Now I know what you're thinking: "Why is he doing a top 17 and not a top 10, 15 or 20?" Well folks the answer is simple, its my fucking site and I'll do whatever I want, ya' here!? - But also I believe there's only really 17 films that could fit this, lots of disappointing stuff this year, but not all of them are worst of the year worthy.
These are particularly fucking shite films that made life unbearable for the length of time I endured them. The ones at the start are SOMEWHAT passable but then they progress into hellishness. Much like my best of the year, it's only films released here in Ireland in 2014 or things I saw at festivals or through VOD.
These mini reviews get slightly longer as they go on, but that's due to not being able to contain my rage.
Enjoy!
17. Tell - Dir. J.M.R. Luna
This underseen (and rightfully so) comedy/crime romp had some of the ingredients for a highly entertaining film and just came out with utter pish. Ethan Tell is a small time crook who with the help of his wife's brother in law, robs a bank for a million dollars and betrays him in the process, leaving him for dead. His wife betrays him too and has him put in prison. Out on bail, he has to try evade his ex wife, her brother in law who survived the ordeal, his shady parole officer and two dirty cops who are all hounding him for the whereabouts of the stolen cash.
It has fun written all over it but was about as fun as shitting in reverse. Poorly developed characters, riddled with clichés, poor acting from all involved including the likable Jason Lee. It just missed the mark all the way through. Nothing new and not worth the 90 mins or whatever it was.
16. Truth Or Dare - Dir. Jessica Cameron
I had the displeasure of seeing this at the Horrorthon back in October, with the fun and lovely director, Jessica Cameron in attendance. But despite her being fun, this unfortunately wasn't. I hadn't heard about it 'til the festival and before it began, we were given sick bags (filled with treats) and told that some of them had to be used at other screenings. Which in fairness, is brilliant publicity but built up something huge that never delivered.
Six college friends gain internet fame from their online TV show, Truth or Dare, a new take on the classic game with extreme and faked violence. When the gang plan to make a new episode, a 7th player arrives, their biggest fan who decides to change things up and make it all about real pain and harsh truths.
It's a great idea but I think handled very poorly. You don't give a single shit about any of the characters, they're all unlikable dicks, it relies on terribly written shocks that just didn't work and the general tone was just too silly and try-hard to be effective. It does feature one fucked up scene though due to it's content that will feature in my 10 Most Shocking & Disturbing Moments of 2014.
15. The Angriest Man In Brooklyn - Dir. Phil Alden Robinson
Unfortunately, the legendary actor Robin Williams who plays the lead in this, passed away in 2014, so it seems odd to talk about something he did so badly; but that's the way it's gotta be. This steaming chunk of bum-fudge follows a rude, vicious, mean, obnoxious and incredibly angry business man who is at war with the world, following a divorce. He goes for his hospital check up and berates the nurse for taking care of him instead of his usual doctor. This stresses her to the point where she lies and tells him he only has 90 minutes to live, sending the dickhead running through the streets of Brooklyn in search of his family and friends to make amends while the nurse is on his trail looking for him.
It's effectively a type of Hallmark film but with lots of swearing. Bored me to fucking tears and had maybe 2 laughs throughout the whole thing. I watched this in memory of Robin the day after he died, big mistake. I should have watched The Fisher King again, that's a reliable masterpiece!
14. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - Dir. Mark Webb
This complete cock-shittery had a smidgen of promise cause surprisingly enough, I enjoyed The Amazing Spider-Man, even though of course it has it's bollocks moments. But this just did EVERYTHING wrong. Wise-cracking shithead Peter Parker is back and at his most popular as the street swinging masked crime fighter (who looks primarily CGI, so congrats to Andrew Garfield on lending his voice to this cartoon) - His childhood friend, Harry Osborn is back in town to take over his father's business following his death. His biggest fan, Max Dillon, who is obsessed with him, just wants to be noticed on account of being an unliked, anti-social twat. Following accidents that happen to both Max and Harry, they decided they don't like Spider-Man anymore and team up to take him out... For effectively no real reason... it's fucking shit.
Peter see's ghosts, Peter makes enemies out of nowhere, Peter acts like a dickhead, Peter is too cocky for his own good, Peter has no pockets yet has a phone when he needs one that he presumably pulls from his dumper, Rhino has about 2 mins screen time, Electro plays dubstep on electrical poles... That's only some of the reasons you should avoid this smoldering mess.
13. Mystery Road - Dir. Ivan Sen
This almost wormed it's way onto my Top Most Disappointing Films of 2014 list but the more I thought about it, the more it deserved to be here. An Indigenous detective returns to the outback to solve the murder of a teenage girl. He has to work his way around the town looking for clues while simultaneously trying to stop what seems to be police corruption. It ticks all the boxes for a highly entertaining mystery thriller, but instead delivered one of the most BORING films I've seen in some time.
