The 10 worst horror movies I’ve seen

So, Halloween has come and gone, and already things are beginning to look a lot like Christmas again… So without further ado, and since I want Halloween to gain a little more steam, let’s keep talking about horror movies.  Now I’ve mentioned some good or at least enjoyable horror titles, but some people have always asked me which ones I like the least…  Ok, most of the time the just want to know what ones I hate the most and so here it is.  Some may be a little predicable, as I’ve probably talked about them before, but I’m laying it down on the line.  The rules are simple, one movie per franchise, only one remake, and I have to have actually sat through the whole movie at least once.  Now, with all that aside, lets start off with something that will probably piss people off.

10.    The Blair Witch Project.  Those that want to call me evil for adding this movie on here can frankly kiss my ass for all I care.  This is one of those movies where the hype and its clever viral marketing were I think WAY more interesting than the actual movie.  Though to give it credit, it was in interesting idea and in theory a good way to execute it.  What bugged me was that when I looked at the movie, I never really found it all that interesting.  I honestly found it to be really really dull.  None of the scares did anything for me and I just honestly didn’t see what the big deal was.  In the interest of fairness to all it did for the modern horror film AND the independent film industry it only barely makes the list, but being very very boring, and most importantly, NOT SCARY AT ALL… is a really disappointing thing for a horror film to be, and I just couldn’t not put this movie on the list.

9. The Happening.  Yeeeah.  This probably isn’t that much of a shock, if you are a living breathing human you know that this movie is terrible.  All you have to do is watch the trailer and you have all the worthwhile scenes of the movie.  Again it was, sort of an interesting idea, but the movie is just so laughably awful that it just mystifies you that the same guy behind something really good like “The Sixth Sense” would makes something this incompetent.  It’s just one dumb terrible idea after another and on top of all that, we have weak acting, just plain sloppy direction that makes this movie an utter joke.  And that’s the main reason it’s on the list, it’s just so insanely bad that it’s hilarious, only I don’t find it nearly as entertaining as say “Battlefield Earth”, but it comes awful close.  How can you possibly take something as stupid as Mark “Marky Mark” Wahlberg talking to a plastic plant at all seriously?

8. Friday the 13^th Part 8: Jason Take Manhattan.  THE TITLE!  SHE LIES!!!  In case you don’t want to take my word for it, this movie’s the lowest grossing of all the films in the series AND it was the last straw for Paramount studios as they unloaded the franchise off to New Line because of it.  So what makes this one the worst of Jason’s hacky- slashy- kill- the- pretty- young people outings?  One, it’s really dumb.  I mean the other movies were never masterpieces, but they were at least enjoyable or at the very least not instantly making you roll your eyes, but the moment the movie hits about the five minute mark, you know exactly two things are certain, one, this movie was seriously trimmed down to get an R rating, leading, plot holes and lots of deaths off camera.  But most importantly, you realize that the title, implying that Jason Voorhees is going to go on a massive rampage through New York city, was a cheat.  Yes, the last 15 minutes or so have Jason in NYC but he barely does anything once he’s there.  Also, this is the longest film in the franchise, clocking in at about an hour and 40 minutes, leaving us with about an hour and a half of nothing but a bunch of dumb teenagers on a boat.  Otherwise, it’s just a really bad slasher.  It’s totally generic and never reaches the heights of camp or make up effects the previous movies had.  I honestly think the only curiosity about this movie is that it’s Kelly Hu’s first major movie, and she’s not in it that much.  It’s just a stupid, misleading snooze-fest from start to finish.  Some fans really dislike “Jason Goes To Hell” for a lot of reasons, most of which I can understand if I don’t wholly agree with, but seriously, following this movie, you have to admit they at least tried something interesting.

7. Breeders.  This is just porn.  It’s porn trying to pretend that it’s an actual horror movie.  That’s it.  The premise is that there are a bunch of rapes that happen involving pretty women being attack by a guy in a bad rubber suit… I mean an alien.  That’s really all there is to this movies, there’s supposed to be this on going investigation thing to tie it all together, but the actual point of the movie is to get attractive women naked for no real reason, that’s it.  The box actually tries to sell the movie as a serious horror film, and that’s actually the reason I picked it up.  I figured if nothing else it’d be cheesy, but I actually felt pretty dirty after watching it.  It just likes to always take things that one extra step too far into just too uncomfortable to be sexy, but not intelligent or even just tasteful enough to be anything other than just total smut.  I have nothing against smutty movies for the sake of smutty movies, but this just wanted in vain to sell itself as something more.  But it’s just smut.  It’s not sexy, it’s just icky and stupid.

