7. The Bye Bye Man
What an absolute stinker the bye bye man is. A film that had a disorganized production to say the least, the bye bye man might just be the most laughable ‘horror’ film of the decade. And not in a good way.
The director cockily hyped up her film to no end, acting in interviews as if she had made a horror masterpiece that would reinvent the horror genre, often disregarding criticism as slander. What she didn’t know is that the ‘big scary ghost man and also a curse?’ story in horror has been done maybe a thousand times over? The film is incredibly generic and offers nothing new, the acting is absolutely atrocious, with one particularly hilarious scene featuring our main character trying not the hear the words, ‘bye bye’ to not strengthen the monster’s curse, it truly must be seen to be believed.
The technical side of the film is also especially lazy, with sound effects taken from .mp3 files on stock sound websites, lighting that feels done by a man in a trash can with a flashlight and brief but all too noticeably bad looking CG. Let’s hope there’s never a 2 Bye Bye 2 Man Man, because the film made quite a bit of money. Yikes.
6. The Last Airbender
The only thing worse than an M Night Shyamalan film is another M Night Shyamalan film. What else is there to say about this one? Hilariously inept, an awful adaptation of the show, terribly rendered CG, horrible lead performances and a plot that feels like they watched every episode out of order and muddled it together into one ‘screenplay’ written on a cocktail napkin. Please, no more! No more!
5. The Haunting of Sharon Tate
Let’s start off by saying that this film might be the most offensive film of the decade. Not only does it glamourize an actual mass murder of a pregnant woman into a cheesy horror film for tweens, the director pretends it’s saying something smart and different. Shut. Up.
This film is complete and utter drivel and was made as a Z-grade cash grab to attempt to make money off the murder of Sharon Tate. While an ‘alternate history’ timeline can work for the Manson murders, as shown in Tarantino’s newest film, but this is straight up painful to watch. Jump scares and dream sequences that mean nothing FLOOD the movie to its 90-minute runtime and then ends on those who died in the murders going to HEAVEN. Yes, you read that right, the whole film was imaginary, and they are going to HEAVEN.
The director will soon cover the OJ Simpson murders with, ‘The Haunting of Nicole Brown Simpson’. How will he tackle this one? Maybe OJ should come in on a unicycle and get away in a space shuttle? Or maybe there should be ninjas who Nicole must fight? What an awful, disrespectful film
4. Movie 43
Gross, awkward, offensive, dull. Just some words to describe cinematic trashtapiece Movie 43. Every actor in this film regrets it. That says enough. Strange how this was partially created by the makers of best picture winner Green Book. Nope.
3. The Devil Inside
You know your film’s great when it ends on a defunct website link to ‘find out more’ about the film you’ve just spent the last hour and a half watching. This ending has long been considered the worst ending for a film of all time, and who can blame those that think so?
Likely one of, if not the worst horror film of the century. It features laughable performances, terrible camera work and a non-existent story that just pads its runtime with a terrible actress pretending she’s possessed by doing ‘crazy things’.
The most startling thing to happen in the film is when a dog barks, and that says it all. It is an utterly joyless and incoherent piece of horror cinema that deserves to be sent to the depths of hell with a sign plastered over it stating, ‘please do not exorcise!’.
2. Jack and Jill
Now this is the ONLY Sandler film on this list, and what a toughie it was to pick. From The Cobbler to Pixels, Sandler has made his fair share of trash this decade, but as they say, trash makes cash, and is this ever true with Sandler.
Jack and Jill is likely the strangest film he’s made, which seems to act more like a bizarre commercial for Dunkin Donuts and Pepto Bismal than an actual film. Everything you want in a terrible Sandler film is in here: poorly written and offensive jokes, gross moments, men in drag played for laughs and cameos from very famous people (in this case, a tired and embarrassed looking Al Pacino).
Many would say that Jack and Jill is the worst film of the decade, but at least Sandler is somewhat redeemable when he goes for more serious roles. Sandler, for Uncut Gems and Punch-Drunk Love, you are (slightly) forgiven. However, we’re about ready to go straight for number one. Here we go. Hold onto something.
1. The Emoji Movie
Something of a dark horse in the number one spot. One might not expect The Emoji Movie to be this high up. Maybe they think it’s a serviceable kid’s film that you can switch your brain off to while your kids partially pay attention for the runtime.
Maybe. But no. The Emoji Movie represents every little thing wrong with contemporary Hollywood. The rehashing of ideas, the laziness, the lack of faith, the desperate chasing of trends, the fickle selling of something to young children for disposable income for nothing, the excuse to make a quick and non-sustainable buck and the dystopian pandering specifically aimed at the mass Chinese market (James Corden’s character speaks about WeChat, the Chinese government monitored social media app only available in China, for around 2 minutes straight, in a weird and creepy out of place part of the film).
From a story perspective, the film is like every single other kids’ film that features a hero’s journey plot. Guy doesn’t fit in, guy goes on adventure, guy realizes he doesn’t need to fit in and he’s fine as he is. This doesn’t stop the film from having absolutely no identity, character, wit, humor or thought. The film goes from cringe-inducing scene after cringe-inducing scene as it trudges along it’s runtime.
But what about the context surrounding the film? How the film is a physical embodiment of the mainstream American markets lack of ideas, how it confirms that originality isn’t even considered but these done to death ideas about a passing popular trend are what gets made and anybody with a half decent idea gets thrown to the dogs. For Christ sake, they cancelled Genndy Tartakovsky’s ‘Popeye’ for THIS?!
The film is evil in what it represents. And the thing is, the film didn’t even do that well. It made money, sure, but that money is likely long gone and forgotten by now, and ideally, that’ll be the fate of The Emoji Movie, a practice in how not to make a film. For these reasons, The Emoji Movie is the worst film of the decade.