> Rocky Horror is way too self-aware. Sinbad works
>as a bad movie because it seems to be serious.

I gotta agree that most of the time self-aware bad movies aren't any good. But Darien brought up a good counter-example in Army of Darkness. That's a self-aware bad movie that works.

None of this really answers my real question, which I guess can be rephrased as "Exactly what is it about Rocky Horror that people who like it find enjoyable?" If it's supposed to be enjoyed on the same level as people enjoy Army of Darkness, then I guess I can understand that while not agreeing. Personally I thought RHPS was just messed up. But when I watched it, I wasn't sure exactly what I was supposed to be feeling. I'd heard from too many people what a "great movie" it was--nobody told me before hand that I was supposed to approach it as I might a "bad" movie.

Man, I'm confusing *myself* here now. What it comes down to is that I generally find movies enjoyable for one of two reasons. Either the movie accomplishes what it sets out to do, and is therefore enjoyable, or it fails so miserably in its attempt that I find the abject failure enjoyable. When a movie attempts to be bad and succeeds, I have no idea how to react, generally. It's not *hard* to be bad. It's quite easy. Bad is basically the default state, it takes *work* to achieve something more. Sometimes you can work really, really hard at being good and still be very, very bad. That is often funny. But if you work really, really hard at being BAD, I have no idea what to think about that.

I guess this comes back to the concept of "camp". I have never understood what "camp" is, exactly, and why I should enjoy it. Maybe if someone could explain that to me, I'd understand what people see in Rocky Horror.

Or maybe not. *shrug*

-- Dave