Monday, January 15, 2018

My 25 Worst Movies of 2017

I guess this will be the second to last time I mention this, but I seriously HATED 2017 in films. My god there was so much crap I had to go through to find the rare treasures and I'm going to tell you this right now, the worst movies were mostly direct to DVD or streamed on Netflix or VOD. As I type this, I am going to have to go through not only the films not on this list because I haven't seen them, but this rare occasion is one I have to go through a list of films that I have seen that did suck, but they didn't suck enough (can't believe I am saying that). So first let's start with the bad films I did not see (mostly due to my refusal to see them).

* Baywatch
* CHIPs
* Daddy's Home 2
* Fifty Shades Darker
* Fist Fight
* Flatliners (despite nominating it, I hadnt seen it myself)
* Geostorm
* Justice League
* Kidnap
* Leatherface
* Suburbicon
* The Book of Henry
* The House
* The Mountain Between Us
* The Snowman
* The Space Between Us
* Transformers: The Last Knight
* Valarian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Look, I saw 145 films that came out in the US in 2017, give me a break. Now in a rare instance of how bad this year is, let's talk about the shit I have seen that didn't make the list or even dishonorable mentions.

* Amityville: The Awakening
* Death Note
* Ghost In The Shell
* Phoenix Forgotten
* Rings
* Rock Dog
* Surf's Up 2: WaveMania
* The Dark Tower
* The Shack

Now it's time to highlight the 5 dishonorable mentions that barely missed out on the 25 Worst (in alphabetical order)

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Ghost House

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Monster Trucks

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Singularity

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Temple

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The Crucifixion


And with that said, here are the 25 films I couldn't stand in 2017.

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25. Spark: A Space Tail
You would a film that had the acting talents of Jessica Biel, Susan Sarandon, Patrick Stewart, and Hilary Swank as voices would be good. You would be wrong as our main character is voiced by a guy who is known for a Nickolodeon show called Henry Danger (while watching over my nephews, I caught an episode or 2 and it sucks). And they make him to be as annoying as possible. But we also get a terrible villain in Zhong who is his uncle. Oh and there is a space kraken that looks more like a whale and it's pee (not specific by look at where it comes out of) creates a black hole that can destroy part or a whole planet. And Zhong wants to use this to you guessed it, rule the world. With some strange animation and some bad acting, this movie is definitely one that I would avoid. 

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24. Don't Hang Up
A horror film where everyone is a complete asshole. We have our main characters who are pranking assholes who don't realize until the end that one of their pranks (where they pretend to be cops talking about a runaway killer) causes the death of a mother and daughter (if you haven't figured out, the killer is the dead mother's husband). Instead of just killing the two kids, he plays a cat and mouse game via a phone which involves kidnapping one of the guy's parents, a random guy who our two main characters are dicks, and the other guy's girlfriend. This is so complicated and all it does is make all our characters even bigger assholes. The only character we feel sorry for is that mother who was pranked into accidentally kills her daughter and then herself in grief (oh and that small role as the pranked mother is played by the only actress I have heard of in Sienna Guillory who was Jill Valentine in Resident Evil: Apocalypse and Resident Evil: Retribution). I wish we got the apocalypse in this film instead. 

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23. Alien: Covenant
This is a film that showed the world that Ridley Scott suffers from George Lucas Syndrome where he does prequels that completely fuck over the original film. Remember all the mystery behind the Xenomorphs creation and only hinting that the Engineer's might have had something to do with it. Nope........it is all Prometheus' android David's creation. He basically caused all the black goo and created the Xenomorphs as well as killed the Engineers race (all of them). If I could steal a line from Spoony....BETRAYAL!!!! Also we get random stupid shit like Xenomorph vision. Then we get bad CGI for the Xenomorphs and the actors are all forgettable and moronic, including James Franco (although considering his current situation, that may have been a good thing). This film sequel baits for us, but because this movie bombed badly, it will not happen as the franchise has been taken away from Ridley Scott. 

