What are your favorite campy movies?

Another one is "Elvira: Mistress of the Dark."

Cassandra Peterson is gold. I love that she's gay friendly too.

80's movies were the best.

My favorite campy movie is Conan the Barbarian because it actually takes itself seriously in many ways. Random: The director is a right-wing moron but his bravado is used well here. James Earl Jones & Max von Sydow are great. Young Arnie's heavy accent resulted in a beautifully silent film, and the score is absolutely phenomenal. Riders of Doom, the Wifeing, Recovery, The Search, are all A+ tracks.

I watched "The Island of Dr. Moreau" on TBS as a kid and it kind of scared me, but I like it.

Also, regarding Conon, that crazy ass 3+2+2+2+3+3+2+2+3 time signature in Anvil of Crom clearly resulted in half the 24(!) French horns with the main melody not hitting the downbeats at the beginning. But it makes it raw and quite barbarian-like. Great stuff.

Valentine (2001)

The Godfather of camp for me, and a film I absolutely love (and saw opening night in 1980)!

Aeon Flux

A decent plot twist for its time, R6. The hand feet stick out in my memory and I often the film confused with Ultraviolet (also a camp fest)

May (2002). It has a protagonist who loves animals (vet asst), has a lazy eye, lesbian love triangle, and an unhealthy obsession with dolls. Perfect for DL!

Superstar (1999)

OP - Do you mean movies that are unintentionally campy (Honey) or movies that were intentional (Brady Bunch Movie)?

Intentional camp is an oxymoron.

No, it isn't, R11. Do you think Elvira thought she was remaking a Doll's House?

"Girls Will Be Girls" is a great intentionally campy movies as is "But, I'm a Cheerleader" and "Die, Mommie, Die!'

I think Susan Sontag would disagree with you.

1982’s “Beastmaster” has to be mentioned on this thread: beautiful Marc Singer showing his muscles & Rip Torn devouring the scenery.

Pure camp.

"The Fountainhead" -1949 W/ Patricia Neal and Gregory Peck. Unintentionally campy.

She-Devil

Where the Heart Is so incredibly sappy and lazy in it's story telling but it's a fun watch.

French Kiss with Meg Ryan is another stupid one..Moving with Richard Pryor.

She Devil is on YouTube also, R15.

It's just incredible to me that Meryl Streep once made a TV movie with Roseanne Barr.

R18 - I thought it was theatrical release. And Roseanne was huge (literally and figuratively) at that time. Bigger than Melissa McCarthy and Chrissy Metz at their respective career peaks combined.

True camp does not place itself above its audience or its material. It’s written and performed with earnestness. The discord between that serious effort and the artifice all around it help cement it as true camp.

Elvira, like the 1960s Batman television series, is campy in a wink-wink fashion, but not real camp.

Dr. Moreau straddles the two. Brando knew exactly what he was doing with that performance. He helped derail the film into camp with his singular campy performance. He’s fucking brilliant in the role and absolutely makes the movie for me.

If you enjoy that The Island of Dr. Moreau, you MUST see the documentary chronicling the insanity in producing the film. I enjoyed the doc as much as the outrageous movie it’s about.

Trailer at link.

Valley of the Dolls.

The Best of Everything

R14, it might have been even campier than it was if Gregory Peck had been in it?

Showgirls

Theatre of Blood

Serial Mom

R17, I was just watching She Devil. What a spectacular campfest that seems tailor-made just for Datalounge. Too bad that rancid cunt is in the leading role.

Mommie Dearest

Diamond Head.

Charlton Heston goes Hawaiian.

R18 it may look like it was produced for TV but it was definitely released into theaters.

Planet of the Apes.

"Get your hands off me, you damn dirty ape!!"

ROFL.

From the comments section of the Dr. Moreau video link at op:

[quote] @thejamnasium6447 1 year ago

[quote] this movie might have the weirdest production stories in film history. at one point the initial director had a mental breakdown and ended up wandering off somewhere on the island, and they ended up replacing him before they even found him. and at one point later to sneak back onto the set he ended up wearing a costume as an extra, and even appears in the film at some point as an extra.

