Do horrible characters make for a horrible movie? According to reviews on Letterboxd, it appears so, at least in the case of Glory Daze that is. However I'd make a case that it's not nearly as bad as it's been painted by some knee-jerkers here.

Glory Daze is a coming of age drama about a gang of typical college reprobates sharing a typical college party house, unhappily on the verge of graduation. To say that that they're handling their impending adulthood badly would be an understatement.

Director Rich Wilkes aims for the lofty hang-out hights of Linklater's Dazed & Confused, but the bro-centric material lands somewhere closer to a more sincere American Pie, minus the gross out humour and doubling down on the toxic masculinity.

Where Glory Daze succeeds is in how recognisable these characters are. Whether you like them or not i is secondary to their authenticity. I've met and lived with everybody in this film. I've experienced their debauchery, gloated at their romantic failures, and encouraged their ill-advised night-time adventures. Their friendship is a romanticized brotherhood of bad decisions, and it is very, very relatable.
Do they have to be good guys?
No, they don't.

Unlike it's bredren, "American Pie", Glory Daze doesn't gloss over it's casual misogyny and doesn't pretend that the characters are "nice guys".
The only real crime committed here is how narrow it's narrative POV is.

Ben Affleck, sporting one of cinemas shittiest haircuts, is a protagonist of sorts. The narrative is mostly told from his POV and he comes across as a surrogate for Writer/Director Wilkes and this wouldn't be so bad if Affleck's character wasn't such a shithead for the entirety of the movie, but he really is terrible to everyone around him and the film is hilariously oblivious to this.
Thankfully, Affleck displays enough charisma to carry an otherwise one-note character into something watchable.

The ing cast are all pretty great, too, with notable performances from Sam Rockwell, Viet Hong, Alyssa Milano and Spalding Gray.
The film is a 90s cameo rollercoaster, featuring blink and you'll miss them turns from Matt Damon, bug-eyed Matt McConaughey, Brendan Fraser and Mary fricken' Woronov, among others.

Extra points also the genuinely great punk rock soundtrack.

Overall, while Glory Daze certainly wears it's immaturity on it's sleeve, there is a sincerity here that carries it's less than likeable characters over the finishing line.
Visually it's very flat, but the material feels authentic. For better or worse, Glary Daze is undeniably the work of an auteur, and that fact alone elevates this above the average 90s bro / coming of age / gross out / comedies of the era.