Did You Know?

The escapades of the latest Oscars can bring to mind the more, ill-equipped side of Hollywood. While Hollywood does not have a monopoly on bad media, there are more than enough horrendous movies that would make any Oscar blunder seem to be a masterpiece. Did you know these are the worst movies ever?

1.) The Amazing Bulk, advertised as the “Room of Superhero Movies,” is a 2012 mock-buster produced for $14,000. Mock-busters are micro-budget movies which seek to ride off of the success of a more popular film that the mock-buster imitates. This genre is famed for being particularly terrible, often times only being produced in half a year. In this particular movie, all but a handful of frames are made out of clip art purchased from third parties which were superimposed over a green screen. This created a movie that had the plot follow supplied by clip art, which is abundantly clear in every scene in the movie; such as a chase scene where a purple monster (the bulk) runs past, among other things: a tank, a playground, a gecko on a computer, a triplane and a kid playing soccer. All in CGI that would be out of date in 1999. Despite being universally panned, it was still a box office success.

2.) The Room is a romantic drama produced, written and directed by Tommy Wiseau in 2003 and produced for $6 million. It, as the previous entry suggest, is one of the worst films to ever be made. This is not due to apocalyptically terrible CGI, but instead, this title is bestowed upon it due to its schizophrenic writing, and mind-shattering dialogue and delivery. To summate the plot, Tommy (who is played by our director/writer/director) and his fiance, Lisa, are seeing their relationship fall apart despite their idyllic situation. Lisa, in her infinite wisdom, decides that the best course of action is to cheat on Tommy with his best friend, Mark. The movie then limps on until Tommy finds out that Lisa is cheating on him which leads to the movie mercifully ending via Tommy killing himself. This is to glance over the myriad plot holes, contrivances and overall bizarre moments.

However, the plot is only a small part of what makes this movie especially horrendous.

The delivery of nearly all of Wiseau’s lines reduce any suspense and emotion the movie would’ve had. This is after the script was shortened significantly and his lines being done over so many times that they resorted to using dub in certain scenes. In tandem, these two tragic flaws create what can only be described as “The Citizen Kane of bad movies.”

3.) Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows, is a horror film which was released in 2000 with a budget of $15 million. It had the misfortune of attempting to outdo its predecessor, The Blair Witch Project, which on a budget of $60,000 made $248 million and single-handedly propelled the “found footage” genre of horror into fame. This would be a nigh-insurmountable task on its own but combined with a jarring change of style and an extremely quick production time, this movie was destined to fail. With a disjointed plot, an uncountable amount of plot holes, the baffling logic of this movie, and a lack of any un-ironic fright it fails not just as a sequel, but as its own movie. Despite that fact, it still grossed $47 million at the box office.

4.) Transformers: Age of Extinction, is one of four of Michael Bay’s Sci-Fi action films to date with a $210 million budget released in 2014. Up to this point, Bay’s Transformer series has somehow been one of the most commercially successful series of movies ever made. This is despite the fact that all but the first movie consistently scored terribly with critics and most audiences. Little did they know that this one would out do them all. Ranking in at 165 minutes, even if the special effects were beyond compare, no one with vaguely human should be able to withstand Bay on a good day. And yet it managed to ascend even past that. An even more unlikable protagonist, a mind-numbingly thoughtless plot, seething hordes of contrivances, ridiculous product placement, and meandering subplots culminate into the worst Transformers film to date. Though that alone does not propel it to the halls of infamy. However, it more than earns it spot though due to its success, it earned over $1 billion, making it the most successful movie of 2014 and the 2nd top grossing Transformers movie (behind Dark of the Moon.)

5.) Blues Brothers 2000 was a movie released in 1998 on a budget of $28 million, it is a sequel to one of the more successful musical comedies, The Blues Brothers which grossed $115 million in 1980 with it’s $30 million budget and garnered a cult following. It seems that its producers attempted to exploit this untapped niche. However, they did not understand the apparent charm of the first movie, since all accords by critics and fans alike recall the movie as particularly unfunny. The only positive that can be said about it is that it had a solid soundtrack. It earned a mere $14 million.

