Everyone makes mistakes. The problem with mine is that there’s no abortion for internet memes. (EDGY STUFF!) Anyway, next week’s entry in the Hunt for the Worst Movie of All Time, Johnny Mnemonic, will close out our Round One entrants. It’s already been such an emotional roller-coaster, from the highs of wanting to kill myself to the lows of not having the will to move from the couch in order to kill myself. But, you guys, we’ve got to figure out what I’m going to be forced to watch in Round Two.

So far, I think we’re looking at:

  • Wicker Man
  • Zardoz
  • Crash (2004)
  • K-Pax
  • Hudson Hawk
  • Mr. Brooks
  • The Adventures of Pluto Nash

Lindsay and I are leaving early today to attend a friend’s wedding. He’s a fellow blogger, so we’re simply going to JACK into the NET and become PURE ENERGY. I don’t know what Lindsay got the happy couple, but I got them a TERABYTE. I don’t even know what that means. But the point is you’ve got all weekend, starting early this afternoon, to come up with some final nominations to make Round Two the most painful of rounds. As always, the rules:

  1. It cannot be intentionally horrible.
  2. It must have at least one A- or B-list movie star in it. (no “outsider art.”)
  3. It cannot be Glitter.
  4. It has to have had a theatrical release.
  5. No matter how bad the movie, it cannot be based on a popular superhero.
  6. Gabe is the boss.

As always, please leave your suggestions in the comments or in an email. This is like Subservient Chicken, except you can only type in one action: “be miserable.”

Comments (91)
  1. Dan  |   Posted on Jul 18th, 2008 0

    It seems like a cliche, but I assure you that Norbit is really really really really bad.

    Also Chain Reaction, which is a significantly worse Keanu move than Johnny Mnemonic.

  2. Michelle  |   Posted on Jul 18th, 2008 0

    …..fear dot com? ……..dirty dancing havana nights? …..When in Rome?

  3. Flight of the Phoenix – Giovanni Ribisi’s performance is inspired (by paint thinner).

  4. JMAC  |   Posted on Jul 18th, 2008 0

    I maintain that The Mexican, with its cache of A-list stars, B-movie tropes, and… man the alphabet is long, nevermind. It’s the Audioslave of movies.

  5. Selena  |   Posted on Jul 18th, 2008 0

    Ooh, ooh, Reindeer Games… no wait- FREEDOMLAND!! It’s a Horrid, Horrid, Horrid movie!

  6. Last year in English class we watched the 1993 film adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing. The whole class was ready to kill ourselves by the end of it. Keanu Reeves was Don John. All 32 of us were ready to rip out his vocal chords by the end of it.
    Also, at the risk of being flamed, I’d like to nominate the Squid and the Whale. Maybe I just don’t get it, but I really don’t see how some 12 year old kid wiping sperm all over bookcases can be considered to be a great work of art.
    This is just my opinion though.

    • Other than Keanu, Much Ado was pretty solid. Also, the Squid and the Whale was awesome. Maybe your tastes will refine once you’re out of high school.

      For truly awful, I’d suggest The Other Sister. Juliette Lewis and Giovanni Ribisi play two retards in love, and Diane Keaton is the mom sworn to keep them apart. Bonus points for being directed by Garry Marshall.

    • I didn’t really like/get Squid and the Whale either. Maybe I had too happy of a childhood to understand all that ~angst~

  7. Anonymoose  |   Posted on Jul 18th, 2008 0

    Can it be animated? Because there’s no movie that boils my blood as much as “Shark Tale” where Will Smith phones it in and overacts at the same time, despite only providing a voice.

  8. For sheer cringiness, Moulin Rouge wins every time.

    • I feel like Moulin Rouge had enough gorgous visuals to make up for everything else. Maybe Nicole Kidman can’t sing, maybe Ewan McGregor makes stupid face (and can’t sing), but the cinematography was amazing enough to at least make it not the worst ever. Plus that movie is so fun to watch drunk when everyone knows the words to the songs.

  9. Driven – I nearly didn’t make it out of that one alive, and survival was based strictly on the vengeful will to murder the person who had brought me to see it.

