The topic for this week’s discussion is very straightforward: What is the worst movie you have ever seen? “Worst” can mean anything you want it to: most boring, most disappointing, worst written/acted/directed, whatever. Have at it and get it off your chest.
As for me, well, this is a weird one. I have seen tons of bad movies, usually on purpose, for the same reason How Did This Get Made? is my favorite podcast. There’s something about an implausible pile of chaos like, say, Fair Game starring Cindy Crawford and one of the lesser Baldwins, that fills me with a joy I can’t explain. I have seen two (2) movies about criminals who use extreme sports to commit robberies. I DVRed Jessica Simpson’s Private Valentine: Blonde & Dangerous. I just wrote 2500 words about a Korean movie about a CGI circus gorilla named Mr. Go who becomes a home-run-smashing baseball star. It’s to the point now where I almost enjoy them more than “good” movies. It can’t be healthy.
With that disclaimer out of the way, the worst movie I have ever seen is Mancation. The trailer, posted above, makes it look like some kind of wacky Hangover knockoff that someone made for $300 and tricked Joey Fatone and Danica McKellar into appearing in. “AHAHAHA MANCATION! STARRING JOEY FATONE! AHAHAHAHAHA,” I thought, like an idiot.
Well, it is … bad. It is so bad. And not fun bad, either. Bad bad. Aggressively so. And, like, disturbing, too. A major plot point in the movie involves a “controversial-off” — think of the walk-off from Zoolander — between the main character and his rival, in which they try to out-do each other with shocking acts. The scene ends with one character standing naked in the middle of a party, full-frontal, covered in his friend’s poop, and the other character covered in the menstrual blood of a stranger whose tampon he has just forcibly removed. For laughs. It’s even worse than it sounds, somehow. Oh, and that Prince Albert piercing they reference in the trailer? They show it. They show it.
Do not see Mancation.
Here are some picks from the UPROXX staff.
Vince Mancini:
I’ve seen some pretty terrible films lately – Horns, Tusk – so I feel like I have a perfect frame of reference for this topic. I’ve seen some silly movies, some stupid movies, some incompetent movies, some boring movies, and some inherently evil movies, but nothing I can think of was so pointless, dull, and infuriating to sit through as A Glimpse Inside The Mind Of Charles Swan III. I watched it via digital screener and I’m glad I did, because I had to keep getting up every 10 minutes to keep from putting my fist through a wall. If this had played in more theaters the murder rate would’ve spiked. Not only is the movie pointless and terrible in every conceivable way, the end credits show the crew and everyone involved congratulating themselves for making the movie. All you can think is that their time would’ve been better spent digging holes and filling them up again. If I showed this movie to a judge, Roman Coppola would never be allowed to be nearer than 500 feet from a camera.
Ashley Burns:
My response to this question never changes, and I assure you that I’m not saying it, nor have I ever said it, as a troll – Empire Records. I legitimately despise everything about this movie, from the story to the music, and especially all of the terrible stereotypes that they called characters in between. Specifically, I had the worst time buying Anthony LaPaglia as the cool, aging rocker of a store manager who is still trying to fight the corporate powers that be, especially because even the coolest man in the world would have hung Lucas and his stupid black turtleneck from the roof of the store by his own ripped-out tongue for stealing all of the money. Additionally, you expect me to believe that this store somehow manages to stay in business when it’s letting an employee steal all of the money and then hiring another thief?
But the worst offense of this whole movie was Rex Manning. “But Burnsy, longtime fans of this movie celebrate Rex Manning Day every year!” Who the hell cares? Since when is pop music’s biggest sex symbol and the guy who makes all of the late-teen and 20-something girls swoon someone who looks like an 80s porn star? You would have had a better chance convincing me all the girls were throwing their V-cards at AJ. The only thing that made this movie redeemable was Liv Tyler in that skirt and small sweater, but it’s still buried by the lunacy of a poorly-run business that deserved to be absorbed and demolished by the corporation.
Dan Seitz:
As in best worst or worst worst?
The best worst is a movie on Netflix called Revolt. I know almost nothing about it, other than it was made by an Iranian expat filmmaker in Florida in early 1980 for five bucks, and it’s hysterical.
Worst worst? Batman and Robin. Often when I return to a movie I hated as a teenager, my anger has cooled off and the movie’s just more mediocre than anything else. I went back to view it as a grown man with a film degree and it still made me want to burn down Akiva Goldsman’s house with a flamethrower.
Andrew Roberts:
I’ve watched plenty of Christian movies, including Left Behind and those Carman sh*tshows. That’s gotta count for something.
I paid cash money to see Kull The Conquerer at the theater and I’ll never get that time back.
Finally, I own Critters 1-4. Three of those are sh*t.
RoboPanda:
I’m just going to cut and paste this from a post I did in 2009:
“Back in 1994, when Renee Zellweger and Matthew McConaughey were just getting started in the movies, they both starred in a crotchpunchingly bad film called Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation. The film was unique in that it featured Leatherface in drag, Matthew McConaughey with a robotic leg, and not a single chainsaw murder.”
Representative videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XE6F2qxR5aw&authuser=0
Stacey Ritzen:
I saw that Paris Hilton movie The Hottie and the Nottie. Right off the bat I’ll state that I did it as a paying job, but worst is worst. I saw it in a bustling suburban multiplex on a Sunday afternoon and I was the only person in the entire theater. At one point an usher came in to check in on me and I don’t know who was more embarrassed. (NOPE, DEFINITELY ME.) It was about the legendary “hottest girl in LA” who just conveniently happened to be Paris Hilton who wouldn’t date anyone until she could find a boyfriend for her uggo friend, played by Step By Step’s Christine Lakin. Here is what I wrote about it at the time:
So if you’re wondering just how much makeup and prosthetics it took to transform moderately attractive, nondescript actress Christine Lakin, the titular “Nottie” of The Hottie and the Nottie, into a character that would make Hilton look good in comparison — your answer is a hell of a lot, and strangely not quite enough.
Kris Maske:
As an SNL-obsessed teenager who knew every word to Tommy Boy I was devastated by Chris Farley’s death and desperately looking for anything to cling to afterwards. I was naive enough to brush past how terrible everything about Almost Heroes starring Farley and Matthew Perry looked, and rushed out to see it opening weekend in hopes of enjoying one last solid Farley outing. I’m not sure exactly how we’re qualifying “worst movie you’ve ever seen” — and I’ve certainly sat through some dogsh*t slightly less watchable than Almost Heroes — but this is the one that sticks with me due to the matching amounts of disappointment.
Did you know it was directed by Christopher Guest? Crazy. This whiskey scene is the only not completely miserable thing about it.
Yours below. Anyone who picks Space Jam is dead to me.