The 5 Worst Movies I've Ever Seen

Over the years, I've seen quite a few movies.  Most of the ones I choose are pretty good.  However, every once in a while I get fooled (or dragged) into wasting 2 hours of time and $8.50 of my hard-earned money on one of these pieces of shit.  The following list comprises the worst 5 movies I've ever seen.

Before we get to the winners, I'll list a few Honorable Mentions:

Gothika - Horror flick starring Halle Berry.  I don't remember all that much about it except thinking it sucked.  Since it was released 6 years ago, and I still think about the movie sucking, it must have been really bad.

The Village - The movie that sent M. Night Shyamalan over the deep end.  Some would argue that Signs did that, but I'm going with The Village.  This movie was marketed terribly, or I guess brilliantly since it grossed $114M in the US.  Bad acting, terrible story, way too many plot holes.

S.W.A.T. - Possibly the worst character development I've ever seen in a movie.  I didn't give a shit about any of the characters the entire time.  Stays on the Honorable Mention list since I didn't see it in theaters...which makes me even dumber for sitting through the damn thing on HBO.

Daredevil - Before Daredevil, Ben Affleck made Good Will Hunting, Boiler Room, and Armageddon.  After Daredevil, he did Gigli and Surviving Christmas.  This one was really bad.  A blind superhero?  Give me a fucking break.  Then to make it better, his love interest, Elektra, who dies in the movie, somehow gets revived and makes her own movie.  

Now to the list you've all been waiting for:

5.  Malibu's Most Wanted - Was Jamie Kennedy ever funny?  I don't know how this dude even got famous.  Anyway, I saw this one back in high school at the wonderful Cinemark theater, the place where I almost died after a date gone terribly wrong (another post for another time, I promise).  I didn't laugh once during this movie, and neither did anyone I was with at the time.  The best part about this flick?  Calling Kanad up after the movie and sounding enthusiastic when asking if he liked it (he had seen it earlier at a different theater), and him replying, "Yeah, it was pretty good."  I never said I was friends with Roger Ebert.

4.  Fear Dot Com - Supposedly spooky thriller starring Stephen Dorff.  They were really going after the new, emerging trend of the Internet....in 2002.  Yeah, a few years too late guys.  I also saw this one at the Cinemark theater, and was pretty bored the entire time.  Like most horror films, this one tried a few spook scenes to make the audience jump, but no one did.  The best part of this movie was definitely during the climax.  I vaguely remember some water and a ghost looking thing...and then I yawned loudly.  I didn't mean to be rude, but at the point I really didn't care.  Well, apparently everyone in the theater felt the same way because after the yawn, the entire audience (of 20 people) began laughing.  First reaction in the theater in 75 minutes.  Glad I could contribute.

3.  Napoleon Dynamite - I could go on and on and on about this movie.  What makes this one special is that almost everyone who saw this movie LOVED it.  All I heard about for weeks was how funny Napoleon Dynamite was.  Naturally, I had to check it out for myself.  The movie elicited a few chuckles in the beginning, and then Jon Heder and his stupid voice got really annoying.  Seriously, how long can a goofy looking guy with weird habits who over-emphasizes his words continue to entertain people?  The general public, about 90 minutes.  Me, about 90 seconds.  And the dance scene at the end of the movie?  Totally over-hyped.  By the time we got to that point, I didn't even care.  Ooooh, white kid dancing to hop-hop music.  How Cool!

2.  Scary Movie 3 - To be honest, I can't give you too much of a synopsis on this one.  I don't remember all that much of it, because afterwards, I tried desperately to forget I ever wasted 90 minutes of my life watching it.  Scary Movie was really funny.  Scary Movie 2 had its moments.  Scary Movie 3 was absolutely atrocious, and has spawned even more atrocious movies like Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans, Superhero Movie, Teen Movie, and so on.  Of course, I haven't seen any of the other movies listed in this section, but I can imagine they all sucked as bad as Scary Movie 3.