Now a few things to note, the shootout at the end was done very, VERY well and the scenic cinematography was exceptional. But quite literally everything else was complete sewage. NONE of the acting was good, any general cinematography was brutal, especially during conversations, the crew are visible numerous times throughout and it's about 40 minutes too long, filled with unconvincing and uninteresting drama. it was kinda like ordering a Subway with your favourite bread and getting a big long dump in the middle of it, with a meatball at the end (to symbolise the shootout of course) - It just wont cut it.
12. The Equalizer - Dir. Antoine Fuqua
It's no secret I thought this was a stinking bag of horse entrails, I do recall giving it a bollocking in my review. The reliable Denzel hams it up as Bob, a hardware store employee who is known as the old man to the young, hip and incredibly cunty staff members. He seems friendly and helpful but effectively moonlights as a bringer of justice. Righting any wrongs that he see's happen through extreme violence. After befriending a teenage hooker in a cafe, he discovers she was pucked around by her pimp, which sets him off on a bit of a revenge spree and by doing that gets the whole Russian mafia after him.
Why wasn't this fucking good?? It has all the ingredients!! Thanks to the BBFC being utter cunt-sockets & the IFCO jamming their tongues up their arses and just accepting whatever cut of a film the UK want, we were punished with a censored version of the film, removing two bits that were noticeably less violent than other scenes in the film; it was just pointless! But censorship aside, this was a pile of shit by it's own merit. The first 20 mins had me interested and not long after that, it started to go down hill. Poor acting, every bad guy cliché you can think of, action scenes that take place mostly in pitch darkness so you can't fucking see any of it, which was the exact same issue I had with Antoine Fuck-wad's other piss-poor film, Olympus Has Fallen. This also is well over 2 hours and you feel every second go by. SHIIIIIITE.
11. Deliver Us From Evil - Dir. Scott Derrickson
Can't say my hopes were exactly high for this, but I definitely expected better considering I like Eric Bana and I enjoyed Sinister. Bana plays tough as nails, take no shit New Yaawk detective, Ralph Sarchie; who is apparently based on a real guy. After what appears to be a number of possessions and supernatural crimes appearing around the city, he teams up with a "cool" priest who is familiar with exorcisms to try determine what caused them and to try banish the evil spirits.
I actually felt retarded writing that, that's how incredibly poor this film is. If ever I see a supernatural horror that boasts being based on a true story, I immediately know I'm not going to like it cause it's clearly all bullshit. Unless of course it's a psychological type thing but this is apparently "true". That was one gripe, the second was the complete lack of any scares despite acres of room available for good intense scenes; the next is the annoying character trait that Joel McHale has where he's pretty much "The knife guy" - Fucking LAME. The boring, tired and outdated exorcism scene which was just an excuse for some poor CGI and contortionist tricks - and finally, the "cool" priest. This was like a really shit attempt to make religion and priests seem really cool (which they aren't in the slightest) - this guy smokes, drinks, fights and was in rehab... but he loves the lord, and with his long hair and leather jacket, so should you... unless you're not... cool? FUCK OFF.
10. Rampage 2: Capital Punishment - Dir. Uwe Boll
Uwe Boll finally made a good film (think he did one or two more. I know it's weird isn't it?) and that was called Rampage from 2009. It was fairly raw, no hold's barred and surprisingly well made and not the worst idea. So when I heard he was doing a sequel to it, I was quite interested. That interest disappeared within about 10 minutes. It took away from the greatness of the first which was a man pushed too far by an annoying society and decides to build an armoured suit and go on a killing spree; but instead they turned it into what seems like a massive political agenda.
The maniac returns after 5 years in hiding with a message for the public that he wants to get across on live TV all over the country; so he turns a TV studio into a war zone with a hostage situation. Complete with brutal acting, incredibly stupid people, Uwe himself making a cameo as a bumbling moron of a boss and turning it into what feels like a comedy with lots of stock footage of governmental crimes and atrocities. Avoid this fucking mess, seems the Uwe train (which was miniature to begin with) has finally ended.
Note: Uwe - You can challenge me to a boxing match if you want, but I'll decline. I write reviews, I don't fight twats.
9. Bad Words - Dir. Jason Bateman
It's been an absolutely shit year for Jason Bateman, with the enjoyably flawed Horrible Bosses 2 failing at the box office and his general lack of anything decent. He generally plays the stressed out but likable dad or business man type character or he's a hilarious and endearing dickhead character. In this, he's just a dickhead. He plays a shitebag who competes in children's spelling bees through a loophole he figured out in the rule book. He plans to beat all the kids and make it to the finals of a big competition and claim the main prize, that is until he meets a little kid who can spell equally as well as he can. First he's a nuisance but they end up weirdly becoming friends.
A same ol' same ol' premise that you can predict right from the start. He's a cunt, but he meets a friendly kid, he's a cunt to the kid for most of the film, they become friends, they bond, they fall out, they have a powerful reunion where they're friends again. It's all been done. This is his first feature directorial debut and it's a right shtinker to start off with. Awful jokes, poor attempts at childish humour, badly acted and just all out boring, which is sinful for a comedy. I didn't enjoy this tripe at all but it's not the worst thing he's done this year though, that's still to come!
