Sometimes I go out of my way to watch truly awful films. I think it's as important to see how low film can sink as it is to see how high it can reach. I think it gives you a greater appreciation of good film when you know how bad it can get. Once again, in no particular order, here is a list of the ten most horrifically terrible films I watched this year.
Nine Lives (2016)
Terrible movies are alive and well in 2016 (and can even be popular, considering how much money Suicide Squad made). This film is just a shallow and forcibly predictable waste of time. You can't even justify that it's 'just a kid's movie' because I've seen dozens of kids movies that far outshine this useless film. Kevin Spacey and Jennifer Garner apparently just need a paycheck, because they're completely unenthusiastic the entire time; the actor here who seems to be having any fun is Christopher Walken, or maybe that's just me projecting because I could never hate Christopher Walken, even when he appears in movies like Nine Lives. There is no reason to watch this film, not even in a 'let's ironically watch a bad film' kind of way, because it's just a boring slog that nobody cared about while they were making and just wanted to cash in on people's love of cats, I guess. If you need proof of the film's atrociousness, just watch the trailer.
Alone in the Dark (2005)
Video game movies have never been good, but this film is on another level of terrible entirely. If you read in to the Director a little, Uwe Boll, you'll see that this film is really just an excuse to take advantage of a now closed loophole in the German tax system, so there really is literally no effort put in to the film at any point. The entire thing is just a complete mess from start to finish, with an incomprehensible and convoluted plot that has to constantly be re-told to you even though you'll never get it anyway. The first five minutes of the film literally tell you the premise of the film in three different ways. The effects are terrible, the acting even worse. Seriously, Tara Reid as a scientist is probably one of the worst casting choices I have ever seen; it was actually a joy to see her in Sharknado by comparison, that's how terrible the acting in this film is. Like a lot of films on this list, this was the sort of film that completely baffled me with its existence. I know that making movies is hard, but these guys didn't even try. The whole thing may as well have just been an hour and a half of Uwe Boll playing the Alone in the Dark video game, because that would have been cheaper and probably more entertaining.
The Last Airbender (2010)
In a way, this one is the worst on the list. Not because the film is significantly worse than the others, but because the film manages to be as terrible as it is on a $150 million budget. $150 MILLION just to crap all over the dreams of fans of the series. Do you know what they could have done with that money? They could have easily fed millions of starving children! Or, you know, at least make a good movie. I must also stress that I say this as someone who has never watched the series. I thought I would just watch this movie from a neutral perspective and see if was any less terrible than the impressions fan of the series had given me, and to be completely honest, it was worse. This movie isn't so much a movie as it is a series of scenes that happen purely because they happened in the series. It's the same problem as video game movies, the filmmakers are trying to compress several hours of content in to just over an hour and a half, special care needs to be taken in for the narrative make sense and for the pacing to feel in sync with the story, otherwise things that happen simply happen for no reason in the minds of the audience. This film takes no care, it simple tries to burn through the first season as quickly as possible while trying to look like a live-action version of the TV show. While there is a literally incredible number of problems with this film, one problem that really stuck out to me was Jackson Rathbone as Sokka. Sokka's apparently the comedy relief in the series, but for some reason in the movie Rathbone is completely stiff and emotionless, like he's channeling his character from Twilight the entire time.
Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010)
This film is the other end of the spectrum. While The Last Airbender is what you get when you're given all the money in the world but just don't care about what you're doing, Birdemic is what happens when you have no money and no idea what it takes to actually make a movie. This movie is so bad it's almost feeble, and it makes you feel feeble in the process. This 'film', if you can call it that, has some of the worst sound and editing, some of the most wooden acting, and some of the worst special effects I have ever seen. I'd be a little easier on it for its shoestring budget, except I've seen films on a shoestring budget that are infinitely better than this. I can't even pick a specific point in the movie to highlight how terrible it is, it's so bad from start to finish, literally starting with a driving scene with some dreadful music that lasts literally 4-minutes, to the first line of dialogue uttered which was so poorly recorded that they had to re-record the line in a completely different setting which makes the line poorly dubbed, to the final shot of the main characters standing on a beach as birds fly away, which again takes 4 embarrassingly long minutes. This film was excruciating to watch, it's only 93 minutes long, but I felt like I lost days of my life watching this film. That said, there's a certain joy to watching terrible movies, especially with friends so that you can rip in to them.
Birdemic 2: The Resurrection (2013)
Birdemic 2 is like the director heard that the first film was a joke and tried to make a sequel around that idea, but never actually learnt why people thought the first film was a joke. There's hints that he understands the 'so bad it's good' attitude people have towards the first film, with what I think are supposed to be callbacks to the first film, and retreads of what we saw in the first film but done with exaggerated attempts to appear like a film that had some actual money put in to it, but it still has all the terrible aspects of the original film. Awful audio, crappy camera work, the illusion that the director is parodying himself with this film disappears pretty quickly when you realise that it's no different from the previous film, and it ends up being worse because there's literally no reason for the film to exist. You'd probably have a more enjoyable time re-watching the first movie, because then at least you know people didn't put time in to making not one, but two films as terrible as these Birdemic movies. This is quite literally the first movie, but with a Hollywood backdrop.
