10 Movies People Initially Thought Were A Joke

In terms of terrible ‘so bad it’s good’ movies that everyone initially thought was a joke, 2010's Birdemic is up there with the most notorious. Directed by James Nguyen, an independent filmmaker from Vietnam, Birdemic is a film that embodies shlock horror and incompetent filmmaking, and much like Fateful Findings, it was discovered through online clips.

The most infamous clip from Birdemic that shocked the internet is a scene where a group of people get attacked by the killer birds and fend them off with coat-hangers. The reason why it became so popular is because the birds onscreen are actually just gifs that have been superimposed over the footage via cheap editing software. The awkward hilarity made people curious, so they decided to track down the source hoping that it wasn't just a silly joke. When it was discovered to be real, the film started to develop a dedicated fan following.

However, unlike Breen or Wiseau, Nguyen became very self-aware of his success and why his films were so bad. Although the first film was accidentally terrible, in 2013 Nguyen made Birdemic 2: The Resurrection; a sequel that was made to be purposefully terrible. However, his fans caught on to this very quickly and as a result it wasn’t as successful as the first film.