8. Tusk - Dir. Kevin Smith
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Oh how fucking disappointed I am in Kevin Smith... After he blew me away with the tremendously tense Red State, he took a short break to help a few up and coming directors with projects, which was very cool of him. He then said his next film would be a body horror film about a lunatic who wants to turn a person into a walrus. Immediate interest from me. Given that Michael Parks was that lunatic and it was another horror, my hopes were high. 20 mins later, they were crushed to bits. A shock-jock online radio DJ in the same vein as those Opie & Anthony twats goes out in search of weird and odd people to interview for his show and make fun of them; he ends up meeting a very old wheelchair bound man who says he has a collection of amazing stories. Upon arrival to his secluded woodland home, we realise more sinister plans were in mind for the DJ.
The origins of this idea came from a podcast Smith did and the whole thing was a joke, which probably would have transferred well to screen if it was advertised as such. Instead, you get something that tries to be terrifying, serious and crudely funny. Instead, you get about 10 - 15 mins total of horror, mainly at the start, 4 - 5 mins of serious content and the rest is daft humour that didn't work at all. There is an overrated and incredibly annoying A-list cameo in it who is literally like something from a Tim Burton movie (hint hint - plays the same stupid prick in everything - hint hint) - It becomes beyond farcical at the end to the point where I was actually angry. It should have been a full blown comedy or a full blown horror, a mix of the two was hideously bad.
7. Nurse 3D - Dir. Douglas Aarniokoski
How do you make a film about a constantly naked, drug addled-porn-star looking, serial killing nurse that has nothing but sex and bloody violence all the way through... and make it absolutely fucking shit? The movie should have been a sleazy romp but instead was just embarrassing. Paz De La Huerta is like the go-to slut for films these days. Anytime they need a character who is ditsy, slutty and talks -1,000mph, they choose her. She plays a nurse who has a thing for murdering cheating men in extremely violent ways. A med student becomes her friend but begins to suspect something is awry, it becomes a game of wits (and tits) as the Nurse tries to cover up her deeds and take out anyone in the way.
It's pish, obviously. Laden with annoying CGI 3D effects that look like they were added with an iPhone app, gratuitous female nudity to the point where it actually wasn't interesting... you know you've failed when that's the case. This too attempted to have a comedic tone throughout and ended up just being unfunny and very annoying. Paz was dull and lifeless as usual and the rest of the supporting cast were garbage. Was good to see Judd Nelson back though... even if it was straight to DVD piss poor horror porn. Good posters for it though!
6. This Is Where I Leave You - Dir. Shawn Levy
Here we are with Jason Bateman's second DISASTER of a film. This was a blind watch but fucking hell I wish I saw the trailer so I could have avoided it. A dysfunctional family reunite following the death of their father and must sit Shabbos and rest for 7 days together in the family home as his final wish. With Tina Fey also involved, I was expecting a few laughs. Herself and Bateman are often enjoyable to watch, but what I got was probably the chickiest chick flick ever made as well as some of the most laughless comedy I've ever endured.
It follows the typical dysfunctional family cliché of momentary teams. Where two members of the family seem like best friends against someone else and then the next scene they switch and suddenly they're the ones arguing. It's boring and dated at this stage, it makes all these films too predictable. Every one on one conversation in this is a cringeworthy attempt at being emotional and powerful like it's a heart to heart talk, there's literally about 7 or 8 scenes that are like this, it's embarrassing enough to have 1 but fucking 8?? It tried to blend in shocking sex humour to the hacky dramedy feel and it ended up a total ball of shite. I was begging for it to end every second it was on. Bateman, stop making shit!
5. Zombeavers - Dir. Jordan Rubin
It's really just hit me that a majority of the films here are huge disappointments, but they're notably worse than the usual disappointments, some of them have a few merits. Practical puppets, oodles of gore, side splitting laughs and a fun experience... only one of those delivered, and it was the fucking puppets. Zombeavers doesn't need a big explanation. It's a bunch of cunts camping in the woods and zombie beavers are coming to get them. Oh and it's in no way fun.
The trailer looked like a blast, as soon as I saw that it was practical beavers I was immediately in, little did I know that absolutely everything else was CGI. The violence, the beavers moving around, sometimes you could clearly see that it was someone in a green lycra suit holding the puppets due to the big blurs around them. It was a terribly poor film and did not deliver at all what it promised. There was not a single laugh throughout either, all of it felt like Wayans brothers humour, which for the last 15 years has been unbearable. If you think you're gonna get a fun night out of this film, you're wrong. Get Wolfcop instead, it's equally as dumb, but it's not only hilarious, it's tremendously fun and chocked full of practical effects and gore. That's what this shit should have been.
4. Blood Ties - Dir. Guillaume Canet
The last of the massive disappointments in my hate list here with this tragically bad crime drama. Two brothers on opposite sides of the law, one a respected police officer, the other has just been released from prison following a gangland murder. He's trying to integrate back into society but ends up finding crime again and going head to head with his own brother. Another old premise but this showed a lot of promise. The trailer looked legit 1970's and it looked like it was crammed with thrills and powerful drama. Again, like many of these choices, I was sorely mistaken.
