Showerthought: The best bad movies have a specific kind of failure that happens around minute 22

I was rewatching 'The Room' last week with my buddy Dave, and we got to talking about when exactly things go off the rails. For me, it's often right around the 22 minute mark. That's when you can tell the director lost the plot or the budget ran out or the actors just gave up. Last month I watched a cheap horror flick called 'Zombie Lake' from 1981, and sure enough, at 22 minutes in, the zombie makeup literally started melting off an actor's face. Three years ago at a screening in Portland, some guy pointed out this pattern to me, and now I can't unsee it. Has anyone else noticed a specific time stamp where bad movies go from okay to hilariously terrible?

2 comments

2 Comments

mila_murphy211mo ago

Read in a film blog that bad movies hit their peak crazy around minute 22 because of budget cuts.

ray_miller841mo ago

Back in film school we noticed that exact same pattern around the 20 minute mark...