Part 2, and the one we’ve all REALLY been waiting for. The Captain defends his choices for THE WORST films of 2016.
Spoofs. Sequels NOBODY wanted. Generic horror. Oscar nominees?
Will you agree?…Enjoy!
THE WORST FILMS OF 2016
(Find Part 1: The Best here.)
To finish my story about the average Joe who wrote a book on his top 100 favorite films, some actually guessed what his number one film might be. Can you guess? If you said Casablanca you’d be correct. How generic of a best of list can you have where someone can make a wild guess as to what their number one pick out of 100 would be? This must have taken him years to finish this list and not once did it ever hit him that maybe people wouldn’t be interested.
So that brings me to yet another of my lists! Unfortunately that list is the worst films of 2016. But first… Some Dishonorable Mentions!
Norm of the North – It’s kind of rare for me to shut a film off once I’ve started it. But wow was this one a hard struggle to sit through. I must have shut this thing off at least 3 times in the first 20 minutes. Eventually I did give up and shut the damn thing off for good. Now I hear this garbage is getting a sequel. Or is it a spin off? I don’t know, the animation looks as bad as this one did, so this might pop up once again on my worst list for 2017. The only reason I didn’t put this on the top 10 is because I couldn’t finish it. And I feel that if I list something in the top 10 good or bad, I must at least watch it all the way through. This was so bad I couldn’t even do that.
Fifty Shades of Black – The only thing worse than Fifty Shades of Grey is a damn spoof movie of Fifty Shades of Grey. The only reason it didn’t make the top 10 is because I hate to admit this, but it got a couple of laughs out of me. That in no way makes this film good. Just that it might have had a couple of gags that made me crack a smile. Or whip out the chuckle machine. Don’t worry, I put a much worse spoof movie in its place.
The Darkness – If you’re studying how to write the most generic, by the book PG-13 horror film, look no further than this piece of shit. It is just so damn manufactured. Like a robot punched in a bunch of horror movie tropes into some algorithm and this is what got spit out. The only reason and I mean the only reason this didn’t make the list is because Kevin Bacon is in it. Besides that this is a boring, bloodless, jump scare fest that needs to be forgotten.
Zoolander 2 – I know the first film was a giant cult hit. But I never liked it. And when I heard a sequel was getting made, I really didn’t care all that much. But wow, this is bad. By so many standards this is just awful. I genuinely feel bad for everyone in this. I might have added this to the list if I was more into the first film. There’s really no reason to watch this. It is beyond painful sometimes. And with 2016 being the year of sequels no one asked for, this being the worse is shameful.
The Other Side of the Door – Another generic by the books PG-13 “horror” film. This one was so boring I fell asleep through it. I did wake up, rewinding to what I missed and it wasn’t much. The premise is kind of interesting, it just failed in executing it. It was Pet Sematary but done even poorly.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 – Another pointless sequel to a film no one was asking for. Hate the characters, plot seemed nonexistent, the acting was outright atrocious and did I mention this was pointless? Because there was zero reason to give us an update on these characters. But, it was harmless. Something your mom who loves everything would go see.
Ratchet & Clank – I’m a pretty big fan of the games, so I was actually really excited to hear a theatrical film was on the way to theaters. But the writing was off. The humor was also off. Everything about the film was off. It was okay they changed the story, that’s fine. But the humor and the fun of the games was just gone. I like action in my movies, sure. But 90% of this film was just action sequence that leads to yet another action sequence. It still had some moments to it that I enjoyed. The animation was good, the original voice actors did the voices… it just felt kind of soulless.
The Boy – Speaking of soulless! This makes number three I think for PG-13 shitty horror films. Not only was the plot to this idiotic, but it had the nerve to be boring too. I mean, have a dumb plot like this but don’t make it so boring I’d fall asleep. Which I did. So many dream sequences! So a good way to now if your horror film is shit, is if you have more than one fake out dream sequence. That’s all this movie is, just jump scare dream sequence. It has to be a dream because nothing fucking happens in this film. Though I could be talking about another film that did make the list. It too suffers from boredom and plagued with dream sequences. Most of these bad horror films do. It’s a cheap way to try and get a jump out of you. but if you aren’t said 13 years old, you’ll mostly just get frustrated that this is the best they can do. Also, check out the film The Pact. Has the same plot twist but done right.