Highlander II: The Quickening (1991)
This one... man, I don't even know what to make of this one even after all this time. It's not as if the first Highlander was high art, but at least it was an interesting sci-fi premise with Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery and Clancy Brown hamming it up as they clash swords. A fight between immortals across the ages that ends when there is only one left is cheap and easy story, and one that may leave you asking, 'so how do they make a sequel when there's only one immortal left?' Well, Highlander II decides that they aren't in fact immortals, but aliens that were sent to earth as punishment for rebelling against the ruling class, and the General who wanted you dead has come to Earth to kill you. Then there's the fact that the Earth is dying, trapped in a dome to protect from the Sun after mankind destroyed the ozone layer. There's also the fact that Sean Connery's character is simply brought back to life for no conceivable reason, which is then followed by perplexing scene where he orders a tailored suit. Yes, really. I don't understand what the makers of this film were going for, how they thought a movie about immortals fighting for power across time could just transition in to a story about aliens fighting on a dying earth, let alone all of the other explained occurrences in the film. So much stuff in the film just happen without any rhyme or reason, this film really is incomprehensibly bad, which I guess is why a lot of people call it 'so bad it's good'.
Troll 2 (1990)
A lot of 2's on this list, but Troll 2 is the only 2 that isn't a sequel; the producers just decided that a film about vegetarian goblins that turn people in to plant goo wasn't capable of garnering attention, so they attached the title to make it a sequel to another film that most people have never heard of, I suppose in the hopes of making more money, but a film about goblins being called Troll 2 just ended up confusing people. Unfortunately, the title is not the only thing that's confusing about the movie. Once again, this is a film with a plot that makes no sense, and things that simply happen because the story demands that at least something must happen. If I were to pick a particularly terrible scene, it would be one that involves the main family of the movie sitting down to eat food, seemingly oblivious to the green stuff that covers the food, only to be stopped as the family's dead grandfather freezes the family in place to give the son of the family time to stop them. What does the boy do with his time? he pees on the food. Yeah, never imagined that as the logical conclusion to the scene, but the scene and indeed the movie has no logic to begin with, so why bother doing what makes sense, right?
God's Not Dead 2 (2016)
I believe that there is a place for God in film, and as more and more good directors let their faith guide their filmmaking, that becomes evident. If you need more convincing, check out this year's Hacksaw Ridge by Mel Gibson or the upcoming Silence by Martin Scorsese, which depict people using their faith to do great things and people struggling with their faith in a world where their faith is forbidden, respectively. However if you need evidence to the contrary, look no further than this sermon masquerading as a film. That's the problem with this sort of film, the filmmakers haven't set out to make a film that intend to inject a little preaching in to, they just want to preach to you in film form. They think they're making something profound for God but all they're doing is unleashing a film that only makes me laugh at how pathetic it is as a film, and certainly does nothing convert the faithless or reaffirm the faithful. I will admit, though, that I got a few chuckles out of this movie because of how many somewhat famous actors the filmmakers managed to get to appear in it, including Melissa Joan Hart (Sabrina the Teenage Witch), and Ernie Hudson.
Battlefield: Earth (2000)
I'll just leave this here. Oh, and this.
Once again, this movie is just bizarre to behold, a high-concept sci-fi that makes so little sense I don't even know where to begin. Travolta's acting is so unbelievable terrible that I kind of adore it, it's clear that he isn't phoning it in but he takes it way too far in the other direction. The story is bizarre, and I don't want to try an explain it here because it may take all day to describe exactly what happens in the film, but what really makes the film difficult to watch is the direction, the cinematography. The film is infamous for its use of Dutch angles, but you really have no way to prepare for the fact the literally the entire film is Dutch angles; I sincerely can not recall a single shot from that film that was levelled, and trying to think about it just gives me a headache.
Jurassic Monster: The Prehistoric Project (2015)
This was the last truly terrible film I watched this year, and it's the sort of film that makes me want to never be creative again, to just crawl in to a corner and die because there's no point to anything. Anyone who's read my Blair Witch Project review knows that I have issues with found footage films, so the only thing that can make an already terrible movie worse is to make it found footage. This film is literally 90% "some guy" filming with a handheld camera with maybe three effects shots, and 10% two random soldiers who have no bearing on the story watching "some guy"'s footage and commenting on it. I have no idea what the makers of this abomination were going for, because dinosaurs don't even factor in to the movie until the last 5 minutes, until then it's just terrible scene after terrible scene shot with a handheld and recorded with the handheld's microphone. While the others have some mild enjoyment that can be eked out of them by tearing in to them with friends, this one was just depressing to behold.
Dishonourable Mentions
The Wicker Man (2006)
Gallowwalkers (2012)
Sharknado (2013)
The Ridiculous 6 (2015)
Published December 29th, 2016
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