6.) The Last Airbender was a fantasy-action film released in 2010 on a budget of $150 million, was meant to be a retelling of the beloved cartoon-anime hybrid Avatar: The Last Airbender, which ran from 2005-08. Despite the solid foundations of the series, the movie still managed to implode. It attempted to tell the story of 500 minutes of the cartoon in only 103 minutes. This meant that firstly, many of the crucial plot elements of the originals were gone, and secondly, it opened the opportunity for butcheries of the original’s lore, and thus of much of the original series charm. These problems are compounded by dull voice acting, an illogical plot, and the most blatantly misused CGI in order to make one of the worse cartoon adaptations to be made. Despite its mediocrity and universal condemnation, it grossed $319 million.

7.) Reefer Madness is a film produced in 1936 with a budget of $100,000 and is considered the first worst film to ever be made. The film attempts to portray the ill-effects of marijuana use through the eyes of a teen using it. However, it takes a turn for the unexpected as this results in an escapade of murders, insanity, and surrealism. The film is so surreal, in fact, that it had the opposite of its intended effect.

8.) Birdemic: Shock and Terror is a “horror” film produced for less than $10,000 released in 2010. However, it fails at being anything but being a mock-buster, in this case being a parody of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds and Al Gore’s The Inconvenient Truth. Birdemic asinine voice acting, schizophrenic camera work and plot, over-the-top message and impressively bad CGI all granted this movie the status of cult-favorite. In fact, it was successful enough to garner a sequel, Birdemic 2: The Resurrection, and there are plans for a third: Birdemic 3: Sea Eagle.

9.) House of The Dead is an “action” zombie film produced for $12 million dollars and released in 2003. This movie, based on an arcade shooter of the same name, cannot be truly said to have a genre, since it does such a lackluster job portraying anything that could be portrayed as a niche or genre. This entails an hour and a half of horrendous camera work, a non-existent plot and dreadful acting. Unlike the previous movies, it is so inoffensive and unfunny that it cannot help but be forgotten the minute after being watched. Despite this, it still grossed almost $14 million.

10.) Manos: The Hands of Fate is advertised as a horror film developed for $19,000 and was released on 1966, and is perhaps the only the only movie to be made due to a bet. Harold P Warren claimed to his friend that it was not difficult to develop a horror film and that he could do it himself. The results were predictable, as Warren’s incompetent directing had consolidated into a mess of a film. Wooden acting, a contrived plot, bizarre set and character design. All of this does not begin to cover the calamity that was behind the scenes. One of the characters, Torgo, played by John Reynolds, was meant to be a satyr, but the piece that was meant to portray this was worn backward. and instead made Torgo appear to be a cripple with over-sized legs. No one on the set corrected him for this. He had such a small budget that he could not afford to edit it post-production, in fact the clapperboard used to initiate scenes appeared at least once in the movie. Debbie, a seven-year-old girl, was dubbed over by a grown woman. This calamity of this film remained obscure for decades until it was rediscovered in 1993 in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 when it became a cult-classic. As of February 2016, as a parodical sequel was in the makes after Jackey Neyman-Jones (Debbie from the original film) raised $24,000 for a Kickstarter campaign to make “Manos Return.”

11.) Shark Exorcist is a mock-buster produced for $300,000 and released in 2015. The only rational way to explain this film is by assuming that the director intended to create one of the most awful movies of all time. What else can explain the title? Unfortunately, the title alone is not what makes the film impossibly terrible. Inane sets, terrible acting, purposefully bad CGI, an incoherent plot and the dullest characters this millennium create the most blatantly bad movie intentionally made terrible since Sharknado.

12.) Dragonball: Evolution is an action-adventure film made with a budget of $30 million and was released in 2009. Despite foundations on one of the most beloved anime of all time, it managed to fail on nearly every possible front. The plot could only make any fathom of sense to only the most ardent fan of the original, the acting was as wooden as a piece of driftwood, and the characters were as compelling as drunk stammerers. The terrible special effects were not enough to save this movie, as fans, casual viewers and critics all tore the movie apart. It grossed $57 million.