This is one of the longest, clunkiest, badly made and dreadfully acted crime films I've seen in a long time. It hadn't a fucking breeze where it was going nor did it look like there was any effort put into writing or directing it. It's a remake of one of the director's older films, which I didn't know when watching, but it has turned me away from being in anyway interested in seeing the original. It took ideas from so many movies, changed them up so they're just a bit similar and then played them out in the most unsatisfying fashion. This was a struggle to get through; not as much as the last three mind you, but a struggle none the less. I can't fault the set design though, they had great 70's cars and got the look down reasonably well, but other than that, there's no saving this.
3. Found - Dir. Scott Schirmer
Christ on a fucking stick this is like a prime example of how NOT to make a horror film. This unbearable drivel follows a young boy who is addicted to horror films and finds a severed head in his brother's room, suddenly realising that his brother is a serial killer. He is terrified for the safety of his dumb as shit family and friends, but wants to reconnect and possibly understand his brother. If ever you wanted an explanation of the phrase "Trying Too Hard", then here it is.
I don't even know where to start with this one. Besides the cinematography orchestrated by someone whose eyes are both upside down and negative and the stomach churningly bad acting, the real problem with this film is the embarrassing attempts at shocking people and gaining notoriety. The only reason I heard of this is because it was censored in England by a few seconds and by a LOT in Australia. That immediately got me on board, but I was weary as most things that get censored are generally shit. This was no exception. I can just tell Scott Schirmer was sitting with his feet up watching the finished product, thrilby on his head and a pair of shades, loudly saying to himself that he is edgy and cool and that THIS is the new face of horror... yeah some cunt wearing a shop-bought skull mask and pouring jam all over his head is really what horror was missing... There's even scenes where you can see a massive bottle of fake blood in shot! This was made by someone who had no planning and a lot of raspberries on hand.
2. Moebius - Dir. Ki-duk Kim
Things I'd sooner do than sit through this again:
A man has an affair and his wife is filled with venomous rage and wants to exact her revenge on him by way of cock removal. He is stronger so her attempts are failures. So she decides "I'll cut off my sons dick instead" and that she does... This all happens in about 10 mins or so, the rest of the film is the son learning to live with no dick, the dad trying to find a way to help his son and the mother walking around, praying in windows. Oh, did I mention that there isn't a single word of dialogue in this digital video? Only awkward, loud grunting and nodding. It's truly unbearable. I felt like the image I chose for this...
It is effectively 2014's answer to Thanatomorphose, my worst of 2013 which has nearly the same digital video quality and heaps of brutal overacting. Oh, the sound design for both digital videos was atrocious too. It's like they had microphones strapped to their feet so every floorboard sounded like a cinder block bouncing off a wardrobe. Avoid this film at all costs!!! But one thing I can almost like about it, it was short enough. The next film though, fucking HELL.
1. Dumb & Dumber To - Dir. The Farrelly Brothers
Never in all my days did I think I'd find a sequel as utterly terrible as this one. Moebius was almost a masterpiece compared to this overly long, juvenile dog vomit. The once lovable heroes, Harry and Lloyd are back after 20 years to go on a new adventure to find Harry's long lost 20 year old daughter. This is with the help of a scheming couple who are attempting to kill a billionaire genius who is now her legal guardian. This shambles is already so much messier than the first one, you can tell.
What sickens me the most is the fact that this film seems like it was made by someone who has never seen or heard of the first film and was told to direct this. What sickens me more, is the fact that it was the exact same directors with SIX writers. Not one of them took a moment and thought "Here this is fucking TERRIBLE, lets start from scratch, or better yet, not make this at all." - but no, they all had gigantic green dollar signs glowing in their eyes. In the first film, the lads are extremely thick, but not to the point where they'd be incapable of looking after themselves and a genuine danger to the public.
They had jobs, they have conversations that are more so misguided and daft instead of full blown retarded. This whole film was like one giant meta fart joke; they tried sooo hard to bring the magic of the first into this and they miserably failed. They made the lads mean spirited and obnoxious, which is the opposite of the first. Being absent minded and being a dickhead are very different things! It's also a slapstick film, containing a scene where they actually shower in raw sewage and have a green glow around them... that says it all. I was checking the time every 5 - 10 minutes to see when it'd be time to go. This is without a shadow of a doubt, the worst film of 2014 and one of the worst films I have ever forced myself to sit through. It's a fucking career ender.
Don't ever watch this, not even for a joke, it'll rot your bones from the inside and they'll spill out your arse onto the floor... which would actually be a more pleasant experience now that I think about it.
Cheers for reading! If you found yourself offended or unsettled by anything I said, please remember to keep it to yourself as I've no interest in hearing it.