[quote] @whoohaaXL 1 year ago (edited)

[quote] It's a crazy crazy story that could not even be made up. Fairuza Balk even tried to get the hell out of there. She was basically at the airport dragged back to the set! Where her agent told her, "listen if you leave this movie it's going to ruin any forthcoming career." David Thewlis also has refused to watch the movie up to this day.

[quote] @danieldevito6380 1 year ago (edited)

[quote] You have the story backwards. He was fired from production THEN snuck off to the island and ended up coming back as an extra in an animal costume and the director had no idea.

I told you, no advertising people in the club!

my goodness

Is Magic Mike camp? Or just an unbelievably terrible movie? Either way, I was laughing very hard the whole way through and I don’t think it’s a comedy…

Luv it .All 3 versions. Dynasty in togas

ORPHAN.

A Summer Place. Sandra Dee being slapped by Constance Ford, spinning into and toppling the “solid plastic” Christmas tree! Mid-century modern ornaments EVERYWHERE. “Merry Christmas, Mama."

Attack of the Puppet People

Soapdish.

Death Becomes Her.

Mannequin. Always a good watch and Kim Cattrall at her best.

Clue.

Serial Mom.

Real Genius. (for us gay nerds)

R36 I decided to look up the Wikipedia for this film and was surprised it how much it's popped up in the theme from it at least in different shows and movies.

One particular passage described how the theme played while Dave Chappelle was being thrown out of a plane in con air which they described as a comedy thriller. I don't remember it being marketed that way but I probably would have been more interested in seeing that movie had it been marketed as a comedy.

Another I don't know if it's really campy but it's a really stupid movie but I still like watching it as milk money with Ed Harris and Melanie Griffith.

Oh and before Laff was showing milk money they were playing another camp movie I like which is moonstruck which I think somebody might have mentioned.

Total Recall is another. Cats Eye too.

Vibes. Cyndi Lauper is wonderful. (Full movie on YouTube)

Looker was deliciously campy with Susan Dey.

[quote] Clue.

I don't think that Clue is campy.

It's actually a comedy and was supposed to be funny.

Big Business. I was seven years old when this came out and begged my mom to take me to the theatre to see my favorite, Bette Midler.

Love Vibes R48! One of my guilty pleasures. Cyndi was great in it.

Here's another one: Straight Talk.

r42...

R50, being a comedy doesn't disqualify a movie from having camp.

The remake of Wicker Man

Battlefield Earth

The Room - Tommy Wiseau thought he was making Citizen Kane

Who's That Girl. One of the very few movies Madge was pretty good in.

Romy and Michele's High School Reunion.

The Craft.

Back to the Beach

I think I must only like camping movies because most of them mentioned here my favorite someone I've seen numerous times and I don't watch a ton of movies. I used to watch who's that girl constantly as well as straight talk and big business. We had them all recorded on cable usually during the weekends at HBO would have like a free preview weekend or Showtime.

I think hairspray the original definitely counts. Smokey and the bandit definitely.

Troop Beverly Hills

Lawnmower Man

Mommie Dearest, hands down, and I think Faye is unbelievably great in it despite all the shit she has gotten for it. Plus it is quotable to a segment of the population I refer to as my peeps. Barbara please, indeed.

Death Becomes Her as a close second, as I would like to talk about Madeline Ashton..

Desperate Living is my favorite John Waters movie, even without Divine. Favorite Edith Massey, fave Mink Stole, a shantytown kingdom with backwards day and lesbian revolutionaries. Plus - leather boy guards.

Sometimes camp feels more like unintentional satire.

I'm shocked it took over 60 posts before someone said "Mommie Dearest" which is the gold standard of campy movies.

Also, pretty much any serious=themed disaster movie ever made, from "High and the Mighty" to "Poseidon Adventure" to "Daybreak" to "Volcano" to "San Andreas" -- all of them absolutely horrible and immensely fun.

I definitely vote for The High and the Mighty, r65.

The Beautician and the Beast. Everyone around me quoted that movie for years after.

R1 Cassandra Peterson was so gay friendly she became a lesbian. 🪅

The Bonfire of the Vanities is a disaster, but Melanie Griffith is campy fun in it. “Sherman, where are all the white people??”

I'm surprised it took SEVENTY posts for someone to mention THIS movie-

"THEM!"

