Schlock Film Festival
From SWILwiki
The Schlock Film Festival is an annual series of movie showings that takes place in the spring semester, during Reading Week. The festival features films that are so bad that they went past good and back to bad again. Unlike at regular SWILmovie showings, viewers are expected and encouraged to mock the film being shown, loudly and constantly. The quality of the films can range from hilariously bad to so-bad-they-make-your-eyes-bleed. This is expected, though one should aim for a happy medium.
Showings of the three Schlock movies replace SWILmovie for the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of Reading Week. Movies are shown in one of the big Science Center lecture halls, 101 or 199.
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What are Schlock films like?
The ideal Schlock candidate will have:
- Terrible production values: Schlock movies should look like they were filmed with a camcorder and edited with a pair of scissors and some tape.
- This eliminates most Hollywood movies because, though they can be terrible, they are usually sort of nice to look at.
- Horrifically stilted dialogue
- A plot that is at best barely comprehensible
- Noticeable absence of skill in the creation of sets, costumes, special effects, &c.
It is also best if the films did not intend to be bad, but rather tried a little tiny bit and failed miserably.
How are Schlock films chosen?
As with SWIL movies, Schlock films are selected by vote from among a pool of nominees. To nominate a film, find out when nominations are being held (at a SWIL Meeting some time in the spring) and bring a description of it to meeting so you can plug it to everyone else. Voting on which three movies are going to be shown usually happens at the same meeting as nominations.
What Not To Show
- Don't show movies entirely in a foreign language, without subtitles, no matter how bad they allege to be. (Example: The "Turkish Star Wars", shown in 2004. Yes, it was bad, yes, it stole footage from the real Star Wars, yes, it was entirely in Arabic. Fortunately, the DVD apparently was broken, so we were all saved.)
- Don't show art films that weren't intended for a theater/television audience. Their badness is too deliberate and they're incomprehensible in a way that's entirely different from the way schlock's incomprehensible. (Example: "Barn of the Blood Llama", shown in 2004, of which no more shall be said. Vow of silence and all that.)
- Don't show things that will flop. (Yes, we know this is kind of vague; it's also hard to predict. Many bad movies are simply boring, and even a really promising sounding title and description can belong to a very disappointing movie. For example, in spring 1998, we showed "The Incredible Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-up Zombies (the musical)". There is currently a copy of this movie in George. Don't watch it. Even MST3K didn't have anything interesting to say about this one.)
- We don't show "Plan 9 from Outer Space" as a schlock movie. It gets shown as a regular SWILmovie.
- 3-d movies are popular and get pretty good turnout (and we have a tube of 3-d glasses in George), though the movies themselves are often disappointing.
- Unlike SWILmovies, which are on a rigid rotation (no movie may be shown if it's been shown by SWIL within the last three years), Schlock movies can have looser guidelines. However, since they're all pretty obscure, and there are millions of bad movies out there, we generally do our best not to repeat them. Past Schlock movies should be listed with the other past movies on the past movies page (http://www.swil.org/pastmovies.html).
- Bad movies you've actually seen are more trustworthy than movies the internet tells you are bad. The previews at the end of last year's schlock movies can also be helpful.
The most helpful asset during schlock-choosing is an obscure movie enthusiast. Any movie chosen for schlock should have a recommendation from at least one person who has seen it, or at least heard of it. If you don't have a local movie enthusiast, write to the chit-chat list or some such and try to find a knowledgeable dinosaur.
Schlock Nominations
People generally think of ideas for bad movies throughout the semester, and tell the presidents about them. People are advised to write these bad ideas down and keep them for the Schlock-voting meeting instead.
The SWIL Presidents are responsible for selecting a meeting in the Spring at which to hold Schlock nominations. It is often useful to co-opt the large blackboard floating around Sharples, and to bring chalk so that you can write movie nominations on the blackboard. Voting takes place at the same meeting, so everyone can go home feeling warm and fuzzy about the hideous movies they'll get to watch in the spring. Ideally, Schlock movies should be a fair mix of genres -- one SF, one fantasy, one horror, if possible -- just for variety's sake.