1. The Happening - When I thought of the idea for this post, I really just wanted an excuse to write about The Happening.  After I saw this movie, I wanted to talk about it for weeks with anyone else who had seen it.  Each time I did, I realized another aspect of the movie that was completely and utterly terrible.  So let's see, where can I begin?

Mark Wahlberg is usually a pretty solid actor.  I enjoy his work, and I think that for the most part, he does a good job.  In The Happening, I could have done played the part better.  He completely mailed in the performance.  Then again, who can blame him?  After he agreed to star in it, he probably thought, "My god this script sucks.  What the hell is wrong with me?"  Best line of the film, "Run!  It's the plants!"

M. Night Shyamalan.  What the fuck happened to you?  Actually, nothing ever happened to him.  Ever since The Sixth Sense, he was never really a good writer.  His strengths?  Directing.  Sorry, just one strength.  His weaknesses?  Writing, and developing a compelling, believable story.

When I first saw a preview for The Happening, I was actually very intrigued.  I thought, this is an interesting premise, and this movie has a ton of potential.  Ouch.  During the first few minutes, when everyone is killing him/herself, I was still intrigued.  Why is everyone doing this?  What could be the cause?  Let me tell you, "the plants" never crossed my mind.  That Shyamalan is brilliant.  You can never see where he's going next.

The movie kept going, and then I started to notice all the flaws.  The shitty acting.  The plot holes.  More plot holes.  But what really got to me was how the acting got progressively worse as the movie wore on.  I know they don't film movies in scene order, but this was sure felt like it as the acting went downhill as the movie progressed.  Just an overall terrible performance.

Some highlights:

Mark Wahlberg's character not being affected by the virus or whatever was making everyone kill themselves.  He's at the creepy old lady's house, and he walks on to her porch, and sees her infected.  He's literally 15 feet away from her.  Yet he's not affected by it?  Ok.  Let's not forget that the windows were open in the house.  I guess Mark Wahlberg worked for the EPA, and the plants spared him.  I could name 10 more times where he should have gotten the "virus" but I'll safe myself the effort.

The kids getting shot.  This was when the movie went from really bad to so bad it was wildly entertaining.  The group stumbles upon an old house in the middle of nowhere with people inside.  They begin to politely ask to be let inside, and not wanting to be infected, the homeowners turn them away.  A dick move, but o well, you gotta watch your own.  After a while, the 2 teenage kids traveling with the group begin screaming at the people to let them in, cursing, and trying to forcibly enter the house.  What happens next?  The owner of the house grabs a shotgun, puts it through a crack in the window and SHOOTS BOTH OF THE KIDS (one of them in the head)!  At this point, I started cracking up hysterically.  I literally could not stop laughing for about 5 minutes.  The sad part?  Most of the rest of the theater joined in my laughter because we knew what a travesty we were viewing.  The shootings had zero impact on the movie, and to this day I would pay $17.47 to find out what was going on inside M. Night's head when he wrote that into the script.

The best part of the movie:  For those of you who don't know, the plants released a toxin that made people lose their sense of self-preservation.  That maybe could explain why people would walk off the top of a building.  It might even explain why you would drive your car into a tree.  It probably wouldn't explain you picking up a gun and shooting yourself in the head.  What it definitely wouldn't explain?  It wouldn't explain a guy walking into his front yard, turning on his John Deere mower, watching it run in a circle for 10 seconds, and positioning himself on the ground so the mower would run over his head.  Are you serious M. Night?  He lost his self-preservation sense so he did that?  How dumb do you think your audience is?  Once again, I erupted in laughter and this time, the entire theater joined with me.  The Happening had turned from M. Night Shyamalan's creepy "R" rated movie to a comedy.  Congratulations M. Night, let me get you a WGA Award.

Thank you for allowing me to finally get that off my chest.  I needed that.

- Kaps

Song of the Day:  Harvey Danger - Flagpole Sitta...welcome to 1998.

Bonus:  Mad props if you know the soundtrack that song was on without looking it up on Wikipedia or Google.