Batman: The Killing Joke – I’ve actually never read the comic this is based on. When it comes to comics, ones with superheroes aren’t exactly what I’m into. Though I was an X-Men kid back in the day. This “film” if you can call it that. Mostly this is just a short. Is padded out with batgirl trying to hook up with batman and screwing on a roof. Then the killing joke just randomly starts. This is so bad, it makes you wish Zack Snyder was involved.
Lamb – Who is really into pedophilia? Ha! Got you! That was a trick question. This film is so damn creepy that I don’t know how this got made. A guy in his 40’s bonds with this little girl, who he ends up kind of kidnapping and taking to this cabin somewhere. It didn’t make the list because I’m not sure when this came out. it says 2015 but I watched it last year, so… still creepy ass film.
The Lobster – This was very close to making the list. But I loved the premise, if you can’t find a partner, they turn you into an animal. Though it seems like they mostly just kill you and say this random animal is now you. Anyway, the stuff at the lodge where they try to meet someone so they don’t get killed is all pretty great. It’s when we leave that place for the woods. I get it, he thought he was escaping a place that had too many rules to somewhere he could be free, only to find the free place has even more rules. It just got boring and arty farty but not in a good way. Skip this one. Though I hear we in the US only got the edited version. There were hardcore sex scenes in this maybe? I doubt it would have helped the film any, but still… I hate watching something knowing it has been censored for me like a child.
Blair Witch – I was never that big of a fan to the first film. I actually watched it at home during the day because my friend got a vhs screener copy. It was the much talked about film, so of course we had to see it. And it mostly bored us to tears. That and made us wonder why we couldn’t just do the same thing. Even though we were like 14 at the time. Does anyone remember when Dawson’s Creek did a rippoff of this? Anyway! This film was terrible. They basically just made a generic found footage film. A gimmicky genre that was in the process of dying in 2014. Didn’t care about the characters, the camera gimmick seemed to just be tossed in there but forgotten about. The only reason it seemed they went with found footage was because the last time they went the other direction with it we got Book of Shadows. This I can tell you is better than that film. It does bring back the whole time distortion thing. Also, we got to see the blair witch. It was dumb. But at least this wasn’t another PG-13 wannabe horror film.
Snowden – So you work for the government, you see they’re spying on people, you bring up your concerns with your superiors and they ignore you. So quit. Don’t keep going back. And really, no one saw this coming? That he’d steal information? He made his stance on this shit pretty clear to them. It also doesn’t help that Snowden is pretty unlikable as a character. He comes off whiny and kind of a paranoid weirdo who might have Asperger’s. But I did enjoy seeing Nic Cage return in a film actually shown in theaters again.
Goat – You even lift, bro? You gotta chug dat shit, bro. You ain’t a man unless you chug dat shit. Annoying as fuck frat guys doing annoying as fuck frat guy things. I kind of wished this film was leading up to a mass shooting, just so I could see all these characters get shot in their faces. Too harsh? You might not think that after sitting through this film of dudebros drinking themselves into oblivion. They also all seemed to really want to fuck each other. A lot of their initiations involved sucking fake dicks, fucking animals or just back to blowing each other. They also really love hugging each other shirtless. A lot of shirtless bro hugs. This really should be on the list, but I just couldn’t find room for it. Because believe it or not, the ones that made my list are even worse than this. And this was fucking unwatchable.
Now it is time. Time to read the list of shitty films that should never be watched by anyone. You have been warned!
THE WORST
10. Elle – I’ve seen this film pop up on a lot of best lists. Hell, this just got nominated for an Oscar! I was really excited to see this one because Paul Verhoeven directed it. Plus it made it sound like this was going to be some kind of revenge flick. It was not. What it was was really French. Like stereotypically French. Even their take on rape is so French. Drink some wine, eat some stinky cheese, have a little rape, you Americans are such prudes. This film is so painfully awful. The main character is insanely unlikable. I know she’s meant to be, but wow. Be careful when you write unlikable characters and keep in mind we need to actually care if something happens to them. Like I don’t know, get raped. But the main character doesn’t even really care all that much either. In fact she kind of likes it. There’s this subplot about how when she was just a little girl her dad went on a killing spree and some think she helped him. Now she works in making video games, but in the most French way possible. And one morning someone breaks into her house and rapes her. But then she kind of just brushes it off and continues out her day. By having wine and nonchalantly bringing it up at a dinner. She also starts lusting over her married next door neighbor, who we instantly know is the rapist. But so does she and he rapes her again. Then afterwards they’re really friendly about it. Seriously, to hell with this movie. There’s no story, just this horrible woman being horrible to everyone then gets raped a few times and brushes it off.
