It is possible to make a "so bad it's good" movie on purpose? Most evidence would indicate that it's incredibly difficult, if not impossible. Much of the appeal of watching something awful is knowing that the people behind the project tried to make something special. This is why films like The Room and Troll 2 are so much fun, while intentionally shoddy works like Sharknado and the Birdemic sequels are just a pain to get through. Sometimes, "so bad it's good" movies are actually just good, and it is possible to make a successful parody that evokes the spirit of a bad movie like with Black Dynamite, Grindhouse, or Dude Bro Party Massacre III, but authentically capturing the spark of a "so bad it's good" movie is a difficult task at the very least.
This is the dilemma the distribution company Vinegar Syndrome was faced with when they discovered the uncut footage for a long-lost eighties action flick, called New York Ninja, in their vault. Upon watching the reels of film, the team discovered they had something that would rival genre "greats" like Miami Connection, Hard Ticket to Hawaii, and Champagne & Bullets (aka. GetEven & Road to Revenge) if it was edited into a finished product. However, the audio had degraded past the point of usability over the decades, so a whole new script needed to be written and dubbed over.
Despite all the work necessary to finish New York Ninja that was done in the past few years, the resulting film feels straight out of the eighties and is a blast from start to finish. In honor of this remarkable achievement, let's take a look at how they made this project work against all odds.
What is Vinegar Syndrome?
Before talking about New York Ninja, it's important to provide some background on the company that made it happen. Vinegar Syndrome is a distribution company that restores and releases obscure cult movies, ones that are often too vulgar, obscene, or just plain bad to get the Criterion treatment. Their name is a reference to the chemical reaction that degrades film stock, rendering the movie lost to time unless it gets preserved. Some of their most popular releases include The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Tammy and the T-Rex, Putney Swope, and Liquid Sky.
While many of the movies that Vinegar Syndrome releases are of questionable quality, their restoration work, packaging, and bonus materials are always top-notch. New York Ninja is the company's first foray into producing a film, and it's unclear whether it's something they will do again or if they will stick to their usual business model from now on.
A Good Faith Approach
It would have been easy to make New York Ninja in on the joke. It's an incredibly goofy film and the footage could've easily been put together in an ironic, self-deprecating manner. Instead, the film's so-called "re-director," Kurtis Spieler, took what the original director, John Liu, had shot and treated it as if he was trying his best to save the movie. In an interview with Movie Maker Magazine, Spielder says, "[w]hen I first approached this movie, I imagined myself being an editor back in the '80s. I imagined a producer bringing me this movie, saying that the production failed, and I had to fix it. So, that’s what I did."
Additionally, Spieler and Vinegar Syndrome recruited tons of legitimate B-movie legends, like Don Wilson, Linnea Quigley, Cynthia Rothrock, and Michael Berryman, to dub the actors' lines. When he could read the actors' lips, Spieler would use what they said, only writing new dialogue to try and fill in the story's gaps. By approaching the material in good faith, New York Ninja masterfully replicates the over-the-top, self-serious essence that makes its contemporaries such an entertaining time.
A Killer Score
One of the most important aspects of capturing the feel of 1980s exploitation flicks is the soundtrack. These genre films are known for their funky, synth-heavy scores that are equal parts epic and cheesy. The task of composition was given to the band Voyag3r. According to the bio on their website, Voyag3r are "[i]nspired by the soundtracks to vintage horror, action, and sci-fi films" and "pioneers like John Carpenter," which makes them the perfect fit for New York Ninja. The band did a stellar job emulating the music of the era depicted on-screen, to the point that it conceivably could've been made back then. The icing on the cake is that the team behind the film's restoration even managed to find the rap song that was recorded for the film, which seals the movie's fate as a cult classic as it plays over the closing credit.
Vinegar Syndrome's first attempt at going beyond restoration into production has resulted in an absurdly fun movie. While New York Ninja falls dramatically short of what traditionally makes a "good" film, it is hard to beat watching this with some friends and observing how bizarrely terrible almost every scene ends up being. Kurtis Spieler and the other people behind this project did a fantastic job with New York Ninja, so hopefully, this isn't the last time Vinegar Syndrome goes beyond their usual work and creates another blast from the past.