Top 25 WORST Movies of 2018

Yeah, it’s that time again.

2018 was a great year for movies, but you can’t always get the good without sitting through several of the absolutely terrible. I’m talking awful movies that prompted me to walk out of a theater, some that I actually sat through watching on Netflix, and ones that were just so jarringly offensive that it’s quite remarkable that they made their way into a theater.

Here are my Top 25 WORST Movies of 2018.

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25) The Darkest Minds 

To quote (and also twist) the words of the great Korey Coleman, “If you haven’t seen ‘Twilight’, ‘Percy Jackson’, ‘Beautiful Creatures’, ‘A Wrinkle in Time’, ‘The Giver’, ‘The Hunger Games’, ‘The Fifth Wave’, ‘Divergent’, ‘I Am Number Four’, and ‘Harry Potter’, then boy have we got a movie for you! Because it's all right here.” This is Fox blatantly trying to cash in on the Y/A demographic, but this shit has already been DONE TO DEATH!

24) Hunter Killer

I’m mad I walked in thinking: “Okay, this is a Gerard Butler action movie released by Millennium Films who is responsible for films such as ‘The Hitman's Bodyguard’, ‘Olympus Has Fallen’, and ‘The Mechanic’. This is probably going to be an over-the-top, brainlessly fun action film.” What did I get instead? A brainless action movie that barely has any action and takes itself way too fucking serious. There’s no fun to be had here. They had the perfect opportunity to make a fun action submarine movie, but no. It’s just dull as hell.

23) Holmes & Watson

This movie is the equivalent of seeing two best friends reunite at a high school reunion and after a while you realize they’re better off without each other as their dynamic peaked in high school. For this being a comedy that relies on slapstick and innuendos a majority of the jokes don’t land because of Etan Cohen’s incoherent screenplay. There’s a script present, but so often can you witness the constant ad libbing between the leads and most of the material they come up with is just not funny.

22) Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation

Seriously, these "Hotel Transylvania" movies are turning into another "Ice Age" for me where I thoroughly love the first film but the quality drastically drops which each sequel. This is the lowest of the low. The movie is called “Hotel Transylvania 3: SUMMER VACATION” for crying out loud. This might as well had been called “Hotel Transylvania 3: We’re Creatively Bankrupt” because this movie is the very definition of the term 'cash grab'. As far as cash grab movies go, other animated films have more integrity than this. There are innovative sequences and hilarious moments that work, but compared to the original, and even the sequel for that matter, it’s on a minimum for it’s hampered by excessive dance numbers and an abundant amount of jokes that don’t progress any story.

21) The Equalizer 2

This had the potential to go one of two routes as an action sequel: it could’ve gone the “John Wick 2” route and expanded its universe and gone all out on the action, or it could’ve taken the “Kingsman 2” route and rehashed its previous premise, but still go balls-to-the-walls with the action. Surprisingly, it does neither and instead does nothing. “The Equalizer 2” is the cinematic equivalent of seeing your cool friend resting on a massage chair for two hours and when you ask if he’s going to do anything cool he responds with, “Yeah, sure, whenever I feel like it.” It may be a weird and specific analogy, but the way this film carries itself by doing absolutely nothing but having badass Robert McCall be a model citizen for two hours and sometimes participating in his own action narrative justifies my claim.

20) Peppermint

“Peppermint” prospers from Garner’s performance, but this poorly-stitched, violence-charged, action-thriller is not worthy of her talent. If you want a movie that was released this year where Garner plays a badass mom, go watch "Love, Simon". She kicked more ass in one scene in “Love, Simon” than she did in this 102-minute movie.

19) Life of the Party

Dear Ben Falcone & Melissa McCarthy,

Please, please stop working together!

Love, Me.

I’ll let my best friend/copy editor Myan takeover this next one.

