By SHARI DOWNHILL

It just doesn’t get any better. Actually, it can get a lot worse.

At least that’s what Sunday night’s tacky movie aficionados are banking on.

Gathering since November in the Ashland Middle School Science Institute room, the Bad Film Society comes together each month to see just how bad "bad" can get.

Out of reach from the night’s wind-whipped landscape, about 50 society members plowed through plates of potluck fare and hazelnut coffee, readying for the feature film with a string of resurrected drive-in movie trailers. Between bites of homemade spaghetti and mini chocolate cupcakes, the crowd howled, the back row adlibbers unchecked and in prime form.

"Hey, the worst we could get is a good movie," laughed Gene Burnett. "How bad is that?"

Well, just don’t go to sleep with your car running, the trailer warns between splashes of soda and "nutritious" candy bar ads.

Ed Polish quiets the crowd to explain he has to substitute a serial episode of "The Zombie Vanguard" for "The Attack of the Purple Monster," a pre-feature event.

Not soon enough, Polish adjusts the audio for the gut-busting 1966 horror-thriller: "Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter."

None too shy of sexual innuendo, overacting, bad lines and bad makeup, the best the film has to offer is what the Bad Film Society comes together to share — good-natured, harmless, righteous ridicule.

The makers of the cult-classic Rocky Horror Picture Show must certainly have paid close attention to Carl Hittleman’s "Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter," and then added a musical score and choreographed dance moves.

"Don’t do it, Marie! You are going too far! No one should tamper with the laws of God!" bleats Rudolph (Dr. Marie Frankenstein’s brother) before her faithful, musclebound zombie crushes the last bit of pathetic dialog from his lungs.

"We’re not limiting ourselves to this era of movies," Polish said of the pseudo-horror flick directed by William ‘One Shot’ Beaudine. "There’s modern movies that are just as bad."

Although fond of the poorly made horror flick, Polish admits "we secretly like very, very good movies."

"What we really hate is the great white middle," he said. "Kind of like the Oreo cookie. We like the two extremes. Just not the creamy crap."

The Bad Film Society will meet again April 1, same time, same place, different bad film.

Reach reporter Shari Downhill at 776-4463, or e-mail sdownhill@mailtribune.com. 

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