Let’s face it, 2011 will not go down as a superb year for horror. The two highest grossing horror movies of the year were pale ripoffs of better creations. My two favorite horror films of the year couldn’t even make back their production budget at the U.S. To make matters worse, not a single slasher film broke out into the mainstream. All in all, a pretty lackluster year for horror films. The following is the Slasher Studios five WORST films of the year. We tried to pick films that had a chance to be successful, were given the resources needed to make a good film, and proceeded to fuck it all up. For shame.
5. Fright Night (2011)
What doesn’t work about this movie? Well, aside from a few stylish touches…pretty much everything. Gone is the old, charming horror host Peter Vincent and in is a Midori chugging whorish magician. Ugh. Gone is the beautiful shot and exciting club scene in which Jerry seduces Charley’s girlfriend Amy (it’s here, but the less said about the “new†version of this scene the better). Gone is Jerry’s homoerotic relationship with his best “friendâ€/roommate. Hell, that character isn’t even IN this film. What’s added? Awful CGI (Amy’s vampire scene with Charley is incredibly lame and doesn’t look half as good as it did in the TWENTY FIVE year old original) and a final battle scene that belongs more to “Underworld†than it does to the “Fright Night†legacy. That being said, It’s worth a rental at least. The movie wasn’t so much bad as it was incredibly disappointing. I felt there was so much more they could have done with the premise. What a waste.
4. Wrong Turn 4
“Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings†is all sorts of lame. Bad CGI, atrocious acting, and thoroughly unlikable characters are just the start of this film’s problems. When will filmmakers realize that when we don’t like their characters, we don’t care who lives and who dies. When we don’t care, the movie is robbed of any and all suspense. Speaking of suspense, it is fairly obvious that ****SPOILER ALERT*** all of our “teen†characters die and all three hillbillies live as we know they were around for the “first†installment. This is just lazy filmmaking all around with some effects that have to be seen to be believed and no I don’t mean that as a compliment. Any turn away from the cover box at your local video store is a turn in the right direction.
3. Insidious
I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again…PG-13 horror movies are dull, boring, and predictable (“Drag Me to Hell†is the sole highlight from the last decade of PG-13 horror). Poor Lin Shaye and Rose Byrne, they deserve much better material than what they are given to work with here. “Insidious†offers no thrills, has inane plotting, and the final twist ending is so preposterous that it has to be seen to be believed. Don’t, however, watch this movie based on that last remark. You’ll be sorry later.
2. Shark Night 3D
“Shark Night 3D†is everything that a horror movie shouldn’t be. It’s PG-13, it’s loaded from beginning to end with grating pop/R&B songs, its 3D looks like shit, and the characters are so cookie cutter boring that you won’t care who lives or who dies. I would say that you want them all to be shark bait but once you’ve seen one awful shark attack in this film, you’ll feel like you’ve seen them all. Add to this a ridiculous third act twist that makes little sense (seriously, watch the movie and tell me how it is even POSSIBLE for the redneck hillbillies to do what they did) and some of the most implausible events I’ve ever seen in a movie and you’ve got one of the worst movies of the year. Though, truth be told, it is comforting to know that if someone loses an arm in a giant lake, you can easily find it in dirty water by swimming out from your lake without a mask or goggles. After this, while locating said lost arm, you can also spot a bloodthirsty shark. When you see said shark, you can out swim it even though it can overtake a speeding boat with someone skiing behind. Did that just make your brain hurt? Ugh. Join the club. Last year’s “Piranha 3D†was dumb, harmless fun. This movie doesn’t deserve a theatrical run, hell it doesn’t even deserve to be played on Syfy.
1. Paranormal Activity 3
Hmmm…where to start with the problems of this film:
* Sometimes there is a time stamp on the camera, sometimes there isn’t.
* Who is editing the jump cuts when there is no “flash forward†in time?
* Who was changing the tapes in the middle of the night?
* Why is the camera looking over at the parents bed when it is staring straight at the mirror?
* Why didn’t the babysitter say what had happened to her to the parents?
* Why didn’t the Randy show them his cut after he was attacked by “Toby�
* Why was Toby never mentioned in the first two installments?
* Why didn’t Dennis show Julie the tapes before going into the stupid speech about the witches?
* Was the final scene (witches in black robes?) really meant to be taken seriously?
* Didn’t the video quality appear to be awfully good (and in HD even!!) for something that had been 25 years old and sitting in storage?
* Also did the witches edit the tapes together themselves?
Just an awful mess all around.