All time favorite-

Christopher Jones in "WILD IN THE STREETS".

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.

1980s camp horror classic.

Re-Animator (1985)

House (1985)

Fright Night (1985)

I just saw Butcher Baker Nightmare maker last night. It's like if the Nephew Troll was a woman.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Butterfield 8

Go Naked in the World

Who Slew Auntie Roo?

What's the Matter With Helen?

I completely forgot about Showgirls, as someone above mentioned it.

One of those movies where they really tried hard to make it a serious movie, but completely failed at it.

"Must be weird not having anybody cum on ya."

Rofl!

Possibly an unconventional choice but... Halloween III: Season of the Witch.

Drowning Mona

R22, I’d always meant to watch The Best Of Everything, but hadn’t gotten around to it. Thanks to you I finally watched. I liked it. Wish we could watch it’s daytime soap spinoff/remake.

Kim’s turn walked so Constance McCashin could run.

Barb Wire.

"We've been fighting a losing battle against the insects for 15 years, but I never thought I'd see the final face-off in my lifetime. And I never dreamed, that it would turn out to be the bees. They've always been our friend."

"Houston on fire. Will history blame me - or the bees?"

Ladies and gentlemen - 1978's The Swarm (co-starring DL patron saint, Olivia de Havilland).

Can't Stop the Music

Myra Breckenridge

La Cage aux Folles

Homicidal

Anything by William Castle, actually.

Strait-Jacket

R88, I love William Castle movies. My favorites are Mr. Sardonicus and I Saw What You Did

Barbarella

Alice’s Restaurant

Easy Rider

Notes on a Scandal is a hoot!

My favorite movie about camping:

This one is pretty good

Hamlet 2. If you haven't heard of it, do yourself a favor and watch it...so many great lines.

I'm going to contemplate your post, r2, on the tree of woe.

Thanks R97! All the gods…they cannot sever us. If I were dead and you were still fighting for life, I'd come back from the darkness. Back from the pit of hell to fight at your side!

Does “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead” count as camp?

[quote]Does “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead” count as camp?

I believe that fashion show over the pool should safely move the film into that category, yes.

Polanski's Macbeth needed more but it was present.

R52 is Ross Matthews

Anything with the King of camp: Vincent Price.

Speaking of, R103....

No one has mentioned "The Ten Commandments," the GRANDDADDY of all campy movies!

Porky’s Revenge

I loved Vincent Price. The ultimate male-whore of the macabre. I remember him doing voice-over on a truly awful Alice Cooper album.

[quote] I remember him doing voice-over on a truly awful Alice Cooper album.

Vincent Price also did a cameo voiceover for Michael Jackson's Thriller.

Those late-70s wonders The Stud and The Bitch. Really anything with Joan Collins is camp just for existing.

This one!

And this one!

AUTUMN LEAVES.

THE STORY OF ESTHER COSTELLO

I can't believe nobody has mentioned this.

As long as we're pulling Crawford Camp out of our hats, how about this one?

("You're idea of art is the fruit in a slot machine!")

^Your - big oops.....

Lots of Roger Corman movies (RIP Roger!)

Linda Blair made a bunch.

Documentaries can also be camp.

This one!

The Bad Seed and Auntie Mame are two of them and both are currently on the TCM app,

When people say, "I can't believe no one's mentioned..." and then they say a movie over 70 years old 🙄.

I, Tonya definitely made me a fan of Tonya Harding.

Loved this movie.

Did you faggots forget about me?! God Damn, Motherfuckers!

Angel is made for camp aficionados. Susan Tyrrell and Dick Shawn are magnificent.

Ed Wood.

I love that movie.

I WANT TO LIVE! has so much good camp, all that BAD GIRL language . The jazz was great. The "big scene" was out of this world camp but also gutwrenching. I felt the gas and cried like a baby.

Reform School Girls (1986)

r121: Learn your history. I'm 64 and grew up appreciating ' camp from the Golden Ages of the '30s to the '60s. In the pre-Stonewall era, 'camp' films like COBRA WOMAN were instrumental in the development of gay culture. There was a time where nearly every gay man knew "Geef Mee Dat Cobrah Jew-well!"

