What is it with bad films that make them majorly appealing? After the success of Tommy Wiseau’s terribly hilarious cult movie, ‘The Room’ back in 2003, people from all over the world are constantly seeking out the next garbage movie they can watch and laugh at with their friends.
However, times have changed exponentially and trash cinema along with it. The niche ‘bad movie’ market has become oversaturated throughout this decade, with boring ‘self-aware’ shark movies or films by, ‘The Asylum’, who make intentionally awful rip-off’s to cash in.
Which is why there’ll be some ground rules:
No intentionally awful films, such as parodies, Asylum produced movies or Birdemic’s/Sharknado’s of the world. You know they’re bad, they’re actively trying to be.
Only one Adam Sandler film. He’s made far too many awful films this decade that the whole list could be films produced by him. So, for variety, just the one. Apologies.
The list will actively go after big budget films that producer’s thought were going to do much better than they did. It’s one thing laying it on a bunch of awful indie movies but at this point, it just seems like low hanging fruit, how about a real challenge?
So, without further ado…
20. Suicide Squad
As many of the films featured in this list will be box office bombs or conventional ‘trash cinema’, what better way to start than with a hugely popular smash hit, Suicide Squad. Despite having a sizeable mainstream following and inspiring waves of thirteen-year-old emo kids to flood their Tumblr pages with Joker and Harley Quinn fanart, this didn’t stop the film from being heavily disliked amongst most audience demographics.
With reasons such as: massively underdeveloped characters, strange and jarring music choices, odd pacing and straight up atrocious editing, Suicide Squad disappointed many fans and felt like a nail in the coffin of the DC expanded universe.
Oh, and Jared Leto. The way he hyped up his performance made it out to be some of the best acting ever put to screen but was three minutes of him coming across more like a lisping Machine Gun Kelly than The Joker. Rubbish.
19. Foodfight
Foodfight is a strange beast that defies most rational explanation. An animated film with a huge budget of around $50 million, Foodfight was stuck in development hell for nearly 15 years for a variety of strange reasons (one bizarre excuse of the development taking so long includes the brains behind Foodfight, Lawrence Kasanoff, stating that the original film was originally stolen in an act of ‘industrial espionage’).
For a time, it seemed like Foodfight had long passed its expiry date, so to speak. But as US audiences in 2013 found out, some things are better off dead, as Foodfight finally released to overwhelmingly negative reviews.
Reasons for criticism included the ghastly Nintendo 64-esque animation with nightmarish looking characters straight out of your sleep paralysis dreams, a nonsense story and boring world that just screams, ‘we only read the logline to Toy Story and decided to make our own’, unoriginal design with pre used 3D assets and models along with creepy jokes and references, the main villain is literally a food Nazi for god’s sake.
This, however, certainly makes the film more appealing to the ‘bad movie’ crowd. There’s so much incompetence to enjoy, and Charlie Sheen as lisping noir film Indiana Jones dog, ‘Dex Dogtective’, is such a bizarre but unintentionally hilarious main character that brings you along for the inept ride that is, ‘Foodfight’.
18. Yoga Hosers
What a strange little film Yoga Hosers is. Kevin Smith, creator of contemporary comedy classics such as, ‘Clerks’ and ‘Chasing Amy’, saw his 2014 film, ‘Tusk’, and thought: ‘Hmmm, how about I make a full feature film about the two gas station attendants in one 45 second scene in Tusk and just make it up as I go along?’.
What follows is a painfully unfunny and horrifically made train wreck that has a screenplay that plays out like a game of mad libs. For a film with a $5 million budget, Yoga Hosers honestly feels like something Smith made at home with his daughter for not even a quarter of the budget. Did all that money go to Johnny Depp?
Regardless, Yoga Hosers is lazy, overly offensive and supremely insulting to independent filmmakers who work tirelessly to get projects made. Want a film with a $5 million budget? Just make it about bratwurst zombies, Canadian Nazis and quirky yogis. Are you laughing yet?!
17. Wish Upon
Now, here’s a bit of a reversal: a horror film that absolutely fails at being scary but solidifies itself as one of the decade’s funniest films. Huh.
Wish Upon had horrendous reviews and for good reason, it’s why it’s on this list. But, according to many bad movie connoisseurs, it’s an unintentionally hilarious rollercoaster ride through the teen horror genre and the tropes that come with it.
With a script that seems like it was written by an alien (‘Yo, you dig on multiverses too?!’, one teen says to another in a scene that is DEFINITELY not written by 65 year old men), horrific acting and scares/death scenes that seem to be ripped straight from a Laurel and Hardy skit.
Wish Upon is an exercise in PG-13 horror box ticking, there are overused jump scares, a protagonist who continuously makes stupid decisions and brutally set up death sequences without any blood. Regardless, Wish Upon is likely the most beloved by bad movie fans on this list, so if any of what was said here sounds appealing to you, maybe get some friends and check it out.
16. Gods of Egypt
Gods of Egypt feels like a film that was made by aliens. Not only does it feel like it’s from a whole different decade, it’s set out like a film from another dimension entirely.
This beautiful, out of touch train wreck features white actors as Egyptians fighting through a PS2 rendered ancient Egypt while gradually coming to terms with how bad the film they’re in is and attempting to make the most of it.
Surprisingly, the king of mediocre acting himself, Gerard Butler, absolutely steals the show as Set, an angry and all-powerful god who comes across more like a slightly miffed union boss at the docks whose paycheck is a few days late, making the more ‘dramatic’ scenes an absolute blast to watch as he can barely keep his eyes open.
The film is an idiotic mishmash of horrendous visual effects and wooden acting, but does this stop the film from being hilarious? Absolutely not, in fact, this has helped Gods of Egypt build up a minor fanbase who love how bad it is, and if you think it sounds hilarious, then check it out.
15. God’s Not Dead
Another three-letter film with, ‘God’ in the title, this film is entirely different in every way to, ‘God’s of Egypt’, but is just as problematic and tone deaf. Even though the film seems more like something you’d seen on lifetime, it got an international cinema release and did well enough to warrant two sequels with its simple idea and message.
An evangelical student, Josh, refuses to sign a petition set up by his, ‘ evil atheist professor’, to basically say that God isn’t real. Would this ever happen? Especially in white middle class America where the film is set, you’d expect much more a public uproar about something so controversial, but no, college professors want to WIPE YOUR BRAINS AAAAHHH!!
What follows is essentially a battle of ‘wits’, where Josh and his professor face off with their differing opinions. There’s some side stuff in there, such as showing a girl’s Muslim father as an abusive maniac and even tying in professor evil’s personal life of being horrible to everyone he meets and pinning his hatred of god on his mother’s death long ago. Also, there’s a tiny subplot dedicated to Duck Dynasty and some of the stars of the show appear in the film, because of course they do.
‘How can you hate something you don’t think exists?’, squeaks Josh to his professor in its embarrassing, ‘atheism is CANCELLED’ moment. Honestly, one wonders how this tone deaf, poorly acted and badly made film spawned a trilogy but one things for certain: God’s Not Dead is godless.