I think 2024 was kind of a meh year for movies. It was really hard to compile my Best of 2024 List, which I haven’t even started writing yet, however as you can see, I have way too many on my Worst List. I have so many, I thought maybe I’d start things out by listing, in no particular order, a few dishonorable mentions. These are movies that are still bad, they just for some reason aren’t as bad as some of the others that did make the top 10.
Dishonorable Mentions:
First up…
Wicked – So why are all the Munchkins in Munchkin Land 6 feet tall? And why are all the students at the school in their late 30’s? A lot of musicals in 2024, so I’ve been going on a binge to watch them all before I complete my list. This one sucked. The music was bad, the acting is terrible, and they did the thing I really hate and that’s make your beloved characters the real villains, while the other was just misunderstood and actually the good one all along who just wanted to save animals. You also don’t at all buy into their friendship. Just one minute they hate each other and the next they’re a lesbian couple. Speaking of lesbians!
Drive-Away Dolls – This movie is so absolutely terrible; I was debating if it should actually be on the official worst list or not. It’s directed by Ethan Coen, one half of the famous Coen Brothers. Man, I think we know where all the talent comes from in this duo because him solo without his clearly more talented brother, he ends up making something nearly unwatchable. This might have been the hardest sit in any movie on my list. It’s a lesbian road trip movie, but it feels like a dude wrote it whose only knowledge of lesbians extends to either The L Word or porno.
The Substance – Extremely heavy handed and on the nose. It fills the runtime with pointless dream sequences so “something” could happen. It has a paper-thin plot with nothing new to say, and an unbalanced comedic element that doesn’t work. The director also seems to have not only ever met a man before but been to LA, depicting it having snow. That must be the cause of all those wildfires, all the snow.
Night Swim – I do actually think this could have had promise, however it basically just became a total rip off of Amityville Horror… the remake one with Ryan Reynolds.
I Saw the TV Glow – This director’s other film is also terrible and even more unwatchable than this. Basically, it’s just all metaphor and nothing else. It has no characters, no plot, nothing, just a metaphor for being trans. Okay, do that but also maybe give me a story? Or maybe any kind of characters at all would be nice. The thing that upset me the most was this being depicted as a horror. It is not.
Back to Black – Incredibly dull telling of Amy Winehouse’s life, skipping mostly past her music career to focus on her drug and alcohol addiction, but in the end tries to feign respect by skipping over her death.
Trap – Daddy, make me a popstar like Taylor Swift! Sweetheart, I make movies. Daddy, make a MOVIE that stars me as a popstar like Taylor Swift! Vanity project that throws away its own dumb concept early on, then isn’t sure what to do next so M. Night Shyamalan gives the lead role over to his daughter. Who I’m shocked didn’t get an Oscar nomination. She was robbed!
MaXXXine – Whelp, Ti West had a good run, now I guess he’s back to making shit. The movie is mostly just Maxine trying to get a part in a shitty horror movie while the actual plot of the movie keeps trying to shove itself in, like hey, interesting plot here, can I slip in? No, we need to focus more on how horrible and unlikable Maxine is? Terribly boring, terribly predictable. The ending is so bad, it was like Ti West just gave up.
The Strangers: Chapter 1 – Felt like half a movie I guess mainly because it is. This might win an award for the movie with the dumbest characters. When I mean half a movie, I mean it, there’s no third act.
Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 – Such a giant failure of a film. It has a good setup, but gets weighed down by too many characters, too many side plots, none of it really all that interesting. Watch American Primeval on Netflix instead.
Lisa Frankenstein – Just a lame PG-13 “horror” movie. It wanted to be Heathers but falls flat on its face. But it had a pretty good soundtrack.
The Mouse Trap – It was clear they had access to an arcade but were told you can’t do anything to make it messy, so that meant no practical blood. Instead, just a lot of really bad CGI stuff, or literally nothing at all. If characters aren’t standing around doing nothing, they are killed off screen. The story makes zero sense, the movie looked cheap, had way too many characters. And of course, they all hate each other. No real reason why this was set in an arcade either. Also, the movie is narrated by someone who might as well be a background character, retelling the story. A story she wasn’t even a part of and wouldn’t know how any of it happened. This truly one of the worst movies on this list, however it is cheap crap made to cash in on Steamboat Willie becoming public domain, so I don’t think it counts as a movie.