  10. i vote to take k-pax out of the running and replace it with the talented mr. ripley

    and i again offer anger management

  11. Mark  |   Posted on Jul 18th, 2008 +3

    Milla Yovovich’s “Ultraviolent”

    I honestly cannot believe this movie isnt’ being included. The CG isn’t finished, the acting is clunky (all the emotional scenes are HILARIOUS), and Milla’s hair changes colors for no reason.

    Even the Milla has said it is awful and the director was a “cad”.

  12. Might I suggest a few more Nic Cage related entries?

    - Sonny: Did anyone see that 90′s horror abomination The Fear (oh, that could be a good contender too) where a bunch of idiots get chased around a cabin by a wooden man? That man was James Franco.

    - Kiss of Death: Cage benchpresses bar sluts and has a fear of metal cutlery. Also, stars David Caruso, which should be enough on its own.

    - Deadfall: It appears the budget of this film was whatever cash Nic Cage and his brother had in their wallets at the moment.

  13. Annie  |   Posted on Jul 18th, 2008 -2

    Starship Troopers
    (does Denise Richards qualify as B list?)
    According to IMDB the tagline is: “Genocide doesn’t compare to this”
    (1997 back when genocide was totally a fart joke)

    • Tony  |   Posted on Jul 21st, 2008 +1

      Starship Troopers is awesome. Seriously. Critical consensus is really starting to come around on that one, and I couldn’t be happier.

  14. David G  |   Posted on Jul 18th, 2008 +1

    Couldn’t agree with Ultraviolet (though not with Ultraviolent) more. A truly, truly awful movie. It’s CG made Eraser (which I would nominate if Ultraviolet did not exist) look amazing.

  15. Drew  |   Posted on Jul 18th, 2008 -2

    Have you seen Wanted yet?
    Also, don’t forget about 300 (that may be the worst movie I have ever seen)
    And, more relative, batman & robin

  16. Roark  |   Posted on Jul 18th, 2008 -3

    … A History of Violence.

    Awful. Simply awful. A compelling graphic novel, but an epic fail on celluloid.

  17. I really feel like Black Snake Moan could win this. It has Samuel L. Jackson, Christina Ricci, and Justin Timberlake (for like 5 minutes). IT IS THE WORST!

    • Chadams  |   Posted on Jul 18th, 2008 0

      Again – Black Snake Moan AND Driven are films that I heartily second. Wanted is a good choice since it acted as though it were the first action movie to think itself cool as ice. Oh shit, “Cool As Ice”? There’s another.

      I will again hype “Spanglish” for being so forcefully maudlin for no reason.

      Lastly – though it’s not out yet – “Fly Me to the Moon” (Aug. 8). Find the trailer and then find the goons who thought it was acceptable to release it knowing Pixar exists.

  18. The new Rollerball, and Anger Management! Two movies so bad they ruined total M.O. sessions in the back of the theater. And in the 9th grade, little can stop an M.O.sesh. That makes them pretty freakin’ bad.

  19. Knock Off
    Jean Claude Van Damme and Rod Schneider

    Double Team
    Jean Claude Van Damme and Dennis Rodman and Mickey Rourke

    NEED I SAY MORE?

  20. bree  |   Posted on Jul 18th, 2008 0

    taking lives, staring angelina jolie. when i took a bus through mexico it played almost continually, so i saw it about six or seven times in the space of six weeks. also has ethan hawke. ridiculously stupid. and, do wayan brothers films count? or do they not quite make it past the B list status? cuz if they do, you have like five movies that should automatically make it on the list right there.

  21. Mark  |   Posted on Jul 18th, 2008 +1

    I cannot believe I typed Ultraviolet as Ultraviolent and mispelled Milla Jovovich’s name… the movie geek in me is utterly nausiated.

    But yes, I bought Ultraviolet purely out of respect that a studio would release a movie that fucking awful. I admire the balls it takes to market an incomplete movie and have it make a decent $12 million opening weekend.

    Genius.

