Worst Films of 2024

Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis is undoubtedly the worst film I've watched this year (and probably the decade thus far), but at least its withdrawn trailer with fabricated quotes managed to provide some entertainment. Can’t say the same for the other wretched releases this year.

Ranging from overrated fart-house darlings, awful remakes, and made for Tubi slop, here's a list of films which were the nadir of the year for me:

Apartment 7A (Natalie Erika James)

Borderlands (Eli Roth)

La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher)

The Crow (Rupert Sanders)

Cuckoo (Tilman Singer)

The Fall Guy (David Leitch)

Gladiator II (Ridley Scott)

I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun)

The Killer (John Woo)

Lisa Frankenstein (Zelda Williams)

Maid Droid Origins (Rich Mallery)

Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola)

Night Swim (Bryce McGuire)

Thelma (Josh Margolin)

Trap (M. Night Shamalamadingdong)

Uglies (McG)

Under Paris (Xavier Gens)

V/H/S/Beyond (Jay Cheel, Jordan Downey, Christian Long, Justin Long, Justin Martinez, Virat Pal, Kate Siegel)

Did you know the inspiration for Eli Roth's cinematic turd that was Borderlands was inspired by his French bulldog taking a dump? True story. 

Worst Films of 2023

Annus horribilis for the House of Mouse, but misery really does love company since a bunch of other studios were also responsible for some horrid films this year. If only the Writers Guild of America strike was still going.

Some of these films might have contained some fleetingly memorable scenes, and some of this lot ended up on various critics' best films of the year lists. However, the overall impression they left upon me was profoundly negative. Did you know some progressive nations still administer corporal punishment to offenders?

Worst Films of 2023:

Asteroid City (Wes Anderson)

Bottoms (Emma Seligman)

Cocaine Bear (Elizabeth Banks)

Enys Men (Mark Jenkin)

The Exorcist: Believer (David Gordon Green)

It’s a Wonderful Knife (Tyler MacIntyre)

Knock at the Cabin (M. Night Shamalamadingdong)

Lion-Girl (Kurando Mitsutake)

Maid Droid (Rich Mallery)

The Meg 2: The Trench (Ben Wheatley)

The Nun II (Michael Chaves)

Scream VI (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett)

Kyle Edward Ball's experimental art house film Skinamarink (2022/2023) didn't make the cut on account of me lacking the willpower to watch it all the way through; a rare occurrence for your host. Checked out around the thirty minute mark. Grainy fixed film footage of walls, floors and lego bricks had me scrambling for the remote control during my brief dalliance with the film.

Skinmarink (Trailer)

Kyle Edward Ball, 2022/2023

 

Worst Films of 2022

2022 might go down as a noticeable improvement over the last couple of years, but let's not kid ourselves in pretending there weren't a plethora of atrocious films released during this period; films which were so bad that I didn't even bother hyperlinking.

Below is a timely reminder why certain film makers should have stuck to their lane eking out a living helming music videos, posting food pics on Instagram, or better yet, should have just quit film school altogether:

Worst 2022 Films I Watched:

A Banquet (Ruth Paxton)

The Batman (Matt Reeves)

Bodies Bodies Bodies (Halina Reijn)

Cow (Andrea Arnold)

Death Hunt (Neil Mackay)

Everything Everywhere All at Once (Dan Kwan & Daniel Scheinert)

Firestarter (Keith Thomas)

Fresh (Mimi Cave)

The Gray Man (Anthony Russo & Joe Russo)

Halloween Ends (David Gordon Green)

Hellraiser (David Bruckner)

Jikirag (Alexander J. Baxter, Leigah Keewatin & Jessica Moutray)

The Munsters (Rob Zombie)

Mutant Ghost Wargirl (Liu Binjie)

Nope (Jordan Peele)

Poser (Noah Dixon & Ori Segev)

Scream (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillet)

The Seed (Sam Walker)

She Will (Charlotte Colbert)

Studio 666 (B.J. McDonnell)

Texas Chainsaw Massacre (David Blue Garcia)

Two Witches (Pierrre Tsigaridis)

Cracks me up whenever I spot a movie I thoroughly detested making it in various Best Films lists. Only proves to me just how irrelevant most critics are.

Sat through all of these horrid films; right up to the end credits. For this reason I've more than earnt the right to shit on them every chance I get. There are probably even worse films from this year that I still haven't seen; counting my blessings that I won't ever do so.

Disasterpeace for a Disaster Piece

Considering how influential John Carpenter was for not only being a film maker, but as a soundtrack composer, it comes as no surprise then that Disasterpeace has fallen into the same pitfall as his spirit animal this year, by scoring an excellent soundtrack to a trash movie. Won't bore anyone reading this with just how bad the failure of Bodies Bodies Bodies (where are the commas, Hollywood?) and its social satire is, but after sitting all the way through to the troll worthy finale of this Agatha Christie style, zoomer turd, I've well and truly earnt the right to berate the film until my last dying breath.

Disasterpeace - Body Drop

(Bodies Bodies Bodies soundtrack, 2022)

Still processing the soundtrack, but the main theme, Body Drop is an instant highlight for me since it conveniently sums up what's so great about this new album; it resembles Disasterpeace's older work the most, but it also displays some obvious progress since then. Along with the rolling menacing trap basslines, what's really apparent about Disasterpeace's latest album are the influences of other horror soundtrack composers featured on it. There's still the gawd John Carpenter's indelible blueprint all over it, but you can't help noticing Fred Myrow and Malcolm Seagrave's classic Phantasm Main Theme on the track Whokiller, nor Jonathan Newton's score from the relatively obscure Unhinged (1982) on the track titled Dork.

