With her comedy partner Joe, Nicko runs the Bad Film Club, a monthly club at the Barbican centre where glorious bad films are watched and laughed at. On Wednesday, the club hosts Jaws: The Revenge (yes, that is the one with a roaring shark who has a personal vendetta).
What is this Bad Film Club business all about?
It's just a place where likeminded people can gather without shame or the need for explanation and enjoy the guilty pleasures of bad movies. We just wanted to create that feeling of being in your living room with your mates, a few beers and a terrible movie on Channel 5. There is one rule and that is, "NO MOVIES BEFORE 1975" as that is our "should know better by now" cut off point.
You can laugh at 1950's and 60's sci fi all you want, they were under the studio system, they were churning out movies like there was no tomorrow and they didn't have the experience, the technology or the money to know otherwise. So it seems unfair to hold them up for ridicule, however, when it comes to Gill or Can't Stop the Music, there can be no such pardons.
Why did you start the club?
We started it up because we wanted to see if there were others like us who enjoyed these movies. Thankfully for us, there are quite a few of them. The whole club actually started out of boredom. We were performing at the Edinburgh Fringe and we spent all of our time sitting in our flat watching movies we'd bought for under £3 at charity shops. At the end of the festival there were more people in our flat watching us watching movies than there was at the actual Edinburgh show.
I guess we also wanted a place where people could interact with a movie. We're always being told to be quiet during a film, there's no avenue for letting out what you want to say. If you don't yell at a film every now and then they will just make a sequel and nobody wants to see Roadhouse 3 or Wild hogs 2.
Is a really bad film good, or is it really bad? So bad it's good? Half bad, half good? Both bad and good at the same time?
Are you trying to confuse me with your strange logic? The best kinds of "bad movies" are ones that are made in all seriousness but end up being a comedy. This is probably why comedies don't work at the Bad Film Club, they become akin to watching Polish melodramas. Most of all, it can' t be dull. Joe always says that a really good bad movie is one with a great idea that gets made by monkeys with no idea how to operate a camera or make a film. As a result the movie is always a strange mish mash of ideas that never quite work, actors who never quite act and effects that never quite look right.
Many of the films you show seem to come from a golden age. Are there any modern films that are bad enough to be shown at the bad film club? Is the future bright for terrible films?
There are plenty of bad movies being made as we speak, it's just that not many people get to see them because they go straight to DVD. However, in the last few years we've had Day After Tomorrow, Shark Attack 3, The Wicker Man remake, the new Rocky and Rambo films, The Black Delia, Ghost Rider, Die Hard 4.0 (I can just hear the reluctant screams of many a 15 year old at the inclusion of that one) etc. Hollywood will always continue to make these movies, because they can... especially while Costner is still walking the earth.
Worst film soundtrack?
I would have to say that it's a toss up between the soundtrack to Can't Stop the Music and Breakdance - The Movie.
Worst montage in a film?
The beer making montage in King Cobra is brilliant. A giant snake hits a small town during their annual micro beer festival and so we get hit by a montage of how beer is made - crap film but very educational in the processes of beer making.
Worst line in a film?
Shark Attack 3. A line is uttered by John Barrowman that completely knocks you for six. I can't tell you what it is, you'll have to buy the movie, but don't worry about not knowing when it comes, you'll know, it will hit you like a bold of lightening.
Worst film ever?
Our most favourite bad movie is Shark Attack 3, hands down, no other movie will ever top it.
Best Bad Film Club evening ever?
I'm repeating myself again, but, the lovely guys at The Barbican managed to get special permission for us to show Shark Attack 3 at our BFC there. We had a special guest Robin Ince come down to do the show and the sold out audience were electric. Some people came dressed as sharks and some wore shark fins and t-shirts. People travelled for miles to see that movie, it was brilliant.
If anyone could rubbish a film alongside you at the club, who would it be?
It's a dream of ours to do a Michael Bay or Bruckhiemer movie Bad Film Club along with Trey Parker. He's definitely one of our all time heroes of comedy and film and to do a Bad Film Club with him would be, in our language, "super fricken awesome sweet".
Isn't the Barbican centre cool and weird?
Haha! Yes, yes it is very cool and very weird. We have 2 cinemas we do shows in and to get to Cinema 3 is like getting lost in a labyrinth. However, we find that the venue is a good reflection on our audience who bring us weird and cool stuff all the time. This month a lovely lady called Zoë made us a cake with the face of Patrick Swayze on it when we did Roadhouse. Sweet!
