"If you can't be good, be bad."
The Bad Movie Bible
is a Web Video series by Rob Hill that looks at B-and-below-movie output from around the world with a strong emphasis on films from the '80s and '90s. Unlike many critics who focus on similar content, Hill takes a more even-handed approach and treats most featured films with appreciation for their strong points and respect for their effort and craft, even if many So Bad, It's Good moments are showcased in all their glory.
Their Borrowing Blockbusters series focuses on exploring Mockbusters and movies otherwise greatly inspired by influential films.
Films featured in Borrowing Blockbusters
Tropes featured in The Bad Movie Bible:
- Blooper: Many films feature sloppy craftsmanship like Visible Boom Mics or Special Effects Failure, but special mention is made for Zombies: The Beginning's opening credits where the special effects prosthetics are simply credited to Prosthetics Artist."The fact it's bright red and fills the screen only seems to make it funnier."
- "Die Hard" on an X: Borrowing Blockbusters: The Best, Worst & Weirdest Die Hard Knock Offs is broken up into:
- Die Hard in a Skyscraper
- Die Hard in a Power Plant
- Die Hard in a Mall
- Die Hard on a Military Base
- Die Hard on a Plane
- Die Hard in a Town
- Die Hard in a Venue
- Die Hard in a School
- Die Hard on a Ship
- Die Hard on a Train
- Die Hard IN SPACE!
- Direct to Video: Many films featured were part of the genre boom driven by the VHS rental market.
- Exploitation Film: Many. The Jaws episode of Borrowing Blockbusters calls its knock-offs "Jawsploitation," and the video on vanity projects refers to them as "egosploitation."
- Foreign Remake: Many, usually unlicensed.
- Fountain of Expies: Borrowing Blockbusters has so far covered May the Farce Be with You, Terminator Impersonator, Tuxedo and Martini, Xenomorph Xerox and Adventurer Archaeologist.
- Some episodes touch on which famous characters in a given blockbuster are often Xeroxed for Mockbusters; for example, Jaws' characters are broken down by name and narrative purpose, and it's noted when clones tend to play with their role; i.e. Mayor Vaughn expies tend to be eaten by the beast, and Hooper expies are often Gender Flipped.
- In Name Only: Occasionally movies featured will only copy the name or iconic imagery of a movie they're ripping off such as twofer Shocking Dark, originally released as Terminator 2 in Italy but is instead a blatant Serial Numbers Filed Off expy of Aliens.
- Borrowing Blockbusters: The Best, Worst and Weirdest Star Wars Knock Offs showcases several early cash-ins made in Italy and Japan before Star Wars released in those territories, so the creators didn't have much to work with beyond the "space adventure" theme. They draw visual inspiration from Star Trek instead.
- Misaimed Merchandising: An Alien action figure commercial aimed at children is shown in The Best Worst Alien Knock-Offs of the 1990s and Beyond, as well as interviews with families who saw the film early in its run and believed it was going to be the next Star Wars. One features a child discouraging his friends from seeing it, and another features a father who believed it was important that children see the movie so they are prepared for such possible situations in reality.
- Production Posse: Of sorts; the second Die Hard episode notes actors that tend to pop up in this particular breed of knock-off."Whatever the reason, Michael Dudikoff, Steven Seagal, Andrew Divoff, Bryan Genesse, Ice-T and others have each appeared in half a dozen or so Try Hards, while Eric Roberts has played multiple McClanes, Grubers and every character in between. It's almost like this little subgenre has its own repertory company."
- Screen-to-Stage Adaptation: Terminator the Second, a stage adaptation of Terminator 2: Judgment Day where all dialogue is replaced by dialogue from William Shakespeare plays, is given special mention.
- Stock Footage: Roger Corman films' frequent reuse of stock footage from his earlier movies is pointed out often. One particular sequence of a spaceship from Battle Beyond the Stars earned its own dedicated video from being reused so often.
- Expies of the shark from Jaws are noted to frequently be portrayed by stock footage.
- 1997's Hybrid features a montage at the beginning comprised of footage lifted directly from Galaxy of Terror, Battle Beyond the Stars, Star Hunter, Earthquake, Fatal Justice, Biohazard: The Alien Force, The Great Los Angeles Earthquake, and Forbidden World.
- The splicing of reused footage from other movies in the Carnosaur film Raptor is shown to be so poorly done that much of it feature revealing frames from adjacent shots.
- Troubled Production: They have two videos chronicling the rocky productions of Space Mutiny and Ninja III: The Domination.
- Vanity Project: Explored in A Top 10 of Vanity Projects - The Best Worst Egosploitation.