  22. I almost forgot: Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samaurai

  23. T-Pain  |   Posted on Jul 18th, 2008 +1

    Smart People. WORST.
    Dennis Quaid’s wife died like years ago and Ellen Page doesn’t like it when Sarah Jessica Parker starts dating Dennis Quaid and she was Dennis Quaid’s student and he is a dick or something. And the acting is truly horrible. Also Sarah Jessica Parker is in it. And that guy from Sideways with three names is there and he teaches uber-Republican Ellen Page how to smoke pot while she studies for the SATs and then gets into college like the next scene. And Roy from The Office is a gay doctor (?) who is friends with Sarah Jessica Parker and she is selfish.
    I stopped being friends with the person I saw this with it was so atrocious.

  24. Smart People.
    Dennis Quaid is a professor whose wife died and Ellen Page gets really mad when his former student Sarah Jessica Parker starts dating him and he tries to win her back after their first date goes horribly. Also, that guy from Sideways with three names teaches uber-Republican Ellen Page how to smoke pot and then she gets into college immediately after taking the SATs even though she smoked pot and saves her mom’s clothes.
    The writing is so absolutely terrible and the acting is even worse.
    This movie was so atrocious I stopped being friends with the person who dragged me to go see it.

  25. lauren  |   Posted on Jul 18th, 2008 0

    in the land of women
    and agreed ultraviolet was awful.

  26. Kristen  |   Posted on Jul 18th, 2008 +1

    Seriously, just see if you can watch Pulse. Just try and wrap your mind around the whole “they don’t like red tape don’t know why” fulcrum of the plot. That movie is like if Ghostwriter grew up like Corey Haim. NOT CUTE.

  27. brent  |   Posted on Jul 18th, 2008 +1

    any movie about 9-11, whats the one with nicholas cage, united 93?….

  28. Trina  |   Posted on Jul 18th, 2008 +1

    i am so glad people are mentioning Ultraviolet.

    A sci-fi vampiric reimagining of the 80′s cult movie Gloria was not the most sane idea..

  29. nathan scott phillips  |   Posted on Jul 18th, 2008 0

    swept away

  30. videogum is an epic fail  |   Posted on Jul 18th, 2008 -6

    Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see

  31. danni  |   Posted on Jul 18th, 2008 0

    worst i’ve seen in theatres were definitely: dirty love (won some razzies i believe), ultraviolet, hollow man, and amityville horror remake.

  32. I’d say Hollow Man and Freedomland most definitely. I’d also say Beowulf and Grendel, Spanglish and Stealth. I didn’t think K-Pax was really that bad…

  33. I can’t believe some of the movies people are mentioning… sure, they are mediocre movies, but they’re not even contenders for the worst movie of all time.

    Except Ultraviolet. That movie stinks. Look up “gun kata” for one example of why that movie is ridiculous.

  34. td  |   Posted on Jul 19th, 2008 +1

    I vote for “hurly burly” I think Sean Penn and Kevin Spacey are in it. Until I was subjected to “Lady In the Water” it was the worst movie I’d ever seen. Also a movie called “Morvin Calar” is pretty soul killing. It’s from the UK but I think the lead actress is well known (although I cannot name her as my brain has blocked her from my memory as a kind of defense mechanism).

  35. Hanging Up. It was billed as a chick flick, but turned out to be depressing and horrible. Or Waitress.

  36. jen  |   Posted on Jul 19th, 2008 -1

    Shoot Em Up. Maybe it was good in the theatre, but it’s deadly on dvd. One long whaaa???

  37. Steve  |   Posted on Jul 19th, 2008 0

    Deep Blue Sea

    …wait, that may the BEST movie of all time.
    so, nevermind.

  38. Thumbs down to the Wicker Man nomination. It’s a shitty remake of an actually awesome movie which I think should disqualify it even though that’s not in the rules.

    I’m going to say The Lakehouse yet again. srsly. This movie was a mindblowingly bad idea.

  39. daffy  |   Posted on Jul 19th, 2008 0

    I’ve seen it mentioned before, but I definitely have to go with Brothers Grimm for how bizarre its recipe turned out. Good actors + great director = one of the worst things I’ve ever seen. However, my opinion may be slightly skewed due to me being a Gilliam fanboy.

  40. Adam  |   Posted on Jul 19th, 2008 0

    Yessss!!!! Zardoz made the list! I can’t wait to hear your take. I’m so sorry you are going to have to sit through the worst movie ever made.

