These camp classics are best viewed with the right audience. And a lot of booze.
Valley of the Dolls (1967)
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The gist: Three young women embark on careers in show business and soon find themselves lost in a world of backstabbing, infidelity, and lots of pills.
What makes it bad: Despite the serious subject matter, the performances are too over-the-top to be taken seriously. Every emotional moment is undercut with awful line readings and a cloying score.
Gay icon alert: Patty Duke as Neely O'Hara, a character based on Judy Garland.
The moment you'll want to rewind: Having lost everything, Neely suffers a breakdown in an alley, crying out for her former friends and lovers — and finally for Neely O'Hara herself.
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Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)
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The gist: It's basically a trippy rehash of Valley of the Dolls with three young women in a rock band getting seduced by drugs and sex in Los Angeles.
What makes it bad: That's questionable — the script by Roger Ebert and direction by Russ Meyer is all very intentionally campy. It's not bad in the traditional sense so much as a gleeful mess.
Gay icon alert: Director Russ Meyer, no matter how heterosexual his intentions were.
The moment you'll want to rewind: The first introduction to Z-Man is iconic, including the line "This is my happening and it freaks me out!" (later co-opted by Austin Powers) and a performance by Strawberry Alarm Clock.
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Can't Stop the Music (1980)
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The gist: It's a fictionalized biography of the Village People, in which songwriter Jack Morell puts together a band with the help of his model roommate Sam.
What makes it bad: The Village People are best appreciated in small doses, not in a two-hour musical starring Steve Guttenberg on roller skates. That there's a story at all is laughable.
Gay icon alert: The Village People as themselves.
The moment you'll want to rewind: "YMCA" gets performed at the YMCA. And despite the fact that this is a PG-rated film, there's plenty of full-frontal male nudity involved.
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The Apple (1980)
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The gist: In the science fiction future of 1994, Alphie and Bibi try to make it in the music industry and discover its dark side in this disco-infused Biblical allegory.
What makes it bad: Did you see the part about it being a disco-infused Biblical allegory? God is a hippie named Mr. Topps. It's all brightly colored, incredibly grating nonsense.
Gay icon alert: None really, but there's a lot of disco.
The moment you'll want to rewind: The titular song is pretty amazing, complete with a giant (metaphor) apple and presumably a lot of cocaine. "Oh, it's a natural, natural, natural desire / Gets ya higher, higher, higher, higher!"
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