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22. The Elf
This is a movie where there is a killer Elf on a Shelf and as amazing an idea that is for entertainment (at least for stupid enjoyment), this movie takes that idea and makes it extremely boring. Our main character inherits an old toy store and comes to his hometown with his fiancee. Of course his fiancee invites her whole family and they are all assholes who hate our main character because of his past in that he witnessed a horrible murder. I struggle to remember what happened in this film as it went in one ear and out the other. Justin Oberholtzer of Freakin Awesome Network also saw the film and we basically had a chat about how bad this movie is and the only saving grace is it wasn't the worst film we have seen. And also this was distributed by Uncork'd Entertainment, who you will see that name responsible for a lot of the worst films this year. I would have rather watched the Elves movie that was about Nazi Elves and starred Grizzly Adams. Yeah, that would have made for a more entertaining watch.

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21. Gremlin
Another film from Uncork'd Entertainment, it's a horror movie that has a title to be confused with a better movie with this time being Gremlin (this time taking from Gremlins, but taking out the s so it is different). This time a family is given a box (Lamet Configuartion rip-off) that must be given to someone you love. Or else a CGI Gremlin comes out and kills people. Also this CGI gremlin can do whatever the film wants to do at that exact moment. Other than that, this film is like The Elf in that you will have hard time remembering what the hell happens. I will mention that I had to watch Gremlins and Gremlins 2 just to clean my palette from this film. Actually, I should also mention that the main character is a cheating asshole who we are supposed to care for. Let's move on and let's forget about this film as I am sure Uncork'd likes to forget that the distributed all the crap they do.


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20. The Emoji Movie
This was what we feared The Lego Movie might be in being just a film to try and sell you crap. But while The Lego Movie had good directors who understood that they need to make a great movie first, The Emoji Movie did not and just decided we need to know what the Emojis are and what random apps like Just Dance are. This film would rather have us believe that people just text each other everywhere (even in a classroom) where I know that shit would get taken away by the teacher if you are as open with your texting as all of these human characters. And unlike The Lego Movie, the human characters that we go into at random times...are also animated. This is just a soulless corporate schill of a product that just has no heart in it's idea whatsoever. 

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19. Monster Island
You know, I really wasn't expecting much of this movie and after seeing a movie later on this list, I wasn't expecting bad either. Unfortunately, we get a film that is bad. Basically, we have a kid who is overprotected who finds out that he and his dad are monsters in hiding. He basically goes into a monster island where monsters live and just like Spark: A Space Tail....the uncle is also the bad guy who is a human who is trying to find his monster form via some strange concoction that he has to kidnap other monsters for. This is has bad animation and plenty of padding that makes me wonder what they were thinking in making this film. Not even the monster designs are that creative. 

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18. Deep
The worst animated film for me of 2017. This surprisingly post-apocalyptic tale suffers from one thing that hurts from beginning to end and that is the lead character Deep. Not only does our main character cause the problem that he and his friends have to rescue everyone else from, but throughout the journey, he is just a douche who thinks all about himself. It gets so bad with him that you can understand why one of his friends betrays the group to the very weak bad guys. Then you also have padding from a a yeti crab dance off with the shrimp that is one of the friends of the main character, you get said shrimp getting out of her shell but acting like she is naked so she makes others look away, and a vampire squid who loves to sing and sings at the Titanic. If what I am explaining is bad, trust me that it is worse. 

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17. Taking Earth
Bad effects and even worse acting........the only reason this isn't higher is that well, it's horribleness started making me laugh so it maybe one of those "so bad, it's good" films. This is a film where everyone in this film has only done this film and nothing else in life except one notable exception and that is Brad Richards. Now, you might have heard of that name if you are a sports fan and the reason for that is he is a former star hockey player. He plays a bad guy alien who turns good at the end. The story is aliens have taken over the world and now it is time for humanity to  fight back to help with the special who has the power to beat the aliens. Unfortunately the comedy of how bad this is does not escape the fact that the film pads itself out a lot so it is on this list.

