I say this in all seriousness and not in some snickering, mock “irony”. Unless you’re looking for a good reason to rake your own eyes across a cheese grater, leave these titles in whatever dusty bargain bin or digital corner of Netflix that you may find them. Forsaking the risk of increasing their infamy through attention, I must list but SOME of the offending titles here so that we may all learn from history, to stave off the ignorance of giving bad directors money to produce these affronts to mankind, NAY, affronts to NATURE, ITSELF.
For the purposes of attempted fairness, I’ve tried not to cast the spotlight on movies that we expect to be overwhelmingly bad. (You know, the half-assed sequels, movies based on games and superheroes, parodies, forced comedies, and other full-length features that have clearly set a low bar for themselves and advertise as such.) I want to put warning signs on the false-presenting pieces of garbage that don’t even have the decency to vent the shit-smell prior to viewing. Inconsistencies, ruses, and ambushes are what I’m trying to weed out here. After all, a viewer tends to know what they’re getting themselves into whenever they sign up for Dude Where’s My Car and Police Academy 23 and 1/16th.
Additionally, we’re not talking about the nostalgically bad movies of previous eras: Street Fighter, Big Trouble in Little China, Tremors, Leprechaun, Timecop, Robocop, Maniac Cop, Beverly Hills Cop, [etc.] which were awesomely pathetic and pretty much renowned for being bad…. hell, they may have even aspired to be terrible movies. I’m talking about the sort of film that you shake your head at in despair when remembering the title, not the kind that produces a half-grin as you chuckle about the low production values, bad writing, and over-the-top cheese which can be inadvertantly amusing on a first-viewing. Movies like Kung-Pow: Enter the Dragon are granted temporary armistice in light of larger, more controversial titles of different genres of different decades, most containing some form of toxic asset that ruined the entire experience for me.
Below, in no particular order, you’ll find a list of movies that I find almost completely un-watchable. And just to appear as less of a hate-filled curmudgeon, I’ve tried to list some substitute recommendations of the niche genre done right.
1. 8 Crazy Nights
“It’s a Sandler.” I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t find him funny, but this stinking pile of animated shit is the bottom of the barrel in terms of crude and senseless humor, with a heapin’ helpin’ of songs where he is actually TRYING to perform music. Ever wanted to see an hour and a half of Sandler talking to himself in different falsetto tones? Granted. He does voice-overs for the love of Christ. I wanted his whole town to be nuked before the thing was over…. just to be sure. Substitute Recommendations: South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut, Big Daddy, or just Get Hepatitus from a Public Restroom.
2. Mac and Me
McDonalds made a movie?! I’m certain that it wouldn’t be a brazen rip-off of an existing film and it couldn’t possibly be a full-length advertisement for its own child obesity promotion…. I’ll save you the guesswork: yes and yes. With hideously naked puppets, a whole family of aliens tries to emulate Spielberg’s classic tale of abandonment as a handi-capable kid seduces “Mac” (haha, I GET IT) with the deliciousness of McDonalds soda, which just so happens to get placed in every scene. Even the aliens’ MOUTHS are shaped to accomodate a soda straw! Beautiful. Need more overt product placement? They attend a McDonalds-hosted birthday party. Substitute Recommendations: ET: Extra Terrestrial, Labyrinth, Manually Inducing a Sugar Coma.
3. Moulin Rouge!
Chop shop famous songs of the time period and highlight them with obnoxiously “art student” camera movements. The only thing that didn’t induce cognitive dissonance is that I was aware that my eyes and ears bled in harmony. Just like Romeo+Juliet before it, this movie takes chances, but those chances end up puking out creativity and plagiarism at the same time, flushing me of the strength to withstand the barrage of lights, colors, and jazz hands. Substitute Recommendations: Little Shop of Horrors, Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Attempt to Use Crayons on Your Eyeball Whites.
4. Planet of the Apes (Burton)
A wealth of PotA material in the form of previous movies/shows and a literal wealth of funding in the hands of one of the most quirky, celebrated directors of our time should produce something a little more worthwhile. Step 1: DON’T cast Marky-Mark and his featureless, wooden mug as the lead. The ape-makeup was incredible, but steps were actively taken to make this once proud, deep, and reflective franchise a parody of itself through terrible pacing, a change of targeted audience, and plotholes introduced just because Burton felt the need to make it his own. Willy Wonka was a shameful “reimagining” of a movie we already have, but at least it didn’t have Michael Jackson’s cameo as Ari the sexy ape. Substitute Recommendations: The Fucking Original and the 2 or 3 Sequels, Nightmare Before Xmas, Wipe Your Ass with a 20 Dollar Bill and Throw it at a Chimpanzee.