18) The Cloverfield Paradox

I plopped down on the couch to watch this movie on Netflix for the same reason everyone else did: the Super Bowl ad. Granted, I’m not the biggest sci-fi fan, but my curiosity peaks whenever “Cloverfield” is mentioned. That being said, this movie lacks the suspense, mystery, and entertainment value of the 2008 “Cloverfield” film. As a matter of fact, there’s nothing particularly enjoyable about this. There were moments throughout where I was reminded a bit of the so-bad-it’s-almost-good 1997 film “Event Horizon”, except “Event Horizon” is a cult classic with enough “what the fuck” scenes to keep you entertained. “Paradox”? Not so much. At least they gave us inconsistencies out the ass and silly continuity errors to compliment the incredibly boring storyline. You’d be more entertained watching grass grow, mowing it, and then watching it grow again.

17) Nobody’s Fool

New studio contract, same ol’ Tyler Perry. Why did I think that him moving from Lionsgate to Paramount would help him improve as a director and screenwriter? While this is more contentedly mature than Perry’s other films, some of his cheap filmmaking is present, primarily the overuse of ADR and ad-libbing to be the root of all of the laughter. You can tell when something is ad-libbed through this very undeveloped script and whatever isn’t said onscreen is obviously said in the recording booth. Someone can be offscreen and then they scream out a punchline from another room and it's so noticeable. As per usual, he shot an entire movie in a little over a week… ten days to be exact. Yup! Someone tell Tyler that filmmaking is not a race. I know you need to make that money, but boy it would be nice to develop your ideas and characters instead of recycling the tropes you’ve been overusing since 2005.

16) Winchester

This film might as well be the PG-13 miscarriage mashup of "The Conjuring" and "Insidious" that forgot to add any chills, thrills, or any frightening elements whatsoever. The only thing that I can say about the movie to its benefit is that it’s short and moves like a breeze. The entire thing is dull and uninspired, but God its pacing is rightfully fast. It is the cinematic equivalent of a kid and his group of friends going inside their well-known neighborhood haunted house. After going inside to get a thrill, they realize that there’s nothing haunted about it and have completely wasted their time.

15) Night School

Six writers. There were six fucking writers who contributed to this so-called “script” (including Kevin Hart), yet this is what we ended up with: a comically bankrupt movie that did not need to exist. The film has hilarious writers like John Hamburg (“American Pie”) and Nicholas Stoller (“Neighbors”) on board, plus 4 other guys, including Hart, and this screenplay is atrocious. The film is over-stocked by so many scenes that are either unfunny or take the most unnecessary routes to force a laugh out of you. There’s no reason in hell this film needed to be 111 minutes long. Almost two hours for a film called “Night School”, a concept that seems funny only in its trailers or for a 5-minute sketch on SNL, and the film displays why some one note ideas should never be made into feature films.

14) Bohemian Rhapsody

On an ironic level, one of my favorite scenes of “Bohemian Rhapsody” is when Queen is at an EMI record executives’ office and the band members are arguing with the executive for abiding by a formula, where the executive says, “What's wrong with following a formula? I like formulas.” The reason I point this scene out is not because of the fact that it's poorly written, but the entire speech itself following a formula is relative, for it is exactly what “Bohemian Rhapsody” does from the time the film starts until the time it concludes. This movie does nothing but follow the same formula that every music drama movie ever has followed without any form of substance or identity as it prefers to dive into an acid vat of cliches, spewing lies of Mercury’s life in the process for entertainment value.

13) Welcome to Marwen

Despite whatever good intentions Zemeckis had with Mark’s story, for one to think that getting brain damage makes you a completely different person who is weird and creepy is really inconsiderate and it doesn’t feel like much effort or research was put into the script. Zemeckis has good intentions conceptually of having a team of women be the saving grace of this recovering man, but as it’s executed, Mark himself is portrayed to be problematically perverted as he not only fetishizes these women, but everyone is there to either applaud him because he was violently assaulted or walk on eggshells around him while you’re creeped out. It honestly comes across as inexcusably offensive to the subject matter.

12) I Feel Pretty

Have you ever seen one of those comedies that sounds funny as an SNL sketch but not as a full-length feature film? Well, “I Feel Pretty” is one of those movies where all of the humor is reliant on one joke from beginning to end. The biggest criminal sin that “I Feel Pretty” commits is it obnoxiously confuses egotism with self-confidence. I’ve never sympathized with a character, then ultimately despised them so fast. As soon as Renee becomes beautiful, you see her true colors where she talks about herself too much, tries to flaunt herself in any way she can, and tries to become the center of attention any moment she can; she’s just so detestable. I’m not joking, this is a disgusting character that you never particularly root for because of their shallowness that the film just rewards and claims as confidence. The entire film is a mockery of insecurity and by the end of it, you just feel offended.

