I love bad movies. I don’t think they’re bad—they are very beautiful to me—but I am aware that many of my favorites were absolute flops with both critics and general audiences. I’m convinced I’m one of three people who earnestly enjoyed The Turning. There’s something profound about so-called bad cinema, especially bad cinema made with earnest intentions. A bad thing made with love will always resonate more with me than an okay or even good thing made to simply sell tickets.
Often, those bad movies have a smattering of fans, though little revisionism. I’m not going to sit here and sing the high praises of the Amanda Seyfried vehicle Gone, even if I do think it boasts one of the most chilling final acts of the century. So, it’s always fascinating to me when a certified dumpster fire is contended to be an exemplar of the genre. Last week, I encountered such a movie online and immediately had to track it down and see for myself. Luckily, I managed to find it free online, so allow me to share After Last Season with you.
Per IMDB: Two neurology students create a telepathy experiment together to visualize a murderer, who recently knifed another student.
After Last Season has lore. This was lore I never knew anything about, but longstanding cinephiles might be more familiar than I was when the title appeared on my Twitter feed. Director Mark Region has reportedly credited the likes of The Sixth Sense and The Exorcist as inspirations, and while it seems dubious, he additionally reports filming After Last Season with a budget of $5 million. He attributes most of the cost to the animation, and I can kind of see that, though not as clearly as the $30,000 attributed to actually filming.
It’s fascinating, largely because everyone absolutely hated After Last Season when the film was first released. Critics lambasted it, audiences shunned it, and like The Room or House of the Dead, After Last Season’s legacy is principally that of one of the worst movies ever made. Is it really, though? Check out the tweet below to see what first triggered my interest:
I wasn’t around the theatrical bow, but I know that it got a lot of folks riled up. Undeservedly, I think. Now, I won’t go so far as to call it a great movie (just give me a few years, who knows), but yeah… there was something haunting and disorienting here. I encourage you to check it out for yourself, and you can catch it streaming free here.
What do you think? Were you familiar with After Last Season? Is it truly one of the scariest movies ever made? Let me know over on Twitter @Chadiscollins, where I’m always down for some more obscure recs.
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