9. Max Steel – I was itching to see this one, not because I thought it looked good, the opposite really. This looked terrible. So bad I couldn’t wait to see the tragedy for myself. And it did not disappoint. I mean, it did, because it’s terrible, but if you know that going in… I vaguely remember the toy line and kind of remember the cartoon show. I believe it was about a teen spy that had a robot arm. The film on the other hand is about a teen that can shoot jizz from his fingers and becomes Ironman. Also, he’s an alien, because why not! There’s also an annoying robot that keeps following him. At one point I thought maybe there was going to be this big twist, having the main character’s mom end up being the bad guy. But nope, it turned out to be the guy we knew was bad the instant they stepped on screen. There’s also this weird love interest, I say weird because I think she might be stalking the main character. He also looks about 30 while everyone else in his class looks to be 12. Thankfully his stalker love interest also looks 30 so as to not pair him up with a child. I don’t even get why she was into him. He’s only ever been weird and awkward towards her. Trust me, I know weird and awkward around girls when I was that age and not once did it ever result in me gaining a stalker. Not a single one!
8. Meet the Blacks – If you were wondering what could have been worse than Fifty Shades of Black, now you know. A spoof movie of The Purge. 4 years after The Purge came out. So topical! Sure two sequels had come out by then but this wasn’t a spoof of those movies, it was a spoof of the first film. Besides that, this thing isn’t funny. At all. I’d rather watch A Haunted House 2 again than this unfunny garbage. They’re black and they moved into a white neighborhood. Let’s make a joke out of that for 90 minutes or however long this movie was. It felt like an eternity. The main character stole some drugs and money from a drug dealer and moved his family to a rich neighborhood. Also, they live in the world of the purge where every year you get to do whatever you want. Even kill. That brings all the white neighbors to their house looking to kill them and the drug dealer looking for his drugs. The budget for this thing was low. It looks cheap. Like maybe they had access to a semi large house and shot a few scenes there for a day. But with all the unfunny ad libbing they managed to get it to feature length. I actually wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what happened. This is hands down the worst spoof movie ever made. I used to love spoof movies. Hell, one of my favorites is Repossessed, the Leslie Nielsen Exorcist spoof. Just watch the Purge sequels, they’re way more entertaining than this shit pile.
7. Ghostbusters – What can I say… it sucked. Others have been a bit more lenient on this film. I have still yet to watch the unrated cut, which I hear is mostly just dance numbers. Many many dance numbers. Because if ghostbusters was missing anything, it was fucking dancing. Besides the fact this is unfunny, they also don’t actually catch any ghosts. They catch one, then let it go, killing someone in the process. They’re horrible ghostbusters. I don’t know what the hell Kate McKinnon was doing in this. When it comes to films she seems to only know how to play one type of character. Creepy weird. And she keeps playing that character in everything I’ve seen her pop up in. But then again, so does Melissa McCarthy.
6. The Disappointments Room – Here it is, guys. The PG-13 horror film to end all PG-13 horror films. Remember what I said about how you know you’re in for a bad ride if your film is plagued by a bunch of dream fake outs? Well, that’s this movie. More dream fake outs with loud noises to jolt you awake. Because believe me, you’ll need it. This thing is so damn boring it tried to put me to sleep several time. I fought through it though. Kate Beckinsale plays a mom who sat on her baby. They still have another kid, but the sat on baby is the one that turned her into a crazy person. Thinking they need a change of scenery, they move into an old house, one that has a disappointments room. Basically a room up in the attic you stuff your elephantman-like children in. In this particular room a young girl was kept who was murdered by her father. Kate Beckinsale keeps having dreams about it and that’s it. Nothing more to it really. Because nothing happens. I mean, you eventually find out she sat on her baby, but that’s it.
5. The Neon Demon – Someone got a bunch of arty all in my farty. If you’re hoping for the plot to eventually develop, stop waiting. There’s no plot. The script had some resemblance of a story, but just like Only God Forgives, the story was sacrificed as to give you images and static shots that might as well be photos. But hey, why need plot when you got a character having lesbian sex with a corpse? I really didn’t think he could do worse than Only God Forgives, but he managed to prove me wrong. Horrible characters, mixed with a terrible ending… this truly is one of the worst films of last year.
