You might say we had a bad Shabbos. You can certainly say we had a Bad Shabbos Shabbos. That’s because we went to the Avalon to see the new film, Bad Shabbos. Rotten Tomatoes rated it 85%. IMDB 7.1. The Edie Art Rating is well below either of those.

Here is the premise. (Okay, SPOILER ALERT, although it seems hard to spoil a film that is this rotten to begin with.) The Catholic parents of Jewish David’s fiance are in New York to meet his quirky, but religiously observant, parents. They were invited for Friday night dinner at the parents’ Upper West Side apartment. Also at dinner will be David’s sister and her boyfriend (whom nobody, including David’s sister, likes) and David’s younger brother, who, let’s just say, has some issues.

Before the Catholic parents arrive, there is a little squabbling. The result of course is that the disliked boyfriend winds up dead in the bathroom. The goal of the family is then  to dispose of the body and, at the same time, to entertain their guests as if nothing is wrong. Of course, everything and more goes wrong. That goes without saying.

Now, Edie and I both thought it a terrible film. When Edie thinks a film is terrible, she simply thinks it is terrible. But I gave this one a bit more attention.

I decided that, as terrible films go, this one is pretty good. That does not mean that I think it less terrible than other terrible films. Not at all. Simply that if you put all the terrible films together, and rated them as exemplars of the genre of terrible films, this one would rate pretty high. Again, it is clear that this is a very bad, horrible, terrible film. But as a film in that genre (“let’s set out to make a good example of a terrible film”), this one is a great example.

Then, I thought about that sterling organization, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the folks who give out Oscars. They provide winners in many categories. Drama, Comedies, Documentaries and so on. But they don’t have a category called “Terrible Films”. I suggest they create this category, awarding the prize not to the most terrble film, and not to the film that barely snuck into the category, but to best Terrible Film of the year. Bad Shabbos would certainly be  finalist.