Now it is time for the TOP 10 WORST MOVIES OF 2024!
10. The Crow – When I heard they were not only remaking The Crow, but using Brandon Lee’s Eric Draven, who a lot see as his character only as he died playing it, it all seemed very disrespectful. The character design is basically Jared Leto’s Joker but also a Crow character in a later comic. So, it was confusing why they felt they needed this to be Eric. They claim to be more faithful to the comic than the original 1994 film, but the only thing I saw that was in the comic and not that film was the tangled horse imagery. Other than that, this film has nothing to do with the original film, or the comic it was based on. “Eric” doesn’t even start “dressing” like the crow until about an hour or so into the movie. Or hell, even getting revenge takes a backseat. Also, the film about revenge, or the loss of love just becomes the plot to the Nic Cage Ghost Rider movie. There’s only one real action sequence and that’s the scene where Eric attacks the play. Aside from that, nothing really happens. You never once buy into their love or even their relationship as it seems they know each other for only a couple of days. We never really get too much backstory on either of these characters or even the villain who is also supernatural for some reason. When you look at it like just a generic action film where the lead can’t die, it’s only okay. But factor in this is The Crow, it fails miserably.
9. Uglies – I think we can all agree the YA book adaptations are dead, right? I’m not sure if one particular film ended the trend, I think mostly it ran its course since these movies are all the same. Uglies however is a textbook bad YA adaption. First off the list, everyone is hot. Which isn’t that big of a deal unless being ugly is the whole focal point of this idiotic movie. And when they get “beautified” they look like Orange County Housewives with really bad and funny plastic surgery. I’m sorry, ladies but no one has ever looked at someone with lip filler and thought wow what luscious lips. They think that person has lip filler. The whole concept is so dumb, basically they live in a futuristic city split in two, one side is awaiting to get transformed and the other is for the pretty folks. Turns out it is just a way to mind control the populous. But then we have the rebel girl who wants to fight against the establishment and join the group in the woods who reject beauty standards. If that wasn’t funny enough, then the CGI comes in. The really bad skateboarding CGI that will make you bust out laughing. Then there is the typical love triangle these movies always have because Twilight. They also do what all these movies do, because they never have a complete story, only a tease for more to come, so obviously it ends on a cliffhanger. With how badly this was received, I doubt more will be made by Netflix, but you never know.
8. Rebel Moon: Director’s Cut – Here’s the thing about Zack Synder, as a director, I think he is very talented. Most of the time. There are many examples where that isn’t the case, but as a writer, this man is absolutely terrible. I know he didn’t write Rebel Moon alone, but the bulk of this was from his head. A head that is mostly stealing from other things like Star Wars, Warhammer 40K, Pitch Black, Seven Samurai… I wanted to put the director’s cut on here rather than the PG-13 release because in a lot of ways, I think he managed to make the movie even worse. This also includes both parts. The upsetting thing is it was clear to me how this movie should have gone. And I spent a majority of this now even more bloated film coming up with ways to fix it. This does have some good elements to it, it was just stuck being other things like a Seven Samurai knockoff. They might have added in the gore, but they also added in a bunch of nudity and sex scenes that are just weird and uncomfortable to watch. I really don’t know what Netflix was thinking by even bothering releasing a PG-13 version. That was for the kids, but this one is for the adults, it’s just dumb. This cut also gave us even more unimportant crap like more backstory on the kid soldier no one remembers or cares about and more useless scene with the robot that does absolutely nothing the whole time. And once again, no rebel moons are ever featured, I have no idea why it is even called Rebel Moon.
7. Love Lies Bleeding – Kristen Stewart is a terrible actress. Anyone who ever says otherwise always brings up the movie she did Personal Shopper. Oh, you mean the movie she barely has any lines in, and she just has to silently buy things? That movie? Give her lines and a chance to act and you’ll find yourself wondering is she an alien? I always suspected, but this movie has convinced me she isn’t human. She acts like an alien trying to play a human with these “human” emotions. But even as an alien she’s still can’t act. Besides that, this film is just terrible, like the writer wrote about a topic they had no idea about and didn’t bother doing any kind of research for. They treat steroids like shooting up heroin, that I guess also turns you into a giant. The ending to this is the worst on the list.