13.) Laserblast is a sci-fi film made released in 1978. This movie is a perfect example of how not to create a movie on, as the director describes it, “virtually no money.” With a bizarre plot, pathetic special effects, puzzlingly pointless characters, and a myriad of plot holes forces the film manages to both teeter on the edge of sanity while somehow remaining boring.

14.) Titanic: The Legend Goes On is somehow a Disney knock-off film released in 2000 that attempts to retell the tale of the sinking of the Titanic. This time, it involves the fantasy logic that a kid’s movie entails, but somehow the production managed to make this concept even more surreal. Uninhibited by reality, this movie features rapping dogs, animals of various ethnicities, a thoughtless plot and mind-crushingly absurd dialogue.

16.) Son of the Mask was advertised as a comedy movie with a budget of $84 million and was released in 2005. This abomination of a movie is an insult to the concept of comedy. This movie is home to a myriad of unspeakable horrors, such as acting as wooden as splinters, jokes befitting of a mentally deranged twelve-year-old, and CGI horrifying enough to render any child into a bawling infant. It could not reach a fraction of the success of its predecessor (The Mask), not because its son did everything wrong, but because it utterly failed in its singular purpose, to make people laugh. It grossed a mere $57 million, even though it’s predecessor made seven times that with a quarter of the budget.

17.) (Attack of the) Jurassic Shark is a film released in 2012 to the utter dismay of those few who saw the dreadful movie. It is so terrible that for a period of months it was rated as the worst movie on IMDb. This ranking is justified with CGI to rival The Amazing Bulk, acting that makes The Room appear to be Citizen Kane, and a plot that would make Manos: The Hands of Fate seem Shakespearean. Even if the names of the characters were boldly announced, it would still be impossible to remember, the blandness they inspire is simply awe-inspiring. It more than earns its spot on this list and any list of terrible movies. It should be a criminal offense to have anyone pay to see this disaster.

18.) Ghostbusters (2016) is a film with a budget of $144 million and was released to the utter dismay of audiences worldwide. Upon the trailer’s release, the audience could already see that it was going to be terrible, for a period of several months it had the highest dislike-to-like ratio out of any video on YouTube. This is a clear example of how ignorance from the upper echelons of a company can result in a film’s utter destruction. While the cast (at least in part) had the capability to do an outstanding performance, the results would be shameful for a standalone movie, let alone the successor of one of the most successful franchises of all time. What we received was a failure on every front, a generic plot, unfunny jokes, CGI that would make the original’s seem up-to-date and disappointing acting. While at the box office it made $229 million, it still made a net loss of around $50 million due to the prolific advertisement of the movie.

19.) The Star Wars Holiday Special is a television film which aired on 1978. Even the worst of the Star Wars prequels pales in comparison to the wretchedness that is this film. Instead of the compelling, though cheesy, dialogue of the originals, this special’s dialogue consist mainly of Wookies grunting. The most the original characters get it a cameo, at best. This is in lieu of the surreal events of the movie, which attempt to portray the grand civilization that is the Wookiee culture. The movie was so poorly received that George Lucas (who did not direct the movie) declared it to be non-canonical.

20.) Troll 2 was a movie released in 1990 with a budget that is ultimately irrelevant. It is a movie that is so horrendous that it is hardly physically possible for it to be more horrendous than it already is. The entire premise of the plot is the fact that the vegetarian goblins (not trolls) turn their victims into vegetables before eating them. The rest of the plot is less coherent than the ramblings of a madman. The acting of a cat in heat would be more compelling than these actors. Everything the characters do can only be portrayed as either nonsensical or ironically funny. The film bears almost no resemblance to its predecessor, there is not a single troll in the entire movie. Before the movie came out, the people producing this movie were already calling it the “Best Worst Movie” ever.