  41. lambnesiac  |   Posted on Jul 20th, 2008 0

    Dr. T and the Women is awful. I don’t hate anybody as much as I hate Richard Gere.

    Serendipity is insanely bad as well. I know it’s a romantic comedy, but every single thing the characters in this movie do is ridiculous and awful and makes your hate, hate, hate them. And they are both so boring and lame that they get comedy sidekicks like Jeremy Piven so that there’s someone to like.

    And Ma Mere. It’s a French film, but Isabelle Huppert is a pretty big name, and was in I heart Huckabees, which everybody saw. It’s a sort of inexplicable horror about this guy doing nothing, and then fucking his mom.

    Oh, and Shopgirl. Jesus Christ, if there was ever a stupider idea than to let Steve Martin play the role of somebody anybody would have sex with AND letting him narrate, not as his character, but as nobody, I don’t know what it was.

    • My friend has this thing where she hates Nicolas Cage so much she gets made even when she sees a cover of a movie he’s in, even if his picture isn’t on it. She really, really, really hates him. I have the same reaction with Richard Gere. I haven’t seen the movie you mention, but if Richard Gere is in it I don’t want to, and I’m sure it’s the worst.

  42. Hot Rod is the only movie I have seen that was so bad I actually felt insulted. What is this movie? The plot is so bizarre, and every joke is an unfunny five minute long non-sequiter. When the best bit that they had to show in the preview is Andy Samburg over-pronouncing the “wh” in “what,” you know you have a stinker on your hands.

    Also personally I thought Hide and Seek was awful. They actually filmed four alternate endings, AND it stars the ever-popular Dakota Fanning alongside a fat and aging Robert DeNiro.

  43. Masters of the Universe!

    Has Dolph Lundgren and Courtney Cox and is so bad that it rocks the house! You’ve really got to watch it, if not for the feature, for your own enjoyment!

  44. Also, What Women Want: Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt.

  45. Oh whoops the poster added the screams..which the YouTube community thought would have been a great addition to the movie.

  46. jay  |   Posted on Jul 20th, 2008 +1

    I second A History of Violence. It horrible.

  47. ROADHOUSE is gloriously awful…my freinds and i simply play a drinking game every time some ridiculous happens, somehow, we never seem to make it through the movie…STAYIN’ ALIVE, the sequel to Saturday Night Fever, those night moves are TERRIBLE…

  48. Scott McCarrey  |   Posted on Jul 20th, 2008 0

    Birth
    Something’s Gotta Give
    Reservation Road

  49. Oh my god you’re right Birth was terrible

  50. Katie  |   Posted on Jul 20th, 2008 0

    Teen Wolf
    Gigli
    Showgirls
    Powder

    and I agree with Hot Rod.

  51. David Hirchak  |   Posted on Jul 21st, 2008 0

    Ghosts of mars.
    is ice cube a b- actor?

  52. kat  |   Posted on Jul 21st, 2008 0

    My recommendations would probably include the following:
    Poltergeist 3 (bad acting, incomprehensible horror movie, a young lara flynn boyle?)

    Sniper (Tom Berenger and the bad guy from titanic get into a fight in south america)

    Firewall (Best phoning in performance by harrison ford and over the top acting by the guy from wimbledon)

  53. I totally second Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. I rented that years ago from a store that only had it on VHS. The tracking was all messed up in one scene near the end and I couldn?t see what was going on, but I hadn?t understood what was going on for the first hour and 45 minutes anyway, so I just went with it.
    Also, check out Diary of the Dead and (barf) The Door in the Floor.
    So glad Crash is on the list. That preachy piece of shite is one of the most intellectually insulting movie experiences ever.

  54. DEEP IMPACT

  55. Jonathon  |   Posted on Jul 21st, 2008 +1

    enough people are mentioning DRIVEN now… it has to be nominated! also, the really terrible 9/11 movie is not United 93 but WORLD TRADE CENTER, and it seriously needs to be nominated. ps: ghost dog may be slow, but it is a very good movie.

  56. Matt  |   Posted on Jul 21st, 2008 0

    Wow GHOSTS OF MARS is a great call. Ice T and Natasha Henstridge battle LOTR-esque Orcs that have been awakened from their native Martian burial ground by mining operations on the red planet. Or something. Also, the Martian “Orcs”/”ghosts” speak in their own hilarious language, with no subtitles. Jason Statham is in it, which should also qualify it as pretty awful.