The set of people eligible to vote on Schlock movies is not so much restricted to current students or SWIL non-members, as to people who're likely to come to the movie, and show up at meeting (or send a proxy).
Ordering Schlock
The presidents should come away from the Schlock-voting meeting with a list of Schlock movies to obtain, and a couple of months in which to obtain them. Someone (not necessarily the presidents, it can be delegated) needs to purchase the former in the latter.
The need to get movies is the main reason that schlock needs to be organized early. The last few years, we've had reasonably good success ordering DVDs online, but you should give the movies several weeks to ship. It looks really stupid when the movies are ordered too close to the due date and you can't show a Schlock movie because it arrives the day after it's supposed to be shown.
Schlock movies can usually be ordered by credit or debit card. Budget Committee will only write checks, so schlock should be ordered by getting a Swillie with a credit card to pay, then getting BC to write a check to the student. Also note that some movie sites will only accept money through PayPal, but generally someone has a PayPal account and is willing to order things for us.
Reel-to-reel films
The most traditional way of getting schlock has been to order reel-to-reel films from Kit Parker or Swank. SWIL has an account with Kit Parker, meaning that you can order by phone. The account is called "Swarthmore College: SWIL", i believe, and is no doubt in the name of someone who graduated long ago, but they're usually willing to change that when you phone.
It would be good to have up-to-date catalogs from some of these companies. Currently, we don't, so the presidents should do something about phoning the companies and ordering new catalogs. Prices and availability of films change over 15-year periods, believe it or not. This can be done any time, and should preferably be done early enough in the year that it'll do some good.
Major movie companies like Kit Parker rent reel-to-reel movies. These are more fun, since projector difficulties enhance the movie experience. However, it is also possible (and cheaper) to buy many schlock movies on videotape, either from Movies Unlimited locally, or online, from Amazon or other such retailers. Budget for schlock is usually about $400, which is enough for one or two reel-to-reel films, depending on price. Cost of videotapes is trivial, frequently about $10 each.
Be sure to order movies early to allow time for shipping. Reel-to-reel movies will need to be returned to the company as soon as possible. The film company should provide return UPS labels, so movies can simply be taken to the mail room in Parrish when we're done with them.
History
The Schlock Film Festival was first held in 1985. The point has always been to show bad movies. Occasionally, SWIL has accidentally shown a good movie, but this ought to be avoided if possible.
While the buildings existed, Schlock was showin in either Kirby or Dupont lecture halls, Kirby for videotapes, Dupont for reel-to-reel. A projectionist was required for reel-to-reel movies. SWIL hasn't had to show a reel-to-reel movie in a long time, now that everything's being digitized.
Here's a (possibly incomplete) list of seriously long ago Schlock movies, from the Timeline:
- 1985
- Earth vs. the Flying Saucers
- Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
- 1990
- The Black Hole (forgotten in box, big service charge)
- Billy the Kid vs. Dracula(?)
- Everything's Ducky
- 1991 (in Martin)
- Plan 9 From Outer Space (now shown only as a SWILmovie)
- The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T (someone remind me to nominate this? please?)
- 1992 (in PAC)
- Dark Star
- Mr. Sardonicus
- Reptilicus
- 1993
- Brain Eaters
- Billy the Kid vs. Dracula
- Frogs!
- 1994
- Fire Maidens from Outer Space
- Earth vs. the Spider
- The Day the World Ended
- 1995
- Viking Women vs. the Sea Serpent
- It Conquered the Earth
- 1996
- The Day the Earth Caught Fire
- It Came From Beneath the Sea
- One Million BC
- 1997
- The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T
- The Tingler
- 1998
- Yor, Hunter from the Future
- The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies
Links
- The Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com/)
- badmovies.org (http://www.badmovies.org/)
- Reviews of bad movies (http://rinkworks.com/badmovie/)
- Troma Films (http://www.troma.com/)
- Melissa Binde's Schlock movies page (late 90's vintage) (http://www.terindell.com/asylum/swil/docs/schlock.html)
- Past SWILmovies (includes Schlock) (http://www.swil.org/pastmovies.html)
