it's like, oh, well, it wasn't amazing. It wasn't great. It wasn't bad.

Let's see what else there is, you know. And so maybe it just got overlooked in that way. Yeah, that's interesting. I feel like this is another theme that's coming up with people, especially with guilty pleasure movies. There's a strong element of what you bring to the movie. I think and that's what makes them different than like a cult film. I think a cult film is underappreciated in its like artistic brilliance. But I think that a guilty pleasure movie is just appreciated by the person who's viewing it

in a way that feels personal to them. And I think that that's that's what like kind of distinguishes the two to me. So when you were watching it initially, and then as you watched it more, you started having kind of, it started sparking a lot of thoughts about faith and your personal faith. Does it still do that for you, or are those questions kind of resolved in your mind? I think they're resolved in my mind in terms of the way that I have come to terms with my own faith and that kind of thing. Like, I don't go to church anymore. I'm not really religious in any way. If that is important to somebody and my family's still involved in the church and like, I respect the hell out of that. So that's been pretty much settled for me. But I could still see the ways in which this film

helped get me to that place. I could still see the ways in which this film helped get me to that place. I think that's why guilty pleasures can feel so special. It feels like the movie is speaking to you and only you. That can be a lonely experience. But accepting a problematic work of art, warts and all, into your life can also be a type of love. And it's nice to love something that seems to love you back. That is it for this week. Thank you to everybody who wrote in. Even if we didn't include your story, really enjoyed reading them. Special thanks to Allison, Corey Esser, Nicole Blackburn, Derek Beyer, Drew Shannon, and Lou Hare.

My assistant producer is Stephanie Billman. You can like the show on Facebook. I tweet at emolinski and Imagine Worlds Pod. If you really like the show, please leave a review wherever you get your podcasts or do a shout out on social media. That always helps people discover imaginary worlds. The best way to support the show is to donate on Patreon. And at this point, almost half the funding for this podcast comes from you, our listeners. Different pledge levels, you get either free imaginary world

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