These are particularly fucking shite films that made life unbearable for the length of time I endured them. The ones at the start are SOMEWHAT passable but then they progress into hellishness. Much like my best of the year, it's only films released here in Ireland in 2014 or things I saw at festivals or through VOD.
These mini reviews get slightly longer as they go on, but that's due to not being able to contain my rage.
Enjoy!
17. Tell - Dir. J.M.R. Luna
This underseen (and rightfully so) comedy/crime romp had some of the ingredients for a highly entertaining film and just came out with utter pish. Ethan Tell is a small time crook who with the help of his wife's brother in law, robs a bank for a million dollars and betrays him in the process, leaving him for dead. His wife betrays him too and has him put in prison. Out on bail, he has to try evade his ex wife, her brother in law who survived the ordeal, his shady parole officer and two dirty cops who are all hounding him for the whereabouts of the stolen cash.
It has fun written all over it but was about as fun as shitting in reverse. Poorly developed characters, riddled with clichés, poor acting from all involved including the likable Jason Lee. It just missed the mark all the way through. Nothing new and not worth the 90 mins or whatever it was.
16. Truth Or Dare - Dir. Jessica Cameron
I had the displeasure of seeing this at the Horrorthon back in October, with the fun and lovely director, Jessica Cameron in attendance. But despite her being fun, this unfortunately wasn't. I hadn't heard about it 'til the festival and before it began, we were given sick bags (filled with treats) and told that some of them had to be used at other screenings. Which in fairness, is brilliant publicity but built up something huge that never delivered.
Six college friends gain internet fame from their online TV show, Truth or Dare, a new take on the classic game with extreme and faked violence. When the gang plan to make a new episode, a 7th player arrives, their biggest fan who decides to change things up and make it all about real pain and harsh truths.
It's a great idea but I think handled very poorly. You don't give a single shit about any of the characters, they're all unlikable dicks, it relies on terribly written shocks that just didn't work and the general tone was just too silly and try-hard to be effective. It does feature one fucked up scene though due to it's content that will feature in my 10 Most Shocking & Disturbing Moments of 2014.
15. The Angriest Man In Brooklyn - Dir. Phil Alden Robinson
Unfortunately, the legendary actor Robin Williams who plays the lead in this, passed away in 2014, so it seems odd to talk about something he did so badly; but that's the way it's gotta be. This steaming chunk of bum-fudge follows a rude, vicious, mean, obnoxious and incredibly angry business man who is at war with the world, following a divorce. He goes for his hospital check up and berates the nurse for taking care of him instead of his usual doctor. This stresses her to the point where she lies and tells him he only has 90 minutes to live, sending the dickhead running through the streets of Brooklyn in search of his family and friends to make amends while the nurse is on his trail looking for him.
It's effectively a type of Hallmark film but with lots of swearing. Bored me to fucking tears and had maybe 2 laughs throughout the whole thing. I watched this in memory of Robin the day after he died, big mistake. I should have watched The Fisher King again, that's a reliable masterpiece!
14. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - Dir. Mark Webb
This complete cock-shittery had a smidgen of promise cause surprisingly enough, I enjoyed The Amazing Spider-Man, even though of course it has it's bollocks moments. But this just did EVERYTHING wrong. Wise-cracking shithead Peter Parker is back and at his most popular as the street swinging masked crime fighter (who looks primarily CGI, so congrats to Andrew Garfield on lending his voice to this cartoon) - His childhood friend, Harry Osborn is back in town to take over his father's business following his death. His biggest fan, Max Dillon, who is obsessed with him, just wants to be noticed on account of being an unliked, anti-social twat. Following accidents that happen to both Max and Harry, they decided they don't like Spider-Man anymore and team up to take him out... For effectively no real reason... it's fucking shit.
Peter see's ghosts, Peter makes enemies out of nowhere, Peter acts like a dickhead, Peter is too cocky for his own good, Peter has no pockets yet has a phone when he needs one that he presumably pulls from his dumper, Rhino has about 2 mins screen time, Electro plays dubstep on electrical poles... That's only some of the reasons you should avoid this smoldering mess.
13. Mystery Road - Dir. Ivan Sen
This almost wormed it's way onto my Top Most Disappointing Films of 2014 list but the more I thought about it, the more it deserved to be here. An Indigenous detective returns to the outback to solve the murder of a teenage girl. He has to work his way around the town looking for clues while simultaneously trying to stop what seems to be police corruption. It ticks all the boxes for a highly entertaining mystery thriller, but instead delivered one of the most BORING films I've seen in some time.
Now a few things to note, the shootout at the end was done very, VERY well and the scenic cinematography was exceptional. But quite literally everything else was complete sewage. NONE of the acting was good, any general cinematography was brutal, especially during conversations, the crew are visible numerous times throughout and it's about 40 minutes too long, filled with unconvincing and uninteresting drama. it was kinda like ordering a Subway with your favourite bread and getting a big long dump in the middle of it, with a meatball at the end (to symbolise the shootout of course) - It just wont cut it.
