Back when theaters were showing double features, everybody knew what a B movie was. Now that motion pictures are no longer shown in pairs, the term “B movie” has entered a vast gray area, making the category a mysterious part of modern cinema. They’re not quire mainstream but not quite indie or arthouse. They attempt to be good and glossy, but often fail miserably.
However, some of them hit that sweet spot between good and bad. Others fall into the bad side so deeply, they’ve transcended definitions. Here, you’ll find passable and so-bad-it’s-good examples of B movies from this decade that you should watch with your BFFs. After all, laugh-crying with secondhand embarrassment should never be a solitary activity.
Faces in the Crowd (2011)
Milla Jovovich, who plays a woman with prosopagnosia, and Julian McMahon are competent actors. But there’s no way they could have possibly have saved this “crime drama horror thriller” mishmash from the disaster that it was.
ATM (2012)
Josh Peck stars in this horror thriller about three friends trapped in an ATM booth due to fear of a sinister hooded man outside. It’s pure suspension of disbelief all throughout.
The Divide (2012)
With no explanation whatsoever about what exactly is going on, this post-apocalyptic horror and/or psychological thriller is sleazy, dirty and really bad. The acting’s quite good, though, thanks to some familiar faces including Milo Ventimiglia and Michael Eklund.
In The Blood (2014)
In classic exploitation fashion, this movie is nothing but a vehicle to showcase mixed martial artist Gina Carano’s fighting skills and an excuse to get Cam Gigandet shirtless.
The Scribbler (2014)
Katie Cassidy, Eliza Dushku, Michelle Trachtenberg and Kunal Nayyar are just some of the recognizable actors in this super-campy thriller about mental asylum patients. Think Requiem of a Dream but more WTF, nonsensical and with no hint of irony at all.
Left Behind (2014)
With a 2-percent Rotten Tomatoes rating, this is a movie that Nicolas Cage and Chad Michael Murray would probably prefer to exclude from their CVs. It’s so bad, you’d think that the scenes are direct lifts and splices from the dramatization parts of a YouTube documentary.
Bound (2015)
This year, Charisma Carpenter topbills a Fifty Shades of Grey knockoff. Fifty Shades was bad enough. This tongue-in-cheek retort isn’t promising to be any better.