Most of the films listed as 'camp' here are too self-aware and trying too hard to BE campy.

The 1988 remake of THE BLOB.

Berserk!

TROG

Another Crawford gem

The Female Animal, with Hedy Lamarr

Suzanne Pleshette sizzles and goes from man to man to man in "A Rage to Live".

Cold Turkey

MADAME X

I know R131 is talking about the 1960s film, but it randomly made me think of how campy the 1980s Berserk manga/anime/films can be. It has become a warhorse of dark fantasy though, and does deliver some great quotes, in addition to R-rated action.

"When you meet your God tell him to leave me alone.”

“It was too big to be called a sword. Massive, thick, heavy, and far too rough. Indeed, it was like a heap of raw iron.”

"Hate is a place where a man who can't stand sadness goes"

This thread is closer to Camp than the Met Gala was. But not enough letters to daddy.

I thought Bride of Frankenstein had its share of camp.

Hitchcock has some great camp in most of his movies but it sometimes feels too contrived to be camp.

I don't know what to make of the Doris Day version of "The Man Who Knew Too Much" but I first saw it on the big screen with another gay guy and we both started laughing at the same inappropriate times.

In her essay "Notes on Camp," which is pretty much definitive, Susan Sontag distinguishes between naïve camp vs. deliberate camp. Naïve camp would be something that has no idea of how ridiculous it is (like a Richard Strauss opera), and deliberate camp, which actually sets out to be silly (like a Charles Ludlam play). [bold]Both[/bold] varieties equally qualify as camp: they're just two different varieties of camp.

Christopher Isherwood in his famous discussion of camp in his 1951 novel [italic]The World in the Evening[/italic] makes a similar distinction between "high camp" ("High Camp always has an underlying seriousness. You can't camp about something you don't take seriously. You're not making fun of it, you're making fun out of it. You're expressing what’s basically serious to you in terms of fun and artifice and elegance. Baroque art is basically camp about religion. The ballet is camp about love...") and "low camp" (You thought it meant a swishy little boy with peroxided hair, dressed in a picture hat and a feather boa, pretending to be Marlene Dietrich? Yes, in queer circles they call that camping. […] You can call [it] Low Camp…).

And that was written 73 years ago, r121, and already people were theorizing about camp. So contrary to your belief, the world did not somehow begin the day you were born.

Summer of Fear with Linda Blair. It's campy and extremely entertaining. It still holds up today.

The earliest usage examples in the OED for “camp” in this sense are around 1910.

R130, I’ve always wanted more Shawnee Smith.

R141 has reading comprehension issues.

This

"Mister President is in his summer palace in Peking. He loves everybody."

"Absess" (2009)

Two On A Guillotine starring Dean Jones.

My favorite is 'The Seven Faces Of Dr. Lao', with Tony Randall in the title role.

I always enjoyed CLAUDELLE INGLISH and her hilarious descent into whoredom. Constance Ford does not disappoint as the lusty and loud white trash mama. Chad Everett looks delicious too.

Theater of Blood: Vincent Price plays a hammy Shakesperean actor who murders the critics that trashed his performances in methods of death taken from Shakespeare plays. My favorite death is where he electrocutes the female critic (played by Price's real-life wife) with a hair dryer in the beauty shop.

BLOOD FEAST

I saw this last night. Love seeing Livvy drive around in her little buggy.

I really enjoyed this one. Linda Blair has bitchin' hair and dials the phone with a pen. Cousin Julie is not only a cunt but a witch. Fran Drescher has a small part.

Lace.

Omg that movie was the worst, in a very good 80's way.

"Incidentally, which one of you bitches is my mother?"

Rofl!

I loved it, but that movie pretty much killed Phoebe Cates' career.

Has no one actually listed THE FAN yet? C'mon! Betty fucking Bacall, and young hottie Michael Biehn getting an onscreen gay blowjob?

Has SCORCHY been mentioned yet? Best part of this preview is Scorchys spectacularly ugly living room with a couch covered in big 1970s daises, a lamp with a mammoth shade and a HUGE white buddah on top of her TV. Fabulous harvest gold refrigerator in the warehouse shootout scene.

r158 She also has a shower with formica panels instead of tile. Klassy.