12. The Equalizer - Dir. Antoine Fuqua
It's no secret I thought this was a stinking bag of horse entrails, I do recall giving it a bollocking in my review. The reliable Denzel hams it up as Bob, a hardware store employee who is known as the old man to the young, hip and incredibly cunty staff members. He seems friendly and helpful but effectively moonlights as a bringer of justice. Righting any wrongs that he see's happen through extreme violence. After befriending a teenage hooker in a cafe, he discovers she was pucked around by her pimp, which sets him off on a bit of a revenge spree and by doing that gets the whole Russian mafia after him.
Why wasn't this fucking good?? It has all the ingredients!! Thanks to the BBFC being utter cunt-sockets & the IFCO jamming their tongues up their arses and just accepting whatever cut of a film the UK want, we were punished with a censored version of the film, removing two bits that were noticeably less violent than other scenes in the film; it was just pointless! But censorship aside, this was a pile of shit by it's own merit. The first 20 mins had me interested and not long after that, it started to go down hill. Poor acting, every bad guy cliché you can think of, action scenes that take place mostly in pitch darkness so you can't fucking see any of it, which was the exact same issue I had with Antoine Fuck-wad's other piss-poor film, Olympus Has Fallen. This also is well over 2 hours and you feel every second go by. SHIIIIIITE.
11. Deliver Us From Evil - Dir. Scott Derrickson
Can't say my hopes were exactly high for this, but I definitely expected better considering I like Eric Bana and I enjoyed Sinister. Bana plays tough as nails, take no shit New Yaawk detective, Ralph Sarchie; who is apparently based on a real guy. After what appears to be a number of possessions and supernatural crimes appearing around the city, he teams up with a "cool" priest who is familiar with exorcisms to try determine what caused them and to try banish the evil spirits.
I actually felt retarded writing that, that's how incredibly poor this film is. If ever I see a supernatural horror that boasts being based on a true story, I immediately know I'm not going to like it cause it's clearly all bullshit. Unless of course it's a psychological type thing but this is apparently "true". That was one gripe, the second was the complete lack of any scares despite acres of room available for good intense scenes; the next is the annoying character trait that Joel McHale has where he's pretty much "The knife guy" - Fucking LAME. The boring, tired and outdated exorcism scene which was just an excuse for some poor CGI and contortionist tricks - and finally, the "cool" priest. This was like a really shit attempt to make religion and priests seem really cool (which they aren't in the slightest) - this guy smokes, drinks, fights and was in rehab... but he loves the lord, and with his long hair and leather jacket, so should you... unless you're not... cool? FUCK OFF.
10. Rampage 2: Capital Punishment - Dir. Uwe Boll
Uwe Boll finally made a good film (think he did one or two more. I know it's weird isn't it?) and that was called Rampage from 2009. It was fairly raw, no hold's barred and surprisingly well made and not the worst idea. So when I heard he was doing a sequel to it, I was quite interested. That interest disappeared within about 10 minutes. It took away from the greatness of the first which was a man pushed too far by an annoying society and decides to build an armoured suit and go on a killing spree; but instead they turned it into what seems like a massive political agenda.
The maniac returns after 5 years in hiding with a message for the public that he wants to get across on live TV all over the country; so he turns a TV studio into a war zone with a hostage situation. Complete with brutal acting, incredibly stupid people, Uwe himself making a cameo as a bumbling moron of a boss and turning it into what feels like a comedy with lots of stock footage of governmental crimes and atrocities. Avoid this fucking mess, seems the Uwe train (which was miniature to begin with) has finally ended.
Note: Uwe - You can challenge me to a boxing match if you want, but I'll decline. I write reviews, I don't fight twats.
9. Bad Words - Dir. Jason Bateman
It's been an absolutely shit year for Jason Bateman, with the enjoyably flawed Horrible Bosses 2 failing at the box office and his general lack of anything decent. He generally plays the stressed out but likable dad or business man type character or he's a hilarious and endearing dickhead character. In this, he's just a dickhead. He plays a shitebag who competes in children's spelling bees through a loophole he figured out in the rule book. He plans to beat all the kids and make it to the finals of a big competition and claim the main prize, that is until he meets a little kid who can spell equally as well as he can. First he's a nuisance but they end up weirdly becoming friends.
A same ol' same ol' premise that you can predict right from the start. He's a cunt, but he meets a friendly kid, he's a cunt to the kid for most of the film, they become friends, they bond, they fall out, they have a powerful reunion where they're friends again. It's all been done. This is his first feature directorial debut and it's a right shtinker to start off with. Awful jokes, poor attempts at childish humour, badly acted and just all out boring, which is sinful for a comedy. I didn't enjoy this tripe at all but it's not the worst thing he's done this year though, that's still to come!
