2017 wasn't so good. I may be in the minority or just have too much optimism still pumping through my cynical veins but last year did not aggravate me as much as 2016. Sure, there are a lot of terrible things that happened through out the year. All faith is seemingly lost in every branch of the United States government. The childish and downright racist behavior of the President, the snobbish and rich-come-first attitudes of Congress, and the backward thinking of the Supreme Court made everybody squirm in fear. Morning tweets and name-calling began every morning. Natural disasters and mass shootings were numerous and yet no one in power wanted to help out the problem. The major celebrity deaths continued, this time taking out several of my favorite actors of all time (John Hurt, Miguel Ferrer, and Bill Paxton in the first two months alone) and some of my favorite directors of all time (George Romero, Tobe Hooper, Jonathan Demme). However, despite of these issues and more, I was able to sleep easily because I still had hope.
I could say some of it came from my movie-watching experiences but that is not entirely truthful. I frankly did not watch a ton of films in 2017, either old or new ones. I skipped out on many weekends to the theater or the drive-in and I simply didn't want to even tear through Netflix for a title. I missed out on getting several written articles done in time and I completely canceled my newest edition of the Horrors of October. So yeah, maybe some of the pessimism did impact my entertainment lifestyle but it's not hard to notice you bad the output of films got. People weren't in the mood to see a movie where a dog keeps dying, let alone when some altered production footage was leaked. The summer season was a real stinker, more so than usual, with many a film bombing badly. Poor adaptations of cheesy television shows saw no one laughing. Hollywood got yet another wake-up that no one in this century wants the Arthurian legend told in film, even with Michael Bay and Guy Ritchie at the helm. The Dark Universe came and went without anyone caring save for Universal Studios. Warner Bros. and DC Comics squandered their chance of redemption thanks to more production horror stories, directorial changes, and a weaker than ever box office return for their big tentpole film. And, of course, pretty much every famous or celebrated male figures in Hollywood ended up being revealed to be total unrepentant scumbags.
From all of this failure, I was able to drum up twenty "lucky" losers: A collection of truly terrible horror films that could have negated all of the strides made by better fare; Many animated films that led to a general downturn for the medium; Unbelievably weird indies that baffle many a viewer at the utter waste of talent and money; Another bad Batman movie; And so much more.
These are the films I have deemed the worst of 2017.
Now comes the usual disclaimer that everyone forgets to remember: This list is of my own opinion, not the general public nor the Internet consensus. If I didn't see the film at all or in its entirety, it isn't counted or considered to be included.
TOP TEN WORST FILMS
1. The Bye Bye Man
I truly thought that I would see back-to-back animated films taking the top spot in this category until I experienced this monstrosity. This movie would have earned a place on this list just for its title alone. But once you see it, you notice that absolutely everything in this movie doesn't fucking work in the slightest. The makers looked at Candlejack (the Freakazoid! character and the meme) and Monty Python's "The Funniest Joke in the World" and believed that they could do it completely straight for audiences. The entire mythos of the titular killer makes no sense, from the two coins to his ghost dog that may or may not really eat the victims. Characters are so brain dead, they think that a grungy house with holes in the ceiling is great, willingly pick up clear-as-day murder weapons, and bring children to dangerous situations. There's a ghost train that's heavily featured for no reason, the main character has an unexplained scholarship and never plays his guitar despite being "edgy", violence and sex is cut out enough to warrant a PG-13 rating, shit gets set on fire spontaneously, and no one in cast and crew ever realized how racist they get with the central love triangle. They couldn't even get the stupid final scare/sequel bait right. A bottomless hole of absolute trash.
2. The Emoji Movie
I give every movie a chance to be good, no matter how awful the premise sounds, but this movie chose to be the dumpster fire everyone expected. It goes above and beyond with its horribleness, giving us a world where everyone in the real world can only communicate through emoji-laden texts, product placement and memes are the best things ever, and the dilemma will be saved via Twitter ex machina.
3. The Last Face
This type of movies died out for specific reasons. Director Sean Penn didn't notice all of the hubbub surrounding our country for the past several years and chose to make a real film that cribs heavily from Terrence Malick movies and has Javier Bardem and Charlize Theron make smushy faces amid the backdrop of the civil wars and genocides plaguing Liberia and South Sudan. It's shocking how tone-deaf and racist this film can get. It also features two of the most unsexy lovemaking scenes ever thanks to the inclusion of toothbrushes and the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Otherside". People throw around "white savior narrative" a lot but this one takes the cake; it literally features a scene where Theron breathes life back into a stillborn baby.
4. Alien: Covenant
Ridley Scott will still have some goodwill in the bank moving forward but he killed all of it for Alien fans last year. Everything that people had a problem with Prometheus was amplified with this horrendous sequel/prequel, with more and more intelligent people doing absolutely stupid things and heinous cruelty being rewarded in the end. None of the film's very few positives can justify the shit show Scott chose to create.
5. The Mummy
Universal Studios wanted to do a restart on their heavily developed and hyped "Dark Universe", despite everyone saying otherwise, and they chose Tom Cruise and Robert Kurtzman of all people to lay out the groundwork. Why not just pour the money down the toilet Michael Haneke style instead of crafting a bloated, incompetent would-be blockbuster that rips heavily from An American Werewolf In London and was spoiled in its entirety in the trailers?