11) Fifty Shades Freed

“Fifty Shades Freed” annoyingly follows the same format as the predecessors without any regards to maintaining any interesting elements to stop the same lazy cycle of action repetition. For this being the third and final film in one of the worst trilogies in cinematic history, let’s all come together and hope to never let anything as degrading as this shit ever be released as a theatrical feature or published as a book ever again.

10) The Strangers: Prey At Night

This has to be the most joyless, senseless slasher flick I’ve ever seen in my entire life. In order for me to explain the reasoning behind all this senseless slashing, I would have to spoil a bit of the movie for you:

Towards the climax, as Kinsey’s about to kill one of the masked murderers, she takes off her mask and asks her, “Why are you doing this?” In her final moments of life, the obviously teenaged girl in a doll-face mask says, “Because, why not?”

From the moment they were uttered until the end of the movie, those three words kept rotating in my head, “Because, why not?” If the entire motivation for the approximately six killers that are working together as a unit to terrorize and murder this family is based on these words, then I had less than a fuck to give about being in that goddamn theater. Jason had a motive. Freddy had a motive. Every slasher, killer, murderer, and cannibal in these types of movies has a reason for why they kill, but these people just felt like it?! Oh, fuck you!

9) Mile 22

I don’t know if some Freaky Friday shit happened to Peter Berg because “Mile 22” embodies all of the trappings of a Michael Bay film, but somehow maintains Berg’s style. It features all of the requirements: violence, gore, guns, patriotic themes, people whose occupation involves some sort of national security, Marky Mark, John Malkovich, and choppy editing. One of the major aspects I cannot stand about “Mile 22” is the editing, for the shot composition is terrible. The film is composed of nothing but fast cuts that are filmed from various angles (if not every shot imaginable) but no shot lasts more than five seconds. I tried counting and each shot is disrupted by a quick cut. No shot has any room to breathe which makes it incredibly exhausting to follow the film. It makes you question if any scene had a master shot, which is the first shot a filmmaker must shoot when starting a scene before he gets to the coverage shots. This movie is comprised of nothing but coverage shots.

8) A Wrinkle in Time

“A Wrinkle in Time” has to be the most incoherently incompetent Disney fantasy film I’ve ever seen since — EVER! I would’ve said “Alice Through the Looking Glass” but at least there was a plot present. There was a plot that made sense and motives were clear. The existence of that film was hella unnecessary but there was something to latch onto. “Race to Witch Mountain,” “Tomorrowland,” “John Carter,” and  “Alice Through the Looking Glass,” are all big budgeted CGI Disney movies that aren’t good. That said, at least those films had characters with clear motives, fun sequences of action, and (most of all) a story. The last time I felt so empty watching a big spectacle sci-fi mumbo fantasy film was “Jupiter Ascending.” I despise "Jupiter Ascending". Just like “Jupiter Ascending,” there is barely of a structure of story, the generic plot makes no sense, and of course there is an actor who hams up all the scenery but isn’t good enough to be the saving grace. I can’t believe I’m defending “Jupiter Ascending” but as much as I can’t stand that film, they didn’t have any moments where any of the sequences played like a music video.

7) Gotti

What I said about “All Eyez on Me” is what I’ll say about “Gotti”: this movie is the equivalent of reading a person's Wikipedia page and adapting it to a film. The way both films breeze through the lives of the protagonist without any sense of character is exactly the same. The movie starts off as confusingly similar to “All Eyez On Me” where time is not even a concept. John Travolta could’ve been replaced by Fat Tony from the Simpsons and there wouldn’t be any difference. That’s how generic John Gotti is.

6) Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare

This was one of the dumbest and worst excuses for horror I’ve seen this year, but I was enjoying it on an ironic level. From the terrible over-the-top performances to the weak and unnecessarily convoluted story, I was having a blast. But then the ending happened. Not even the climax, but the resolution and the ending itself happened and, believe me, it is nearly the equivalent of the cast and crew giving you the finger and saying “FUUUCK YOU!” “Blumhouse's Truth or Dare” has an ending so unbelievable that it leaves you flabbergasted, then angry. Right when I was giving the movie the benefit of the doubt and so close to claiming it as one of the best worst movies of 2018, the film ends abruptly on an incredibly sour note that it just has to be called one of the worst movies of this year in general.

5) Action Point

What’s more embarrassing than a comedy that isn’t funny is a comedy that takes pauses in assumption that you will laugh... because that happens here... a lot. There’s no authenticity to this movie, for it’s just a movie. So what? The stunts are real. Tom Cruise does his own stunts but they keep becoming more extravagant, which is the reason why we go see his movies. Go back to what you do best: going bigger with your pranks or go home. And that is exactly what I did an hour into the film, I went home.

4) Show Dogs

I’ve learned how to reserve my anger and judgement with movies like this. Especially with something coming from a director whose best film was “Beverly Hills Chihuahua”. In my opinion, I think that movie, as a kid’s film, is decent. DO YOU KNOW HOW OLD I WAS WHEN “BEVERLY HILLS CHIHUAHUA” CAME OUT?! I was 10! Fucking 10! I’m 20 now! It has been a decade since that movie was released and this is how far Raja Gosnell has come? Making more talking animal movies? I thought we stopped making movies like this back in the 00s, but I guess not. Need I even mention the controversial child grooming normalization elements in the film involving a dog’s genitals being touched that was part of the theatrical release before Mommy bloggers came in and rightfully boycotted the film? This prompted the close-to-bankrupt Global Road to recut the film a week later. And I saw this film on opening day, so I can attest to how uncomfortable those scenes were.

3) Acrimony

There are so many moments during the film where I just want to pull Tyler Perry aside from his director’s chair and ask, “Have you really become this out of touch with how regular people communicate? Because we don’t do stupid shit like this anymore.” This was a released a month after “Black Panther”. Black cinema is advancing and changing for the better, for we’re represented as complex figures for the world to see. You have “Black Panther,” “Get Out,” “Moonlight,” “Top Five,”and “Girls Trip” as movies that represent us as people and empower us. Tyler Perry presents us as over-the-top cartoons that make nothing but dumb decisions and shows us overreacting to the simplest of things that nobody could ever relate to. There is no realism in his movies and for that my low regard of respect for him just went even lower.

2) Life Itself

For a movie called “Life Itself” written and directed by Dan Fogelman, the creator of “This is Us”, you would expect the film to bear the same qualities as the beloved show he created. NOPE! What you get instead is a melodramatic, mean-spirited drama that does nothing but evoke false emotions out of you. It’s as if Dan Fogelman took the entire trash bin of rejected ideas from his “This is Us” writer’s room and used those unwanted ideas as the basis of this drama. The film plays out as if it is the final project for a senior’s film class because, from the film quality to the writing, the performances, and characters, this is all amateurish.

1) Slender Man

During the movie, I texted Myan asking, “Hey, do you remember the lore of Slender Man? Because I think this movie is doing it wrong.” Her response is the equivalent of everyone’s reaction of the movie’s existence:

“I forgot because it’s 2018, not fucking 2012.”

It is a goddamn shame that 2017’s “The Bye Bye Man”, an obvious Slender Man rip off, is a marginally much better film than this. “The Bye Bye Man” was terribly enjoyable in the sense that there were so many awful attributes in the story and filmmaking that it made the movie entertaining. I don’t think I saw something last year that provided me with so much unintentional laughter as “The Bye Bye Man.” “Slender Man” is just dull, generic, and outdated. What makes this worse is the fact that SONY had to cut major scenes from the final cut to avoid any legal troubles with the father connected to the Slender Man stabbing, but this resulted in the story’s structure being loose and subjected to continuity issues. It was already a shitty film to begin with and the fact that the studio got involved to cut scenes out makes it even shittier. The film is really the test tube baby of horror movies, for SONY tried to shop this movie around to other distributors months after releasing a poster, trailer, and release date in May, only to push it to the dumping ground of August.

That was my list of worst films of 2018. What was your worst movies of the year?

Leave your thoughts and comments below.