8. Tusk - Dir. Kevin Smith
Oh how fucking disappointed I am in Kevin Smith... After he blew me away with the tremendously tense Red State, he took a short break to help a few up and coming directors with projects, which was very cool of him. He then said his next film would be a body horror film about a lunatic who wants to turn a person into a walrus. Immediate interest from me. Given that Michael Parks was that lunatic and it was another horror, my hopes were high. 20 mins later, they were crushed to bits. A shock-jock online radio DJ in the same vein as those Opie & Anthony twats goes out in search of weird and odd people to interview for his show and make fun of them; he ends up meeting a very old wheelchair bound man who says he has a collection of amazing stories. Upon arrival to his secluded woodland home, we realise more sinister plans were in mind for the DJ.
The origins of this idea came from a podcast Smith did and the whole thing was a joke, which probably would have transferred well to screen if it was advertised as such. Instead, you get something that tries to be terrifying, serious and crudely funny. Instead, you get about 10 - 15 mins total of horror, mainly at the start, 4 - 5 mins of serious content and the rest is daft humour that didn't work at all. There is an overrated and incredibly annoying A-list cameo in it who is literally like something from a Tim Burton movie (hint hint - plays the same stupid prick in everything - hint hint) - It becomes beyond farcical at the end to the point where I was actually angry. It should have been a full blown comedy or a full blown horror, a mix of the two was hideously bad.
7. Nurse 3D - Dir. Douglas Aarniokoski
How do you make a film about a constantly naked, drug addled-porn-star looking, serial killing nurse that has nothing but sex and bloody violence all the way through... and make it absolutely fucking shit? The movie should have been a sleazy romp but instead was just embarrassing. Paz De La Huerta is like the go-to slut for films these days. Anytime they need a character who is ditsy, slutty and talks -1,000mph, they choose her. She plays a nurse who has a thing for murdering cheating men in extremely violent ways. A med student becomes her friend but begins to suspect something is awry, it becomes a game of wits (and tits) as the Nurse tries to cover up her deeds and take out anyone in the way.
It's pish, obviously. Laden with annoying CGI 3D effects that look like they were added with an iPhone app, gratuitous female nudity to the point where it actually wasn't interesting... you know you've failed when that's the case. This too attempted to have a comedic tone throughout and ended up just being unfunny and very annoying. Paz was dull and lifeless as usual and the rest of the supporting cast were garbage. Was good to see Judd Nelson back though... even if it was straight to DVD piss poor horror porn. Good posters for it though!
6. This Is Where I Leave You - Dir. Shawn Levy
Here we are with Jason Bateman's second DISASTER of a film. This was a blind watch but fucking hell I wish I saw the trailer so I could have avoided it. A dysfunctional family reunite following the death of their father and must sit Shabbos and rest for 7 days together in the family home as his final wish. With Tina Fey also involved, I was expecting a few laughs. Herself and Bateman are often enjoyable to watch, but what I got was probably the chickiest chick flick ever made as well as some of the most laughless comedy I've ever endured.
It follows the typical dysfunctional family cliché of momentary teams. Where two members of the family seem like best friends against someone else and then the next scene they switch and suddenly they're the ones arguing. It's boring and dated at this stage, it makes all these films too predictable. Every one on one conversation in this is a cringeworthy attempt at being emotional and powerful like it's a heart to heart talk, there's literally about 7 or 8 scenes that are like this, it's embarrassing enough to have 1 but fucking 8?? It tried to blend in shocking sex humour to the hacky dramedy feel and it ended up a total ball of shite. I was begging for it to end every second it was on. Bateman, stop making shit!
5. Zombeavers - Dir. Jordan Rubin
It's really just hit me that a majority of the films here are huge disappointments, but they're notably worse than the usual disappointments, some of them have a few merits. Practical puppets, oodles of gore, side splitting laughs and a fun experience... only one of those delivered, and it was the fucking puppets. Zombeavers doesn't need a big explanation. It's a bunch of cunts camping in the woods and zombie beavers are coming to get them. Oh and it's in no way fun.
The trailer looked like a blast, as soon as I saw that it was practical beavers I was immediately in, little did I know that absolutely everything else was CGI. The violence, the beavers moving around, sometimes you could clearly see that it was someone in a green lycra suit holding the puppets due to the big blurs around them. It was a terribly poor film and did not deliver at all what it promised. There was not a single laugh throughout either, all of it felt like Wayans brothers humour, which for the last 15 years has been unbearable. If you think you're gonna get a fun night out of this film, you're wrong. Get Wolfcop instead, it's equally as dumb, but it's not only hilarious, it's tremendously fun and chocked full of practical effects and gore. That's what this shit should have been.
4. Blood Ties - Dir. Guillaume Canet
The last of the massive disappointments in my hate list here with this tragically bad crime drama. Two brothers on opposite sides of the law, one a respected police officer, the other has just been released from prison following a gangland murder. He's trying to integrate back into society but ends up finding crime again and going head to head with his own brother. Another old premise but this showed a lot of promise. The trailer looked legit 1970's and it looked like it was crammed with thrills and powerful drama. Again, like many of these choices, I was sorely mistaken.