4. Yoga Hosers – This film is so bad that it makes you rethink Kevin Smith’s whole career. Maybe Clerks was just a fluke. Maybe Mall Rats isn’t very funny. Maybe Jay and Silent Bob aren’t funny either. Nothing makes sense anymore! I liked Red State, I thought that was a really cool new direction he was taking. Then Tusk came out and it had more of his style, the acting I think really saved it. Plus he turned a guy into a fucking walrus. Then came this piece of shit. The plot is all over the place, like they spent maybe a day to come up with everything. Two girls… in a band… boys they like turn out to be Satanists… then nazi brats show up and kill you by entering your asshole. But the budget is dirty cheap and it’s rated PG-13. Remember when Kevin Smith used to put celebrities in his films? Now it’s populated with youtube stars and who ever does one of his million different podcasts. Skip this piece of shit. And Christ, there’s one more coming Mouse Jaws.
3. Nine Lives – A plot so idiotic that I didn’t even think it was real. It really seemed like a spoof trailer Funny or Die made. But nope, it was real. And it actually made it to theaters. The lack of chemistry between Kevin Spacey and Jennifer Garner was only an extra layer of crap to pile on to this giant shit sandwich. The CGI cat looked horrible, and when they cut to a real cat it was jarring. All around pretty terrible film. Might be a so bad it’s good film if it catches you on the right night. Make sure if you do watch this you have at least a couple of people there seeing it with you.
2. Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice – Zack Snyder wasn’t meant to be at the helm of DC’s film franchise. But he has an agent that is best pals with the head of Warner brothers. Even refusing to leave his office until they gave Zack Snyder their biggest franchise. So now we are forced to watch as he destroys Batman and Superman. I’m not a DC fan. I think Superman is pretty boring as a character. And Zack Snyder obviously thought so too, turning him basically into Batman. A film franchise you can tell he’d rather be doing. I think Zack Snyder might fancy himself as talented as Christopher Nolan the same way Roland Emmerich sees himself on equal footing as Steven Spielberg. Man of Steel was a goddamn mess, he clearly didn’t understand the character, or editing since just randomly you’ll get a flashback for no reason. He also seems to be overcompensating for the lack of action that was in Superman Returns. Also he must have felt the need to add more penis symbols, because Man of Steel is full of dicks everywhere. But this isn’t about that film, but about Dawn of Justice. What this film lacks is motivation. No one in this has it. If you were hoping the R rated directors cut might have added any, you’d be wrong. There’s no reason for batman to want to kill superman and there’s no reason for superman to want to fight batman. And there is absolutely no damn reason for Lex Luther to want any of this to happen. Normally you’d build up to a film like this. Nope, second film and we go straight into it. And then they kill off superman. I guess maybe to get him out of the way for their Justice League film, which I hear is pretty bad. But it seems Superman will be in that as well because you see him in the behind the scenes footage. This whole more grown up feel can work, but it’s just so dark and depressing. But dark and bleak shouldn’t be Superman. And from what I hear, Wonder Woman is also looking to be pretty terrible. Guess we’ll see!
1. Wiener-Dog – And here it is, the absolute worst film of last year. Want to watch wiener dogs die horribly? Yeah? Well this is the film for you. Three or so stories where a dog is killed. The first story is about a young rich boy with shitty parents. We are meant to feel sympathy for him seeing as he just recovered from having cancer. And to be fair, the kid isn’t the problem. What is the problem are the parents. To make the boy feel better about not having friends, they buy him a wiener dog. But the boy feeds him some granola and the dog shits out its insides. So the dad tosses the dog away. Next we see the dog survived, now getting taken in by a vet. This lonely vet has a crush on some crackhead she knew in highschool and the two plus the wiener dog go on a road trip, where she eventually leaves the dog off with a pair of retarded people. Who will most likely kill this fucking dog. If granola almost does it, whatever they feed it you can be sure won’t be dog safe. Then we get an old blind lady with a wiener dog. This story was basically unbearable. He daughter or granddaughter shows up with her rapper boyfriend looking for money. Long story short it ends with the dog running off and getting run over by cars. This is a comedy by the way. Long shots of cars running over this dog. Who wouldn’t laugh at that! That’s hilarious! Fuck this movie, fuck amazon for producing this shit, fuck the director and fuck myself for wanting to see this horse shit.
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