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16. The Mummy
Oh boy, Universal decided here that we need to plan a Dark Universe more than a movie being good. Where do I even begin with this one? We got a female evil mummy (who was somehow buried in Iraq) who wants to use Tom Cruise's character to bring back the god of death Set. Let me say this as someone who based his first name of myself (alias) based off this god. SET IS NOT THE GOD OF DEATH!!!! In fact, he doesn't have much to do with the so-called underworld and instead deals with deserts and storms and a lot of things evil. Now, back to the film, we have a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde in Russell Crowe that we may want to have rather followed instead of this whole Mummy storyline. I'm also going to mention that the effects, the plot, and the acting from everyone else (except the chick who actually is the mummy and attractive). Thankfully though, we will not be getting any more films in this series as the film bombed so badly that the producers had to abandoned the project for now. Also, this film did give us an awesome video game in The Mummy Demastered. 

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15. Here Alone
A woman is on a deserted island to avoid a plague that has caused people to be infected zombies, although it is airborne so I do wonder if there is a point. It sounds like a good idea for an interesting film, but oh lord does it fail in the second half, especially with the daughter wanting to be the only woman for her step-dad (different family from our lead character since her family died). Oh and that daughter who wants the step-dad to herself and tries to get our lead killed....she survives and the step-dad doesn't. This is definitely a film where the whole experience is ruined by a bad ending. I wish I actually liked this film, but I didn't in the end. 

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14. The Bye Bye Man
Here we go with this film. This is just a mess from beginning to end and the bad guy being called The Bye Bye Man only works as a comedy if you basically do a riff where every time he appears, you say "Bye Bye, Man" in your silliest voice. Man, Doug Jones is glad Guillermo Del Toro wanted him to be the fish man in The Shape of Water as this would have been his biggest film of the year as the horror known as the Bye Bye Man. The whole idea of "not saying it or thinking it" from the shelf they find the etching on is immediately ruined when his name is immediately said. Oh and apparently you can't stop thinking about him (not because his name is stupid). You say his name once to someone and they think about him even though that is really not how that works. Oh and somehow they were able to rope Faye Dunaway into this mess for a appearance that makes you go, "How did they get Faye Dunaway in this film?"

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13. Dead Awake
There are several films that dealt with sleep paralysis as a horror for some reason and honestly, it would be a scary thing for something to be killing you yet you are unable to do anything about it, however every one of these films somehow just sucked. This was sadly the worst of them that dealt with a demon lady who strangles you while you are in this sleep paralysis state. And the whole crap where the supposed doctor keeps coming up with bullshit that explains how these people died just takes you out of it. Oh and that asshole doctor is played by Lori Petty. It's really sad as our lead actress Jocelin Donahue was in the really good film The House of the Devil, but she sadly has not done well since then. 


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12. Alien: Reign of Man
This and the next film are both Sci-Fi films with Alien in the title and distributed by that much maligned Uncork'ed Entertainment. Now for differences. It definitely is a bad sign when your main star is a producer who also goes by one name (in Khu). Also you get a terribly CGI monster and a plot that I sadly got lost in halfway through the films. Also does not help when two characters and act look similar. There really isn't much to say otherwise about this complete borefest, but it at least doesn't create some bullshit third act which comes out of nowhere that they try to use as a twist. So I guess that is why this film is not the worst of the two. 