This is one of the longest, clunkiest, badly made and dreadfully acted crime films I've seen in a long time. It hadn't a fucking breeze where it was going nor did it look like there was any effort put into writing or directing it. It's a remake of one of the director's older films, which I didn't know when watching, but it has turned me away from being in anyway interested in seeing the original. It took ideas from so many movies, changed them up so they're just a bit similar and then played them out in the most unsatisfying fashion. This was a struggle to get through; not as much as the last three mind you, but a struggle none the less. I can't fault the set design though, they had great 70's cars and got the look down reasonably well, but other than that, there's no saving this.
3. Found - Dir. Scott Schirmer
Christ on a fucking stick this is like a prime example of how NOT to make a horror film. This unbearable drivel follows a young boy who is addicted to horror films and finds a severed head in his brother's room, suddenly realising that his brother is a serial killer. He is terrified for the safety of his dumb as shit family and friends, but wants to reconnect and possibly understand his brother. If ever you wanted an explanation of the phrase "Trying Too Hard", then here it is.
I don't even know where to start with this one. Besides the cinematography orchestrated by someone whose eyes are both upside down and negative and the stomach churningly bad acting, the real problem with this film is the embarrassing attempts at shocking people and gaining notoriety. The only reason I heard of this is because it was censored in England by a few seconds and by a LOT in Australia. That immediately got me on board, but I was weary as most things that get censored are generally shit. This was no exception. I can just tell Scott Schirmer was sitting with his feet up watching the finished product, thrilby on his head and a pair of shades, loudly saying to himself that he is edgy and cool and that THIS is the new face of horror... yeah some cunt wearing a shop-bought skull mask and pouring jam all over his head is really what horror was missing... There's even scenes where you can see a massive bottle of fake blood in shot! This was made by someone who had no planning and a lot of raspberries on hand.
2. Moebius - Dir. Ki-duk Kim
Things I'd sooner do than sit through this again:
- Shove a broken bottle up my own arse.
- Watch Found again.
- Buy a loving pet rabbit and have it die a week later.
- Bathe with a toaster.
- Be Justin Bieber's personal bodyguard
A man has an affair and his wife is filled with venomous rage and wants to exact her revenge on him by way of cock removal. He is stronger so her attempts are failures. So she decides "I'll cut off my sons dick instead" and that she does... This all happens in about 10 mins or so, the rest of the film is the son learning to live with no dick, the dad trying to find a way to help his son and the mother walking around, praying in windows. Oh, did I mention that there isn't a single word of dialogue in this digital video? Only awkward, loud grunting and nodding. It's truly unbearable. I felt like the image I chose for this...
It is effectively 2014's answer to Thanatomorphose, my worst of 2013 which has nearly the same digital video quality and heaps of brutal overacting. Oh, the sound design for both digital videos was atrocious too. It's like they had microphones strapped to their feet so every floorboard sounded like a cinder block bouncing off a wardrobe. Avoid this film at all costs!!! But one thing I can almost like about it, it was short enough. The next film though, fucking HELL.
1. Dumb & Dumber To - Dir. The Farrelly Brothers
Never in all my days did I think I'd find a sequel as utterly terrible as this one. Moebius was almost a masterpiece compared to this overly long, juvenile dog vomit. The once lovable heroes, Harry and Lloyd are back after 20 years to go on a new adventure to find Harry's long lost 20 year old daughter. This is with the help of a scheming couple who are attempting to kill a billionaire genius who is now her legal guardian. This shambles is already so much messier than the first one, you can tell.
What sickens me the most is the fact that this film seems like it was made by someone who has never seen or heard of the first film and was told to direct this. What sickens me more, is the fact that it was the exact same directors with SIX writers. Not one of them took a moment and thought "Here this is fucking TERRIBLE, lets start from scratch, or better yet, not make this at all." - but no, they all had gigantic green dollar signs glowing in their eyes. In the first film, the lads are extremely thick, but not to the point where they'd be incapable of looking after themselves and a genuine danger to the public.
They had jobs, they have conversations that are more so misguided and daft instead of full blown retarded. This whole film was like one giant meta fart joke; they tried sooo hard to bring the magic of the first into this and they miserably failed. They made the lads mean spirited and obnoxious, which is the opposite of the first. Being absent minded and being a dickhead are very different things! It's also a slapstick film, containing a scene where they actually shower in raw sewage and have a green glow around them... that says it all. I was checking the time every 5 - 10 minutes to see when it'd be time to go. This is without a shadow of a doubt, the worst film of 2014 and one of the worst films I have ever forced myself to sit through. It's a fucking career ender.
Don't ever watch this, not even for a joke, it'll rot your bones from the inside and they'll spill out your arse onto the floor... which would actually be a more pleasant experience now that I think about it.
Cheers for reading! If you found yourself offended or unsettled by anything I said, please remember to keep it to yourself as I've no interest in hearing it.
I am so glad to see The Equaliser on a Worst List!! I hated this film, I normally appreciate Denzel Washington's understated performances but my god it was so boring and the big closing fight in the warehouse was very overrated.
ReplyDeleteLike I said on facebook, Deliver us from Evil would have made a good tv show, ala a dark Supernatural!
K :-)