  57. katillac  |   Posted on Jul 21st, 2008 +1

    i’m gonna have to nominate revolver by guy ritchie.
    guy ritchie made some of my favorite movies. or just one. regardless, revolver might be one of the worst movies i’ve ever seen. it’s laden with kabbalah references and a bright orange ray liotta and some deep metaphors about greed and money and BULLSHIT.
    worst movie ever.

  58. heeheeinmyhoohoo  |   Posted on Jul 21st, 2008 0

    Nick of Time, starring Johnny Depp. It’s like a movie made by retarded monkeys that Johnny Depp accidentally wandered into while trying to film a different, better movie.

    If Lucy Fell. This movie is a right up there with a three day stomach flu. I walked out after less than 10 minutes, it was that truly awful. I was 12, but I thought, I don’t want this to be 2 hours of my life I can never get back.

  59. Hudson Hawk is intentially campy, shouldn’t that disqualify it (basically rule 1)?
    I have to agree with the nominations for:
    Double Team
    Showgirls
    ….and I’ve never even heard of Knock Off, but Rob Schneider and JeanClaude VanDamme in the same movie? Must be horrible

    K-Pax and Crash are both not very good (Crash is horrible), but worst movie ever? Not quite.

    Some other suggestions:
    Who’s Your Caddy? (just the previews of this made me sick)
    The Big Hit (Lou Diamond Phillips attempts to take the mantle of worst actor EVER)
    Deck The Halls (worse than I thought it would be, and I expected it to be horrible)
    Norbit
    Big Momma’s House 2

  60. Mark  |   Posted on Jul 22nd, 2008 0

    While Showgirls isn’t “intentionally” awful, it is sure as hell entertaining… I don’t think it deserves to be nominated now that it is deemed a cult classic.

    I still say Ultraviolet has a serious chance to win this whole thing.

  61. lady  |   Posted on Jul 23rd, 2008 +1

    “Man’s Best Friend” wins this totally. It’s the only movie I’ve ever walked out of. Ally Sheedy stars (strike number one!) as a lady who adopts a dog that, unbeknownst to her, had its DNA altered in some lab so it has all these characteristics of dangerous animals and I guess also has a mission to destroy mankind? Watch for a particularly wretched scene where the painfully-obvious-it’s-a-puppet dog unhinges its jaws and makes like a snake in order to eat a cat in a tree.

  62. A Reader  |   Posted on Jul 23rd, 2008 0

    No, no, no! I can’t believe K-Pax is on that list!
    The worst film I have ever seen was “Down” by Dick Maas. But maybe that was intentionally bad and I just didn’t get it. I can’t believe no-one has suggested “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin” yet! If you’re a masochist and serious about this project, put Captain Corelli’s Mandolin on the list, please!

  63. Matt  |   Posted on Jul 23rd, 2008 0

    Also, Adam’s personal vendetta against Zardoz continues! I feel an epic beef must begin. ok not really, but though i definitely think that it should be watched in this competition, I have watched it so many times while stonedly initiating my friends into its bizarro world that I’ve developed an odd respect – nay, love – for every moment of it. Seriously, most quotable movie ever. This is all I say to people before showing it to them: ‘in this movie, sean connery wears only two costumes; a red speedo with bandoliers and knee high boots (matched with a bitchin’ ponytail and mustache combo), and a bridal gown.’ you do have to at least give props to the fact that it has some pretty great cinematography, especially in it’s post-60s psychedelic freakout scenes.

    And i heartily nominate ultraviolet as well – truly, stupefyingly awful.

  64. I second Crash (2004). How bout Dogville?

  65. Emily  |   Posted on Jul 24th, 2008 +1

    You have to watch The Other Sister

    It’s far worse than I Am Sam!

