Netflix and Really, Really Bad Movies

I've found that the big perk, and drawback, to Netflix's "Play Instantly" feature is that I spend most of my time getting caught up watching the worst pieces of dreck committed to celluloid. I mean, let's face it, how else would I be able to watch I Know Who Killed Me? I no longer have cable, and there's no way I'm renting it, even on a dare, but if it's right fucking there, how can I pass it up?

The ability to watch movies instantly on my laptop caters to my inability to look away from horrible car wrecks. It's one thing to make the effort to rent Fear Dot Com (or even put it in your queue), it's another thing altogether to just click on the link and go, "Holy...Balls, you can't un-make this movie!" Now, the curiosity I've had for movies that received infamously toxic reputations, that have up until now been sated by a mixture of laziness and common sense to not actively seek them out, is being given nearly free reign (I write "nearly" because Netflix mercilessly doesn't have its entire catalogue available to watch instantly).

I know, I know, I should be wasting my valuable free time surfing the Internet for porn and fetish sites, but I suppose watching I Still Know What You Did Last Summer is my porn.

In my defense, this is the perfect outlet for watching these God-awful movies. There are amazing classics available on Netflix, but seeing Double Indemnity or On the Waterfront on my laptop monitor (with so-so picture quality at best) seems like a poor choice to see these films for the first time. (No, I haven't seen these movies before. Yes, they're in my proper Netflix queue.)

I don't need to see the 2008 remake of Prom Night in high-definition on a big screen.

True, I don't need to see this piece of crap at all, but again, since it's right fucking there, I don't think I can resist.

I also have the vague hope that I'll stumble upon some wrongly maligned gem (or at least something in the, so-bad-it's-something-I-need-to-own-and-periodically-make-sweet-sweet-moviewatching-love-to-good). Usually, that isn't the case. Sadly, I Know Who Killed Me is neither in the, Freddy Got Fingered vein (Tom Green's nearly universally reviled directorial debut that is, in my estimation, a brilliantly nightmarish surreal art-horror film masquerading as a comedy), nor does it quite have the unintentional charm of M. Night's ridiculous The Happening, Rowdy Herrington's homoerotic masterpiece for self-loathing closeted gay homophobes, Road House, or Neil LaBute's batshit insane remake of The Wicker Man.

Still, I'm glad I had the opportunity to see the wretched Lindsay Lohan vehicle. And I'll no doubt continue to plumb the depths of Netflix's shitty, shitty "Play Instantly" offerings.

Unable to un-watch Cheerleader Autopsy,

James "Craptastic" Comtois