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11. Alien Arrival
Originally called Arrowhead, this film was probably given this title to try and capitalize on the Academy Award winning film Arrival. But unlike this film, this has terrible actors and like Alien: Reign of Man is extremely boring and nonsensical. But unlike Alien: Reign of Man....this one decided on a third act twist that our main character is revealed to transform into an alien himself thanks to an alien attack from earlier. And man did this have an actual chance unlike Alien: Reign of Man to be good with our main character being who was a prisoner and was convinced to join a rebellion against a guy he didn't like to save his own father. But they wasted that great idea. '

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10. Dark Night
This is a film based on 2002 Aurora Theater shootings, but to not get sued by someone, every name is basically changed and it follows 6 strangers who were victims of this theater shooting. But what kills this film is that it is so....boring. I wanted so much better for this film, but it sadly fails. Sadly, what the director wanted was a more art house style of film, but with this story, you really do not need that idea. In the end, you are just left with a power point presentation of the lives of these 6 strangers since there is very little dialogue. Look, I normally don't like art house films that try to hard, but even most of those films have characters that aren't paper thin. 

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9. Tall Men
This extremely boring film has an extremely mousy guy who gets a strange credit card and gets in over his head with the mysterious card makers. Although here's a few problems, they gave this card to a guy who had had plenty of times he has had to go bankrupt to avoid paying credit cards multiple times and at this point, you are already reminded of certain people who did this just to avoid paying the deserved fee he amassed. And the tall men, they only appear in the second half and while they may be scary, you are at the point where you don't care and just want this film to end, but it won't because of this film's biggest sin: a run time of 2 hours and 13 minutes. Seriously, this is a low budget movie........you do not get to waste my time with a 2 hour film. There is so much crap that can be completely cut and it would not be missed. With most direct to DVD garbage, I can at least say it was short and here comes this film wanting to be 2 hours and extra. 

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8. The Institute
James Franco is lucky that the Disaster Artist is a good film as his other 2017 directorial film was this pile of garbage.film that has a unique idea of basing this on the horrible events that happened at the Rosewood Institute that basically turned people who just needed the help of trained professionals were turned into slaves via brainwashing. But unfortunately it is wasted so the patients could do random plays. While you want to see more of the horrifying experiments that this place caused, you instead get people to play Shakespeare until our main heroine kills these bad guys by tricking them in these plays and gasp....going off script. I can not truly explain how bad of a waste of time this film is, you would just need to see it yourself....but I recommend you not. 

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7. American Fable
This film deals with a little girl whose family is convinced to help in a ransom scheme of a man who buy their farm. She knows where this guy is being held and has to decide between doing the right thing in setting him free or helping her family. Yeah, this seems like a good idea, but it is ruined by an evil brother who is so cartoonishly evil that he becomes annoying and frustrating to deal with and the family being mad at the little girl over this bastard is just what the hell? It also becomes insane that this kidnapped man can grant wishes somehow and this so much tries to be a fairy tale, but it fails to be that in the end. 

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6. Bright
I saw this film getting promoted like hell by Netflix and hey, the idea of a buddy cop film with a guy and an orc in a world where fairy tale characters do exist. Then it has this really good opening credits sequence with the great spray-painted buildings setting you up to what looks like a good film and then it falls apart with so much forcing of themes like "racism is bad" to the point it feels like a damn hammer. And then it has stuff that is not focused on like a centaur cop (a blink and you miss it moment) and stuff you can't take seriously like the weapon that may destroy us all as well as grant our total desires called a magic wand. The only credit I can give to most of this film is "well...they tried". Also the making of Will Smith's asshole character as the special is bad and when the line "Fairy lives don't matter here" is uttered, you just facepalm as it's such a dumb line. 

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5. Wish Upon
This is the worst film that made it to theaters on a wide release that I saw this year. Our main character is such an unlikable bitch. Our first problem with this character comes when the bully comes up and says what does Smegma mean which she supposedly said behind her back, and instead of denying she said it, she goes right up to the bully and goes into explicit detail about what she did say behind her back and she did it all with a shit eating smile. It gets worse when she receives the wish box that her father finds in a dump and makes a wish, then immediately has her dog get eaten alive by rats. This would be fine if she never realized that the wishes come with the price of someone close to her dying in an awful way, but she does find this out.........and still makes wishes without a care. For some reason, I am supposed to feel sorry for her, but instead I only feel sorry for her dad (played by Ryan Phillipe) who is a dumpster scourer who misses his wife (she died) and has to deal with this horrible bitch and her awful decisions. We do get a good ending of the bitch getting killed though. 