5. Vantage Point
What’s better than seeing a contrived and trivial scene? Continuously seeing that same scene ad nauseum for a couple of hours. When done correctly this device can be used to great affect, shedding light on character motivations and situations that make you constantly re-evaluate what you thought you understood. Not the case with this one. My suspension of disbelief was broken more than the Ten Commandments damning me to an eternity of inferno. This is exactly what hell will be like, since Satan will have to fill long periods of infinity with something in-between re-priming the Flayernator 5000. Substitute Recommendations: Groundhog’s Day, Memento, Choking on a Gold Watch that Survived the Vietnam War.
4. Superman Returns
I had the grave misfortune to pay for this one as well…. Cemented to my theater seat and on a date, why oh why would I think this situation would have turned out better if I had never even seen a Superman flick? In retrospect I was really asking for it, but this bland, boring bombshell of a movie was actually released on an unsuspecting public. It’s like when the government experimented with LSD in public drinking water, except the opposite of an acid trip. Nothing stood out. Nothing commanded attention. Just another slog through stupid actors having stupid conversations about crystals that magically grew in water. Substitute Recommendations: The Watchmen, The Avengers, go Swallow some Crystal Cat Figurines.
5. Secret Window
Secret NOTHING. You couldn’t beat yourself enough times in the head to NOT see the “surprise” ending coming. (Don’t take this challenge since I have done it for you.) The whole time, I tried to psyche myself into believing the writing couldn’t be as shallow that I could guess the twist less than 30 minutes into the movie. Johnny Depp at his worst, another Stephen King piece about a writer, some of the least suspenseful camera work I’ve seen in quite a while. Substitute Recommendations: The Green Mile, Eye of the Dragon, Have your Child Depict their Dreams in Essay Form and Send it in to King’s Publisher.
6. Paranormal Activity
Fashionably low budget? Check. Unlikable characters with dismally sparse careers ahead? Check. Ridiculously poor writing? Check. Scant CG with only one memorable scene? Check. Even the trailer knew better than to show actual footage of this movie, since audience reactions illicit a much more visceral indicator of entertainment than any random scene plucked from this garbage. It’s like how America’s Funniest Videos cuts to people bursting into hysterics after every clip. To make matters worse, any buck spent by viewers went straight to somebody’s pocket as pure profit, an unreasonably large amount of money for this half-assed piece of crap. Sequel Factory activate!! Substitute Recommendations: Poltergeist, The Fourth Kind (It’s Fake), Take some Home Movies and Rattle Chains over the audio while going “oooOOOOoooOOO”.
7. Freddy vs. Jason
In all reality, this entry is just my beef with the most retarded premise of the Horror genre: the invincible bad guy. There’s no terror in not being able to stop something. You know it’s going to happen, just WHEN. You stab a guy thirty times, shoot him, etc. and he gets up and keeps walking? Lame. The Jason X movie didn’t take itself seriously but Jason is still one of the worst 2-dimensional monsters of all time. His best weapon is that people forget about him before he returns, and then murders happen. The Terminator, by contrast, was intense because the machine was NIGH-invulnerable. Jason is slow, brain-dead, and has a knife. Substitute Recommendations: The Nightmare on Elm Street series, The Terminator, Practice Fleeing with a Treadmill and Ankle Supports.
8. Star Wars: Episode 1
It is too late for many of you but if there was a singular blemish on the broad history of this fictional universe to miss, A Phantom Menace is the quintessential mother of all pimples. I’m not including the Star Wars Lifeday special (which I recommend watching really, REALLY fucked up on your choice of poison), but the movie that has Liam Neeson sporting a braid and arguing with a 7 foot duck-billed platypus takes the cake. A dead-pan delivery by Portman, Whine-akin Skywalker, pointless traveling, and enough extraneous CG to pull the ears off a Gundark lands this science crap-tasy on my list. Substitute Recommendations: Avatar, Episodes III and V, Whore Yourself to Lucas and then Disney for any Ounce of Star Wars that They can Muster.
9. Alien Resurrection
Klepto-na Ryder and Hellboy Perlman do their best, but this one was doomed from the start. Replacing the brooding dispair of the first few movies for near-slapstick humor, most of these top-line actors aren’t at fault for this form of story-telling that calibrates itself for immature action seekers. H. R. Giger’s perverse art style is hardly intact when the visuals scream in brightness and color. A real tragedy considering the uniquely twisted story that served as a backdrop. Substitute Recommendations: Prometheus, The Thing, Simultaneously Ingesting Coke and Alka-Seltzer Until Your Chest Bursts.
10. Splice
Gyah. The creature effects department was right on the ball, but the Competence Fairy skipped over this title. From primordial slugs mating to C-sectioning a hybrid to HUMANS mating with it…. every grisly scene left me anxious and disturbed. Have you ever screamed at a character who was clearly doing something stupid in a movie? This is the epitome of that feeling. I was continuously furious at these scientists for doing what I knew they would do regardless. If not, there wouldn’t be a movie. Frustrating and plain fucking eerie. Substitute Recommendations: Species, Every Tool Music Video, Go Have Sex with a Zoo (Wear Protection).
….Continued in Avoid These Movies! (Volume 2)