6. Argylle – Honestly, I don’t really remember much about this movie, just that it was terrible. That and the awful hairstyle they put on Henry Cavill, like an early 90’s flat top. I also remember the whole third act being ridiculous. They spend the whole movie telling you how different spy work is from her made up fictional book, and then by the end of it it might as well be a page from it. Skating on knives, impossible trick shots like it’s Wanted, a much better film with almost the same exact plot. And the balls to try and connect this to the Kingsman movies was just insulting. Not to mention made no sense, like most of this movie. I remember thinking at the beginning it wasn’t that bad, but as the movie went along things just started piling up. Bryce Dallas Howard is terrible in this, maybe she should stick to directing Star Wars episodes. Characters would just randomly show up, die then reappear. The whole third act is when the movie truly shits itself. The lame PG-13 rating didn’t help either. If you have a movie this bad, at least make the action fun.
5. Borderlands – The game has such a simple story; it’s basically National Treasure on an alien planet a futuristic action-adventure film. I have no idea how they managed to fuck this up so badly. Is Eli Roth to blame? If the question is if Eli Roth is to blame, the answer is always yes. In the game, we have a team of vault hunters, all hungry to find out what is in the vault, and we follow their crazy adventure as they take jobs trying to track down how to open it, when they do, it’s just a giant alien monster they have to fight. Great twist! Film didn’t do any of that. They made it this confusing mess about Tiny Tina being a clone and her being able to open the vault with her clone blood, yet she can’t open the vault, instead Lilith can because she’s a Siren. But she doesn’t know she’s a Siren… None of the characters are how they are in the game. Not a single one. This might be the worst casting I think ever made. Eli Roth must be a wrinkle wrangler because every single female character is way too old for the part. Except for Gina Gershon as Mad Moxxi, she’s perfect for that… if this was 40+ years ago. They don’t even feature any creative guns in this movie and that’s really all there was in the games, the number of crazy weapons you get. I also hear they cut it down to a PG-13. Gore I don’t think makes or breaks a film, just look at Kraven, but all the action just felt so lame and couldn’t shake the feeling Cate Blanchett was going to break a hip.
4. Joker: Folie a Deux – Unlike most who heard the sequel to Joker was going to be a musical, I was very intrigued. I like them not just remaking the first film again as a way to do a sequel. To do something so out of left field was admittedly intriguing to me. That is until I actually watched the damn thing. The musical parts do nothing for the story, they could be removed, and no one would have been the wiser. The supposed “love story” between Joker and Harley is so terribly done, I think even the terrible Suicide Squad movie did it better job of it. Almost everything about this movie is half baked, like they didn’t even try. It switches from courtroom drama recapping the events of the first film, to then random music number fantasies to pad things out. They make Joker weak and pathetic to really hammer home he’s a loser. It felt like they wanted to make him as pathetic and dumb as possible so no fan could ever idolize with him, and those who did, didn’t anymore. The whole movie felt like the director was giving fans the middle finger just for liking his movie. They could have done a million different things and yet this is what they wanted to make, a FU to fans. Worst of all even the music was bad, if you dig 60- or 70-year-old songs, you might have a good time. I’m very confused about the bloated budget, with 10x the budget of the first, yet you don’t see it on the screen. What is even more frustrating is you can see a real movie could be there, hell there’s even a therapist Joker goes to to evaluate his sanity, who easily should have been the Harley character, instead she’s a stalker who wants to get famous off him. The movie feels like a rough draft, god and that ending. If not for the fact I have even worse films on this list, this easily could have been my number one pick. I’m so pleased this film got smoked at the box office by Terrifier 3, a film with only a budget of 2 million. Best Joker movie in theaters at the time wasn’t even Joker.
3. Madame Web – Pepsi featuring, PEPSI! The true hero of this movie is Pepsi, as it is what kills the bad guy in the end by falling on him. This movie was doomed from the start with the trailer featuring the most laugh out loud line in film history. “He was in the amazon with my mom, when she was researching spiders right before she died”. A line they of course cut after getting lampooned online for it. The self-awareness kind of ends there sadly. This wasn’t even really funny bad, just boring. They of course can’t say Peter Parker or Spiderman, so they dance around it like all these Sony Marvel movies do. But the fact they can’t or won’t do it in this film, that features a young Ben Parker is insane. I would try to tell you the plot of this movie, but it doesn’t make a ton of sense. Guy gets visions of the future of these ladies trying to kill him, so he decides to hunt their present-day selves down and kill them instead. This is the only time we ever see anyone in their comic book outfits as well. It lasts for a good 15 seconds, so I hope you enjoyed that, you’ll never see it again. There’s a lot of plot stuff “fixed” in post with a voice over explaining something. Like instance, Madam Webb’s mom dies giving birth to her in the rain forest, where a tribe of juiced up spider folk rescue her. No mention how baby Madam Webb got back to the US. I think there might have been some ADR to explain it away, but that’s just one of many examples. Recently, the film has gained traction again because it is streaming on Netflix. Even then it isn’t worth your time.
