Universally agreed terrible film(s)

IdleRich

IdleRich
You know how everyone agrees Citizen Kate is great? Or at least everyone except perhaps four people or so. It is so universally acclaimed that it has become simply a shorthand for a masterpiece, magnum opus type thing.
"This film is a good genre piece but it's no Citizen Kane... " and so on. The same perhaps is true of The Bicycle Thieves and maybe a few other garlanded heroes of the cinematic world...

But we know all about those. What about the other end of the scale? Are there any films that are universally despised in the same way?

I think the problem might be that if a film is really bad and also a commercial failure then it might just be forgotten, it can't be remembered in the same way cos people don't seek it out to watch, quite the opposite in fact. You don't get retrospectives saying remember that bad film from twenty years ago? It's still really bad.

Of course there are stinkers that everyone did see but these become cult classics - Ed Wood or the like have this kitsch appeal which muddies the waters. I just want some suggestions for films that are bad - very bad in fact - and everyone knows it, but which have no cult appeal or any particular redeeming features. Films whose only unique element is that they are worse than virtually all other films and everyone knows it, and, as a result of this they could become a useful shorthand. A kind of redemption in the afterlife for a film that failed its makers and backers and actors but which nobly performs a service and becomes useful to some people at last as some kind of apology for being so shit.

So, suggestions please? Of course it's tempting to say Tree of Life but some freaks do like that one so it may not be the right choice. I would probably go for The New World but what about the rest of you? Any thoughts for other films? Perhaps even something not by Malick, I dunno, hit me, maybe there is something obvious I'm missing.
 

sus

Well-known member
Some serious Malick slander. It's so sad to me that the Brits can't have the experience I have watching New World. There's nothing quite like it. One of the best experiences of my life, every time.

Freddie Got Fingered is notorious, if remarkably avant in its own right
 

mixed_biscuits

_________________________
Freddie Got Fingered is notorious, if remarkably avant in its own right

FGF is definitely avant through its intensification of the gross-out. It also has some hilarious moments, not least the 'fancy restaurant' scene.

There are countless indubitably shit movies - the ones with actors you've never heard of that would go straight to dvd, or anything by Wes Anderson.
 
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william_kent

Well-known member
what a tricky question - there are plenty of bad films but no one has seen them after being scared off by bad reviews, not being shown in cinemas after poor box office receipts for the first week, no one sat through them as they had the option to turn it off or walk out of the cinema, etc., - it makes it hard to get a consensus because not everyone will have seen the candidates for worst film...

Do we include "straight to video" / "straight to DVD" / "straight to streaming" or whatever the current term for films that don't get a theatrical release are called? There are plenty of 80s "american ninja" genre films which are poor in every respect. Steven Seagal's straight to DVD films are an update on this style - rubbish fight scenes, zero plotting ( making it up as they go along ), lacklustre soundtrack, continuity errors, acting that would shame a mumblecore movie, etc.,
 

william_kent

Well-known member
what are our criteria for being "terrible"?

There are plenty of technically competent but excruciatingly boring films like "Lincoln" - a film that fails to remotely entertain, set during a civil war but featuring no battle scenes, just one dull speech after another for hours and hours..
 

martin

----
I suppose Shallow Hal and the Sex & The City film are two abortions nobody’s going to reappraise ‘til Hell freezes over. (ETA not Shallow Hal, the Paris Hilton one where she has a fat mate)

Triumph Of The Will hasn’t fared well over the years either.

From the critics’ POV, Hallmark films are worthless trash, but tell that to the hundreds of thousands of women who watch them.
 
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luka

Well-known member
Another film I walked out of because I couldn't take any more is the Cronenberg on about Freud and Jung. Risible.
 

luka

Well-known member
I was thinking about aamerican ninja the other day because I was playing captain commando and some characters had the same costumes
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
The Star Wars prequels presumably hold a record for ratio of budget to quality, although I've heard the second and third Matrix films are terrible too, and they presumably also cost a fortune to make.
 

luka

Well-known member
The Conan sequel with Grace Jones which sounds like it would be really good but it isn't. There's a MMA film too where the MMA rivals meet in the car park of a nightclub and one stud says to other, the gay clubs that way. I have to look that up find out what it's called.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
The Conan sequel with Grace Jones which sounds like it would be really good but it isn't. There's a MMA film too where the MMA rivals meet in the car park of a nightclub and one stud says to other, the gay clubs that way. I have to look that up find out what it's called.
A good illustration of the fact that men who go out of their way to look very, very hard often also look very, very gay.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
The Star Wars prequels presumably hold a record for ratio of budget to quality, although I've heard the second and third Matrix films are terrible too, and they presumably also cost a fortune to make.
Pretty sure the prequels have their defenders, although it's hard to tell from my largely uninterested perspective if that's just because of the meme potential.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Al;though you could also argue that it's more of a 9 1/2 Weeks-themed remake of American Ninja.
 
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