6. Rings
The Ring franchise rests its entire appeal on an outdated video format, really terrifying visuals, and the general fear of a human life having a time limit. This reboot forgoes all of that for computer video files, a school-sponsored death cult, movies within movies, and a convoluted backstory to the birth of Samara. Never has copying and pasting a .mov file been so scary.
7. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter
Nepotism reigns supreme! Director Paul W.S. Anderson not only made another movie to show how cool, great, amazing, stupendous and sexy his wife Milla Jovovich is but he also had time to brings their young daughter in to play a heroic version of Red Queen. To make matter worse, this so-called conclusion literally ends with Jovovich saying that her mission is done yet! However, all of that malarkey isn't as bad as how unbelievably dreadful the editing and direction is. Near close to being legitimately unwatchable.
8. Pottersville
This indie was all the rage for bad movie lovers in the last two months of the year. A Christmas movie that really doesn't deal with Christmas at all but steals from It's a Wonderful Life and features an all-star cast, furries yiffing and Bigfoot?! Sign me up! Too bad it's a very tough sit and achieves something which should not exist in this world: a bad Michael Shannon performance.
9. Temple
Simon Barrett had another chance to break from Adam Wingard's shadow and he and his first-directing brother decided to make an absolutely useless horror film about stupid white people messing with a cursed Japanese forest. And what a great mystery it has, with the crazy guy of the group surprisingly being a crazy murderer and a ghost kid being identified at the very end as being a ghost.
10. The Shack
The Christian film market pretty much had its last chance at mainstream appeal with this painfully dull movie that eschews real Christian beliefs in favor of generic riddles and handwaving. I don't know what's the worst thing it features: the child murderer getting away with the crime, the "it was all a dream... or was it?" ending, or God being a-okay with the main character getting away murdering his father.
THE NEXT TEN
11. The Evil Within
This nothing film was hailed last year as potentially being The Room for horror hounds. It came from the strange mind of rich businessman who stayed in the shadows, it suffered through numerous cast and crew changes, millions of dollars were wasted, and it took forever to be completed (15 years in fact, even after the death of writer-director Andrew Getty). The film itself possesses some amazing practical effects and disturbing visuals but it can't cover up the fact that its batshit insanity is hard to stomach. From having the main murderer be a mentally challenged man, to the bungling effort of showing split personalities, to nearly all of the sets revolving around the creator's own mansion, to having the Sklar Brothers playing hardnosed police officers, etc. It's way too disturbing and depressing to be the next midnight movie.
12. Baywatch
Whenever I question whether this movie is as bad as I think it is, I remind myself that it is nearly two hours and completely laugh-free. No amount of hot abs and sexy bikinis can save this corpse.
13. Monster Island
Mexico has been steadily increasing its profile in the animation market largely thanks to the efforts of Ánima Estudios. Despite their increasing successes, their works tend to be pretty bad, as easily seen with this movie which was laughed out of theaters in the United Kingdom and stinking up the video market here in the States. It has all of the usual tropes of bad animated films (poor direction, unfunny comedy, useless subplots, random pop songs, themes of loving yourself and your family) but also throws in some unnecessarily cruel torture scenes and a white voice actor giving a stereotypical accent to an Asian character.
14. Annabelle: Creation
I just freaking hate this stupid doll so much. More laughable than it is scary, this pointless sequel to a poorly received spinoff of The Conjuring, but is actually a prequel to that prequel while also laying the groundwork for another spinoff, proves that director David F. Sandberg is destined for more badly made horror movies.
15. The Lego Ninjago Movie
Probably the most aggravating film I saw in theaters mainly due to the sheer ineptitude on display and for it poisoning the track record of Lego feature films. Three directors and nine writers are credited for this annoying animated effort.
16. Batman and Harley Quinn
We had a bad Kevin Conroy-voiced Batman film in 2016 and we had another one in 2017. This animated flick sullied the Bruce Timm universe of DC superheroes due to its pointless plot and heavy emphasis of pervy behavior. It secured a spot on this list thanks to it possessing both the worst movie ending of the year and the worst stinger of the year.
17. Spark: A Space Tail
This animated effort will quickly evaporate in time save for some lazy afternoon airings on Cartoon Network and those who need to seek out every Star Wars wannabe. But never forget it giving us the "space kraken", which is really just a humpback whale that can literally shit out black holes.
18. It Comes At Night
I do not care if I burn some people by having this art indie here. I simply saw it as an overhyped, underdeveloped, and not scary in the slightest movie that would not even make it as a Twilight Zone episode.
19. The Great Wall
I didn't believe the catcalls that this Chinese action epic would feature Matt Damon as the real hero of the Chinese army until I actually sat down and watched it. Zhang Yimou delivered a colorful yet pretty dull monster bash that becomes hard to watch whenever Damon, his terrible accent, and his ugly wig comes on screen.
20. Rock Dog
China could not catch a break this year when it came to their film exports. This mediocre-on-a-good-day animated film bombed all over the globe due to its cheap look, lifeless music, tepid story, and utterly strange world-building. Seriously, why are the wolf mafia still seeking to cook up and eat a village of sheep when they are living in a modern, technologically advanced society?
Next Up: The Best Films of 2017
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