  66. Gotta agree with a few comments. Hudson Hawk was horrid on purpose so successfully, in fact, I own it on DVD and pop it in when ever I catch CSI: Miami just to watch Bruce Willis punch David Caruso in the nose. Well ,then and whenever I see ‘Jade’ in my TV listings. I also have to throw my support behind Ultraviolet. I generally laugh at terrible movies. I could only watch horrified as this utter crapfest destroyed my every hope for mankind. Throw William Fichtner in for good measure, and by the time the credits rolled, my cousin was calling me in off the rails of my balcony. And I once sat through an all night film fest showing Sleepaway Camp, The Mad Man Mars, and Hot Wet American Summer.

  67. shoey  |   Posted on Jul 25th, 2008 +1

    A History Of Violence..i concur. The casting of William Hurt as an ethnic mob boss was truly hilarious.

  68. shoey  |   Posted on Jul 25th, 2008 0

    Also I thought Gigli was a no brainer. Affleck AND J-Lo? Come ON.

  69. melanie  |   Posted on Jul 27th, 2008 0

    Spun – An hour and a half of Brittany Murphy, Mickey Rourke, and John Leguizamo pretending to be on meth. No. Just no.

  70. I have to re-nominate Elizabethtown. It’s so bad, and yet not bad enough to be good. You know the expression “bored to death”? It’s not just an expression anymore. I died watching this movie. I’m a ghost. And my spirit can’t be laid to rest until I convince everyone how much Elizabethtown sucks. Booooooooo!

  71. Lambnesiac  |   Posted on Aug 1st, 2008 0

    …Second on Something’s Gotta Give, second on What Women Want, and second on Elizabethtown. All fucking awful!

  72. Mark  |   Posted on Aug 2nd, 2008 0

    A Lot Like Love

  73. Daniel  |   Posted on Aug 3rd, 2008 0

    I’m not sure if it had a theatrical release, but I remember “Joe’s Apartment” being quite terrible.

  74. Jess  |   Posted on Aug 5th, 2008 0

    I have to nominate the Black Dahlia. This movie looked so promising in the trailers and I was so excited about seeing it, but it’s one of the worst movies I have ever seen.

  75. hilaryy  |   Posted on Aug 8th, 2008 0

    I need to nominate “Wimbledon”, with Paul Bettany and Kirsten Dunst. I like both of those actors and I even like tennis, but I HATED that movie.

    I was also really bored and disappointed by “Aeon Flux”, with Charlize Theron. Worst secret agent/spy/ninja person ever. I hear the TV show is great but because of this movie I have no interest in seeing it. I actually fell asleep.

  76. rizzen  |   Posted on Aug 17th, 2008 0

    southlander. so bad.

  77. justargos  |   Posted on Aug 18th, 2008 0

    You have to put Doomsday on this list. Any movie that involves a civilization ending disease, cyberpunks, medieval knights, a steam train escape, cannibalism, a gimp, and fat guys dancing to the can-can has to be considered.

  78. Thom  |   Posted on Aug 19th, 2008 0

    Gigli.

    Affleck, J-Lo, awful.

    Are We There Yet?

    XXX: State of the Union

  79. Boxhead  |   Posted on Sep 6th, 2008 0

    I nominate the Cuba Gooding Jr. and Skeet Ulrich action movie CHILL FACTOR. It is a riff on SPEED in that they have a chemical compound that if it gets above a certain temperature, it explodes. So they of course transport it in an ice cream truck while being shot at.

    My second nomination goes to TORQUE. Ice Cube, the boyfriend who dies in THE RING, Jamie Pressly, all in a movie about double crosses and a search for custom made bikes filled with crystal meth. Please give this one a shot. Dane Cook it in it before he was Dane Cook and all he does is get fucked over by everyone else. It’s great.

  80. bruce  |   Posted on Sep 29th, 2008 0

    what about howard the duck come on that had to be the worse one of all time

  81. Cody  |   Posted on Dec 20th, 2008 0

    Two horrendous movies: Pay it Forwards and Wild Wild West.

  82. you’re confused. wicker man [i hope you mean the original - if you mean the remake, then yes, it IS one of the worst films ever made] and zardoz are two of the BEST films ever made.

    and as far as i’m concerned, GAME OVER and I WIN because: BATTLEFIELD EARTH.

  83. BRATZ: the movie.
    so racist, so insipid, as painful as looking at lemon party pictures while simultaneously hearing your mother have sex next to you on vacation.

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