Clayton Bambrough
Contributor
The Navigator

For some reason, I like bad movies. More precisely, I like movies that are so bad they’re good, usually because they’re hilarious. These ten, though, are just bad—the worst of the worst. If you haven’t seen them, I’m warning you to keep it that way.

The Criteria: Must have bad critic ratings and be considered terrible by people I know who have seen it.

10. Jaws: The Revenge

Steven Spielberg’s classic blockbuster, Jaws, is highly regarded as one of the greatest movies of all time (I happen to strongly agree). Jaws 2 was the inevitable sequel to capitalize on the first one’s success, and it wasn’t great. Jaws 3, originally released in the outdated anaglyph 3D, was a miserable film where things started to get really bad. Then, somehow, Jaws: The Revenge (a sequel to one of the best movie’s ever, don’t forget) became one of the worst films of all time. When the mechanical shark roars like a t-rex and is unintentionally able to fly, you know the movie sucks. I could begin dissecting the terribleness by pointing out this shark trying to get revenge isn’t even the same one from the first movie, but then I would be here all day, and I still have nine more atrocities to talk about.

9. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

It doesn’t really matter which Transformers movie I put on this list—they’re all poor adaptations of the cartoons, but people don’t care about that. Apparently they want big explosions and Shia LaBeouf screaming like a little girl (we’ve seen it three times now). The one film from Michael Bay’s original trilogy that angered me the most was the second. Transformers was big, dumb fun, but at least it was fun. Transformers: RotF was boring, completely stupid, racist, and, lamest of all, the visual effects were worse than the first. You can’t blame that on the writer’s strike, which took place at that time. It’s an inexcusable abomination, especially with a budget so overblown.

8. The Happening

Worst M. Night Shyamalan movie? Take your pick: The Last Airbender, After Earth, The Village? How about The Happening? Remember that one, where the grass releases a chemical which makes people kill themselves? I wish I didn’t remember. Including a beyond-absurd plot, Mark Wahlberg’s worst performance, stupid characters, and just general stupidity, I wonder how such a bad movie ever happened in the first place.

7. Catwoman

Besides Halle Berry wearing a skin-tight leather outfit, what was good about Catwoman? I can safely say it wasn’t her Razzie-winning performance. It wasn’t her completely made up cat super powers, either. Was it the special effects? Nope, not those either. Anything else? No? To sum up, Catwoman was bad all around. Next!

6. Batman and Robin

The first omen that a bad Batman movie was coming was when Joel Schumacher replaced Tim Burton as director on 1995’s Batman: Forever. It wasn’t a terrible film, but it did introduce Robin and had a less sturdy story than Batman or Batman Returns. In Batman and Robin, Schumacher trades in great action and characters for a plethora of terrible one-liners, cartoony depictions of the characters, and bat nipples. Yup, bat nipples. The only superhero movie worse than Catwoman is this, teetering on the line of so bad it’s good.

5. Battlefield Earth

What could go wrong in adapting L. Ron Hubbard’s futuristic sci-fi novel about aliens that have taken over humanity? At the crack of the century, this John Travolta-starring turkey came out and was universally panned by critics and audiences alike for basically all aspects of the film. The thing I hate the most is the ridiculous camera angles. It’s like the director had a broken tripod. I don’t think there’s a single frame of the film that isn’t tilted or skewed. My guess is that Travolta regrets having invested millions of his own dollars into what has become renowned as the worst film of 2000 and one of the worst films of all time.

4. Ghost Rider/Ghost Rider 2: Spirit of Vengeance

Why pick one or the other? In my opinion, both Ghost Rider films were terrible! Bad CGI, stupid story, and even Nicholas Cage stoops to new lows here. It’s almost tempting to recommend watching them, if you haven’t seen them, because you won’t believe how bad they are (especially true of the second). Unfortunately, once you watch both movies, there’s no way to get that precious time back, so I can’t recommend it.

3. Ants

This is probably the most obscure film on this list, and no, it’s not the animated one from the ‘90s. What is most embarrassing is Ants was filmed in Qualicum Beach. It was a made-for-television movie, but that’s still no excuse. This movie is practically unwatchable. It features sugar ants—probably intended to appear as another more voracious species—infesting a hotel and killing the occupants. One scene where they use rolled up magazines to breathe and avoid having the ants clog their throats is especially laughable. It just begs the question: what were they thinking?

2. Super Babies: Baby Geniuses 2

Babies that are actually brilliant and have semi-super powers. Need I say more? All I can say about this movie is the little story that goes with the one and only time I saw it as a kid. I watched it, disliked it (even as a child), and that night, I got the stomach flu and was gravely sick for over a week. Are the two connected? Put it this way: anytime I see a clip from the movie, it makes me queasy.

1. King of the Lost World

Here is my all-time most loathed film. It’s from the studio Asylum, which is infamous for making terrible, low budget movies. This is their golden turd. I can’t even accept that it is intentionally bad, because it seriously seems like they thought this was going to be a decent, entertaining movie despite being obviously cheap. The story (according to the cover) inspired King Kong and Jurassic Park. WRONG. The novel The Lost World, by Arthur Conan Doyle, inspired those films, and this one obviously steals from all three of those works. It has a plane crash in the Amazon, a giant CGI gorilla (the effects for which were done in someone’s basement, seriously), flying dragons for some reason, perverted natives, and a dozen other atrocities. The acting is painful, and the dialogue even more so. The whole movie is torturous. It’s so appalling I can’t even give away the DVD because I would feel bad for whoever got it. Maybe it’s because I got this as a birthday present, maybe because I don’t like seeing my favourite movies being blatantly ripped off, or maybe all that and more, but King of the Lost World earns the place of my most hated film.