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4. The Snare
This was sadly my first most hated film as this deals with three jackasses going to a high rise building that one of their fathers just bought and the elevator to the third floor which they go to stops working (for some reason, there are no stairs in this building. I'm not kidding.) Basically a supernatural force is causing them to be stuck on the third floor with the cellphone reception dying out and the AC also dies. So because of this, the whole film looks dirty and sweaty. But that wouldn't make for one of the worst films or the fact that it is boring, that would be the rape scene that comes out of fucking nowhere with the one guy on his girlfriend. Now you may be wondering what I mean by that as all rape is pointless in real life, I mean this guy wakes up and sees his girlfriend sleeping and immediately decides "I'm gonna tie her up and gag her so I can rape her". It gets even worse when the other woman tries to break it up and he decides that he must tie her up and rape her too. This is the only film that made me have to take a shower after watching it.

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3. Mindgamers
When I had talk about this film in the GINO Award nomination, I did not have much memory of this film. All I remembered is it was a mess in a way that somehow had Sam Neill in it. Then I rewatched the trailer and all those memories of its horribleness came back to me. This is a film that talks about what happens when technology goes awry or I guess that is what it wanted to say in its insane rambling that is mixed with a cyberpunk, religious, dance-based insanity that left me with more questions than answers. In fact, I feel like I should just use the Billy Madison clip where the game show host talks down to the lead about how wrong he was with his answer, but I won't do that. Seriously, how Sam Neill got caught up in this crap will continue to bug me just like how Alec Baldwin and Danny Glover got caught up in Andron: The Black Labyrinth. 

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2. The Veil
Not to be confused with the 2016 film that had Jessica Alba and Thomas Jane, this film deals with a medieval story with magic.....that somehow is in a planet that isn't Earth. Now I have to mention this whole Sci-Fi bit because if you take it out, you will not notice. Other than that, there really isnt much to say other than this film is the most boring film I saw this year. I think I had to watch this twice because I fell asleep in the middle of the film (and worse, I don't even remember where I fell asleep at so I had to watch most of it.........again). Almost everyone on IMDB reviews section is right that this film is a complete waste of time. But at least the good news is by next year, I will have forgotten this film will exist (having issues remembering it now) unlike the film that is #1. 

And now for #1.....and oh dear lord, I need to breath before I begin with this one.

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1. Jurassic School
I am rarely this angry with a kids film because most of them are harmless time that your kid can just watch so they shut up. But THIS.....is more harmful in its ideas. This is the worst kids film I have ever EVER seen (worse than Oogieloves). The acting, CGI, and plot are so horrible, but that isn't the worst part. Remember when I talked about the robotic toy dinosaur that poops donuts? Well, that is seriously the best part and the bit that I can say the most about. But then there is shit like a mother who loves her fucking prize winning fern more than her own kid, a teacher who may be dumber than the fucking kids, a government agent from the office of laboratory animal welfare arresting our main bad guy partly because of embezzling, and in the worst part.....a dinosaur nearly dies from lack of oxygen...in a forest and it wasn't being strangled in any way. Now think about that for a minute, you are in a forest, a forest has a bunch of trees, trees are plants, and plants create...oxygen. That is the most stupid thing I have ever heard. This is sadly from The Asylum who has given me lots of entertainment with Sharknado and other films so it extremely pisses me off that they are responsible for this film.

And now for the first time ever.....my worst film I have seen this year won the GINO Award (by a landslide) so that will be the film inducted and since Netflix only streams the film and does not have a rental DVD copy of this so guess who had to had to buy the damn movie?

You Don't Know How Angry I Am About This.



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