2. Megalopolis – Take a look at this boner. An actual line from this… I feel bad even calling this a movie. It sadly feels like the ramblings of an old man who has lost touch with reality. Francis Ford Coppola will go down in history as one of the greatest directors of all time. However, that was a very long time ago and stands as the prime example for why Quentin Tarantino wants to retire after 10 movies, so he doesn’t end up making embarrassing trash like this. Yes, the plot is nonsensical, yes it shares parallels with a Neil Breen movie, yes, the directing, the SFX, the acting, the writing everything is all bad and terrible but… there’s no but, it’s just all those things. It seems he is trying to show parallels between the fall of Rome and America today. There’s enough on the nose comparisons it would not be hard to miss. The plot, I don’t know honestly. Adam Driver plays Cesar, the city’s head architect who also for some odd reason has the ability to stop time. That’s never explained so don’t bother asking why. Or why the mayor of the city’s daughter also has that power, or I guess steal it. For some reason Laurence Fishburne narrates the movie, but stops doing so about halfway in. There’s a lot of plot points and characters that just show up as quickly as they vanish from the movie, just completely forgotten about. Adam Driver finds this metal he wants to rebuild the city with that will turn it into an ugly sci-fi utopia, but for some reason the mayor is against it. There’s also Aubrey Plaza whose name is Wow Platinum, who is scheming with Shia LaBeouf to steal Adam Driver’s money, I guess? Coppola has stated that he wanted to cast only actors who have been “canceled”. If that were the case, he should have put Armie Hammer or Kevin Spacey in it. Speaking of Kevin Spacey…
1. Peter Five Eight – Kevin Spacey made this film years ago but was shelved due to his numerous lawsuits and allegations. It was officially released in 2024 and out of curiosity, I wanted to check it out. I don’t really know what the director was going for with this. It feels like a Twin Peaks homage at times with how strange the acting is. It has really bad acting, don’t get me wrong, but it’s bad in a way almost on purpose. It’s the strangest damn thing I’ve ever seen. Characters act like they are aliens pretending to be human in a 1940’s movie, but at times they also talk like they are in a Shakespearean play. The plot is so nonsensical you will find yourself confused at every turn. Kevin Spacey plays Peter, a hitman of sorts, who was hired by a tech giant billionaire to track down the drunk driver who killed his wife. Instead of just outright killing her, Peter first gets close to her friend and neighbor to I guess gather information on her. And with that info he just goes around town trying to sabotage her. The film also has a side plot about her out of work drunkard husband. One of the really funny things in the movie is how Peter communicates with his employer, a video call by TV. And the ending, oh boy that ending. Peter gets tired of the friend and dumps her so he can now kill the lady his employer wants dead. But he keeps missing with his sniper rifle, at close range I might add, just randomly shooting people in the street. Then as the lady drives away, completely oblivious of the man shooting at her, Peter’s ex shows up with a shotgun and tries to kill him for dumping her. Then at the film’s climax, Peter tracks the lady down at this house her husband got hired to build a deck for, even though it already has a deck that looks brand new, she shows up to surprise him, even though he leaves before she gets there. Once Peter corners her, the crazy ex shows up again and kills him. If that wasn’t crazy enough, the ending has Peter show back up alive. Was he a clone? A robot? I don’t know! I’ve seen a lot of bad movies in 2024, but as bad as those films got, it never was able to outshine the stupidity of this craptastrophe. Despite the allegations against him, Kevin Spacey is still a fantastic character actor, maybe one of the best. He’s doing that southern accent again from House of Cards, but for some reason it’s so bad, mixing that with everything else… This film is hilarious and terrible, it truly earns the worst film award.
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