Disasterpeace - Old Maid

(It Follows soundtrack, 2014)

One of my favourite film soundtracks from the 2010s was for David Mitchell's venereal teen horror, It Follows (2014). Other than it being a classic horror film in its own right, Disasterpeace's soundtrack for it, was an important contributor with it popping out from other generic teen horror flicks. The track I love the most is undoubtedly Old Maid. The build up at the start sounds so alien like, that it's become an earworm to me in the same vein as the one Chekov had that one time. Add in that alarm clock from hell chiming in and that's my morning wake-up theme to get the day poppin' off on the right track.

Dumpster Firestarter

Once in a blue moon, a remake comes along that outshines the original, Blumhouse Productions' cheap as chips Firestarter remake is objectively not one of them; in fact, we're six months in and it's already a very strong contender for the worst film of 2022.

On the positive tip, John Carpenter, along with his sprog and that other one who's not related to him, did compose the film's soundtrack. It just so happens to be the one saving grace of that cinematic atrocity.

It isn't the first time this year that The Carpenters Plus One have blessed a shite film with their music, since they also produced the titular Studio 666 for The Foo Fighters movie. A band movie that should have been a banned movie for Dave Grohl alone. On the subject of band movies, a better alternative is the first Killer Barbies film outing, mistakenly titled Killer Barbys (1996); helmed by none other than the dimunitive, Spanish king of exploitation horror, Jesús Franco. 

Carpenter has pretty much retired from film making, but here's hoping he carries on scoring films; preferably some good ones, at some point.

John Carpenter, Cody Carpenter & Daniel Davies - End Titles

(Firestarter Soundtrack, 2022)

John Carpenter · Firestarter (End Titles) [From Firestarter]

Worst Films of 2021

Imagine thinking 2021 would put the horridness of 2020 behind us. It turned out to be another year of lockdowns, furloughs and isolation for most of us. This humble blogger naively expected the entertainment industry to step up with some quality escapism; a mental release of sorts. Leave it to Tinsle Town to add salt to the wound with some utterly horrendous atrocities to cheer us up.

It goes without saying, many movie theatres remained shut during the lockdowns, so studios really took advantage of the lack of a middle-man and released their brand spanking new turds via a huge premium to rent out. What did we get in return? We were served up with more played-out deconstructionist hero nonsense; horror movies that fancied themselves as musicals or soap operas; and bait and switch 'memberberries, for anyone yearning for a more happier time.

Worst 2021 Films I Watched:

Zeros and Ones (Abel Ferrara)

Karen (Coke Daniels)

The Last Rite (Leroy Kincaide)

Fear Street: 1994 (Leigh Janiak)

Mortal Kombat (Simon McQuoid)

Coming 2 America (Craig Brewer)

The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It (Michael Chaves)

Those Who Wish Me Dead (Taylor Sheridan)

Candyman (Nia DaCosta)

Halloween Kills (David Gordon Green)

No Time To Die (Cary Joji Fukunaga)

Demonic (Neill Blomkamp)

Silent Night (Camille Griffin)

Wrong Turn (Mike P. Nelson)

Drive My Car (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi)

Matrix Resurrections (Lana Wachowski)

Guerilla filmmaking might have been on Abel Ferrara's agenda for his turgid, sixth-form student looking Zeros And Ones, but I was left way more conviced that it might have been shot by an actual gorilla than a human being; based upon the way the camera was held. So shite, there's an awkwardly appended Ethan Hawke facetime convo during the credits, that felt like regret to me rather than praise for Ferrara's feature.

Films Of 2021 That Let Me Down

Prisoners Of The Ghostland (Sion Sono)

Army Of The Dead (Zac Snyder)

Titane (Julia Ducournau)

Copshop (Joe Carnahan)

The Night House (David Bruckner)

The Many Saints Of Newark (Alan Taylor)

Goes without saying there were plenty of other duds released on Prime, Netflix and Hulu that came and went during their respective release hype stage. Fortunately, my complete apathy and spidey senses let me steer clear of them.

"Yo, baby, you got to cut that garbage off"

EDIT: Added the latest Matrix movie to the list.

We'll Both Ride Home In My Automobile

Drive My Car (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, 2021)

It's that time of the year when every blaggard sitting in front of a computer starts to compile their best of lists (including yours very soon), and sifting through Sight And Sound's Best Films of 2021 list of entries compiled by some of today's most pretentious film critics really does highlight the cultural barrier between the chin-strokers and the great unwashed.

Having endured a laborious three-hour sit through of Ryûsuke Hamaguchi's Drive My Car, I'm baffled how this film even made it on any critic's list, let alone a whole flock of them. Hamaguchi taps into themes pertaining to guilt and regret (something I definitely felt while watching this, might I add ) amidst the backdrop of a pre-production of Uncle Vanya, by the film's playwrite/actor protagonist. Performances are generally solid and the photography is capable enough, but it's the pacing that kills it for me; to the point where every pregnant pause takes the piss and every scene achingly outstays its welcome on the screen. If I were to hazard a guess, shaving off around forty-five to sixty minutes in the editing room, would have helped the film in a major way, as it stands, it annoyed the hell out of me.

Sure your typical, condescending pseudo-intellectuals are fawning all over it, but this is just another case of the emperor's new clothes to me. An agonising endurance test and the latest example of my disconnect with today's film critics. One for the Oscar chasers.

EDIT: Props to the dapper dressed gent, Kim Newman for at least keepin' it real.