hatewatching or hatereading isn't specific enough

[cimorene]

Sometimes you know you're going to hate all of it, but you have to experience it anyway because some bizarre sense of internal fairness tells you that it's not technically fair to decide (even privately) that you hate it without giving it a chance, but once you check you'll be free to judge it with a clear conscience.

The reaction videos I've seen for Cats make this familiar process look a lot more fun than it usually feels to me, though. I laughed all the way through Folding Ideas's.

Comments

[vass]

Scrupulositywatching?

I kind of liked Cats. It wasn't good as such, but it was strangely compelling.

[cimorene]

I've seen this is a popular reaction too, alongside the stunned and surreal horror crowd. I haven't see any reviews from that perspective, though.

[vass]

I think it was seeing Anthony Oliveira rolling around in it like a dog in dead fish or a cat in, well, catnip, that sold me on going to see it. Well, that and I decided not to go to my parents' for Christmas lunch, and that's what I did instead.

[cimorene]

I mean I've definitely had a great time watching terrible movies before. I think the weirdness of Cats is throwing an extra variable into the metaphor (observation?) because it highly increases the odds that the reaction is going to be laughing regardless of whether the person decides that they hate it or it's terrible or that they loved it or... whatever else. Whereas a lot of "HOW did something this bad get made??" movies just don't become that entertaining. Much like a lot of things that most people regard as uncanny or surreal, there's a decent amount of people who are like "hahahahah this is uncanny and it's an eldritch horror, unclean" and a decent amount who are like "hahahah this is bizarre and I'd like to watch it at a party while playing drinking games".