worst movie ever?
oh my.
shareWhen I was a kid I wanted to see this movie so bad. When I finally saw it, I couldn't believe how bad it was. Starts off good, but it really goes south fast. Love the flying heads though.
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MovieChat Forums > Zardoz (1974) Discussion > worst movie ever?
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shareWhy is so hard for people to realize that it is intentionally campy? John Boorman is not an idiot.
shareIn the commentary for Excalibur, Boorman says "It's OK to laugh at it"--words that could be applied to both Excalibur and Zardoz due to their peculiar dialogue and broad performances.. Zardoz can sometimes still make me laugh harder than any intentional comedy.
shareMaybe I don't know what campy means, but I am not sure that is the best word for Zardoz. It's like those low budget kind of goofy movies, like "Forbidden Planet" where they tell a story that is very interesting in some way, but they know it is, or was, hopeless to try to create the world with special effects. I thought Zardoz was very creative at that ... such as when they enter the tabernacle they just walk past the edge or a mirror. It was brilliant in that way, but maybe campy too.
What does campy mean and can you give me an example. I think any movie that has so many beautiful women's breasts in it is not really campy, campy to me is kind of goofball male milieu.
If you don't understand what the term "camp" means, you might start with Susan Sontag's "Notes on camp" essay in her collection "Against Interpretation" from the 60's. It has connotations of the type of humor that often appeals to gays but by no means is exclusive to them. Boorman is as straight as they come, but Zardoz has so many instances of unintentional hilarity involving its hypermasculine Übermensch protagonist and those brainy Eternal ladies who can't wait to take his seed.
shareI mean that it intentionally had this over the top cheesy style and there are no unintentionally funny moments.
Now, I don't want to argue much about it because long time passed since I watched it and I mostly remember having good time with its bizarreness. In my memories it is akin to Barbarella and Flash Gordon but with a surreal touch. Could be that Boorman unsuccessfully tried to achieve a surrealist aesthetic in the vein of what the Soviet film Kin-Dza-Dza! did later and a bit of Gilliam.
Like most Soviet films, Kin-Dza-Dza! is freely available in HD and with English subtitles on Mosfilm's Youtube channel, if somebody is interested. I think it may have some appeal to people who like the surreal side of Zardoz.
The movie has male-female as one of its polarities ... but to me from what I understand of camp that is not it. Campy stuff never appeals to me.
I'm not a fan of it.
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