6. Devil.  Oh god this movie was torture to sit through!  There are bad horror movies, and then there are bad horror movies that like to slap you in the face with how much they suck every five minutes.  The premise of this movie makes no sense at all!  The idea that the DEVIL is going to show he is there to punish the wicked, by choosing to out right murder a bunch of people in an elevator, is about as clichéd as you get.  Then “Devil” decides to go that extra step with terrible and predictable dialogue, and the fact that about half way through, you realize that THE DEVIL(!) probably has much better targets.  Think about it, if the whole point of Satan offing all these people, is to prove to an unbelieving population he exists, wouldn’t it be better to say, kill a genocidal dictator?  Or a serial killer?  A cult leader praising a false idol?  I know the barest minimum of Christian theology and I was calling BS on this entire plot.  It’s like a bad “Twilight Zone” episode from that last attempt of resurrecting the series.  Again, I’d heard this was laughably bad ala “The Happening”, but God!  This was just insulting to all of our intelligence and I’m frankly glad it only had luke warm box office returns.

5. Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) *SIGH* yeah I don’t think this surprise anyone.  I really don’t have much else to add to what I’ve already said.  Basically I tried to separate my opinion about how it would size up on it’s own merits, and it still failed miserably as a horror movie, with all the call backs to the original movie just making me wish I was watching that instead.  I honestly hated this movie so much that even seeing clips in other reviews just makes me cringe.  I cannot stress how much I would love my $10 back from sitting through this movie.  As I have said many many many times, the only good thing about this movie, is that Jackie Earl Haley looks like he could be a good replacement for Robert Englund as Freddy Kruger, if only they could give him a script that was actually worth a damn.

4. Through the Eyes of a Stranger.  I got this movie in a boxed set with a bunch of horror films used for about $10.  It was one of those things that I just decided to watch on a lark one night and now it’s number four here.  This is an entire movie that works on its main character being a hypocritical idiot.  There’s a serial killer on the loose, she’s a reporter that’s made it quite clear to everyone that they should report ANY suspicious activity to the police, and all she does is play detective.  Hypocrisy on the character aside, this movie is just dull.  Its suspense is nonexistent and it may as well be telegraphing its climax with big flashy neon lights from the start.  It’s just a pointless, idiotic waste of an hour and a half.

3. Dario Argento’s Phantom of the Opera.  This is a two-for of disappointing.  It’s a director I really enjoy doing a terrible version of one of my favorite books.  I’m fairly forgiving when it comes to adaptations of novels, but when you take liberties that totally miss the point of the story that’s another thing entirely.  I was thinking someone that’s as much as of a visuals oriented director as him could really make something of this movie, but the set’s looked cheap, the phantom was just all wrong, and it just didn’t have any of the heart of the original story.  I cannot adequately describe the utter painfulness sitting through this load of crap.  It’s only an hour and a half of pure what the hell, and it’s not nearly as style as his other works like “Opera” or “Deep Red”.  This was just pointless, Julien Sands was actually not that bad in it though, again a better script would have been appreciated.

2. The Fourth Kind.  This is basically if you took “Paranormal Activity” or, well, “The Blair Witch” project and failed at knowing at all how these kinds of movies actually work.  I honestly don’t think of this as one movie, it’s more like two half movies squished together that are kind of telling the same story.   One half is a truly hilariously awful found footage movie, and the other a bland lifeless Hollywood version with a truly terrible lead actress (though it is Milla Jovovich, I don’t think they cast her for her acting ability.)  This is just a horribly dull and lifeless movie, that tries and fails to use a gimmick that has become a hot idea in recent days, but on top of that it’s just stupid.  It’s a poorly made movie, plain and simple.  It scores so high on this list because anyone that has the faintest idea of how to make a movie at all wouldn’t do ANY of the things they do in this one.

1. Hostel 2.  I FUCKING HATE THE HOSTEL MOVIES!!!  I really do!  I may despise the great majority of the “Saw” movies, but at least they tried to be something more than start torture porn.  Good god these movies are just awful.  They’re just so in your face about absolutely everything, and yet all they do is hold nothing but contempt for the audience.  And the sequel especially is guilty of this.  I can’t tell you how angry this movie gets me.  It’s just dumb, exploitive movie, with horrendous acting and some of the most unlikable characters I’ve ever seen in anything.  IT’s not even that I’m angry that this movie was sick, it’s more that I just hate when a horror movie purely thinks gore is what makes something scary.  Slasher movies, while they would fail or get predictable sometimes, at least made some attempt to build suspense, and “Saw” at least tried to have a story.  “Hostel 2” is just a pure mean spirited middle finger to horror fans from Eli Roth, and I honestly can’t do justice to how much I hate this movie without just ranting endlessly about the whole thing, and I honestly don’t feel like giving it that much thought.  It’s that bad.

So there it is.  The horror movie I absolutely hate the most.  Next time let’s get a little more fun, I’ll list out my all time favorite horror movies.   Until then folks!