Review of 2012: The Top Ten Worst Horrors by Matt Wavish

While I believe that 2012 has been a very good year for horror, it has thrown up some right stinkers, films that make you question your love of the genre, films that really shouldn’t be allowed to exist. It is films from the following list that don’t even make shite horror fun, and sadly bring the whole idea of horror to painful lows of not only quality, but ideas, acting, special effects and writing.

See, low budget horror doesn’t necessarily mean it is acceptable to be rubbish, we have seen plenty of low budget horrors that can stand tall next to the big boys (Colin anyone?), so lack of budget is no excuse. My advice is that if you don’t have the talent, guts or ideas to make something half decent, then just don’t bother. That advice is free, and the following ten films could have done with taking that advice, and not wasting my time.

See, I have watched plenty of low budget or crap horror, but I can at least see the good in it, the desire from the director or the direction he or she was aiming for. I pride myself on looking for something out of nothing, and I am more than happy to watch a shitty horror if I can see reason for it, a motive or an idea. If I can see a method behind the madness then I am more than happy to flaunt it, but sadly the following ten films are beyond reasoning with, and beyond anything which resembles quality or even an idea. The following ten films are, deservedly so, the very worst of what I have seen this year. If you haven’t seen them then good for you, you can live safe in the knowledge that you did not waste that hour and a half of your life like I did…

10- Hidden 3D

Director: Antoine Thomas

A group of silly people head to a large mansion which has been inherited by two brothers after their Mums death. The Mum used to conduct experiments with drugs to cure addiction, but when the group arrives insects and other strange occurrences begin to happen. We are supposed to care, the cast were supposed to act, the film was supposed to be scary. (review)

9- A Night in the Woods

Director: Richard Parry

Starring Scoot McNairy of Monsters fame, and filmed not far from where I live, I was expecting good things from this Blair Witch inspired found footage shocker. It was a shocker, but for all the wrong reasons. Painfully slow, and with nothing really happening at all, I would rather have spent a night being tortured, at least that would have at least got a reaction.  (David Gillespie’s review)

8- Beneath the Darkness

Director: Martin Guigui

Oh dear oh dear, Dennis Quaid what have you done! Quaid stars as the good neighbour everyone loves, but he has some serious anger issues. A group of interfering idiots try and find out why Quaid dances with his wife’s corpse, and Quaid responds by attacking them. All been done before, much better, and I was praying that the half decent Quaid would hurry up and kill the wooden actors much quicker so they would stop trying to act, and this borefest could be over! (review)

7- Zombie Apocalypse

Director: Nick Lyon

Ving Rhames looks very uncomfortable in The Asylum’s latest low budget horror. Taking on, and literally destroying the zombie genre in one big disaster of a film, Zombie Apocalypse was apocalyptic alright, for horror. A group of survivors must struggle through hordes of the undead to find safety. Sound familiar? It’s been done a hundred times before, and a hundred times better. Even Ving Rhames can’t save this nonsense (review)

6- Séance: The Summoning

Director: Alex Wright

Ghastly little film this, and actually quite painful to watch. Awful special effects, dodgy music and a cast acting as if they have never seen a film in their life, Seance: The Summoning (ooh, spooky!) is one to avoid. Four friends film a séance, and then panic when they summon a Demon. What did they expect would happen? Oh right, yeh, they’ve never actually watched a film have they. Dreadful (review)

5- A Haunting in Salem

Director: Shane Van Dyke

The Asylum (again) are responsible for this garbage, and while the premise for the film was  decent enough, the actual delivery is not. A director who clearly has very little skill in telling a story, A Haunting in Salem is an embarrassment to horror. The film see’s a new sheriff moving into a haunted house, and things begin to go bump in the night. On the plus side, it does have Bill Oberst Jr in it, and the female cast are rather yummy, but the pain of watching this is too much to bare. (review)

4- Arachnoquake

Director: Griff Hurst

I like the idea of this: an earthquake unleashes giant albino spiders on the unfortunate city of New Orleans. Sadly there is a lot wrong here, the special effects, the dialogue is constantly laughable, the timing is off and the story is crap. I would also have expected more from the half decent cast, but no such luck. Edward Furlong shows up to show off his weight gain and show that all his acting skills have all but disappeared. However, he is the highlight here, and reminds us of better times. Sadly though, Arachnoquake is a poor poor film, and don’t even get me started on the films many many mistakes. You can read more about them in my review.

3– Zombie Conatgion

Director: Justin Timpane

You would have thought that wizards and zombies just might have been a cool concept, but you be wrong. This bizarre, ultra low budget mess features a man who shoots blue laser beams at people to turn them into zombies, and a wizard gathering an army to stop him. Sound interesting? It isn’t, it is horrendous and so cheaply made even throwing it in the bin wouldn’t make any difference. A shocking example of how not to make horror, and even though it has some quite brilliant and hysterical fight scenes, the quality is so bad, and the script and acting so utterly shite, that this film should come with a health warning: “warning, might make you want to shoot yourself in the head”. I can see what the director was trying to do, and maybe with a bigger budget and better actors this could have worked, but there is just too much badness here (review)

2 -Elfie Hopkins

Director: Ryan Andrews

Did I miss something here? Some people genuinely liked this, so did I miss a trick, or are some people’s expectations so low that films like this are acceptable. It is NOT acceptable to be allowed to make something as hideously boring as this, and it is certainly NOT acceptable to attach the great Ray Winstone’s name to it. Winstone’s daughter Jaime plays the Elfie Hopkins of the title, an irritating girl who decides to do some investigating on a case I couldn’t care less about. The film tries desperately to be cool like Rhian Johnson’s Brick with its attempt at witty and clever dialogue. It fails miserably, and the so-called interesting story of neighbours who are possibly murderers or worse does not grab your attention. The setting is nice, and the cinematography excellent, but the film is just so damn boring. Ray Winstone provides the films one and only highlight as the local butcher, but apart from that this is truly awful stuff. This should come with its own health warning too: “Warning, if you suffer from insomnia, this film will cure you!” (review)

1-  The Dead Want Women

Director: Charles Band

Dodgy script, check. Dodgy acting, check. Really really bad makeup, check. A total disregard for quality, check. The Dead Want Women is truly awful, and offers nothing to our beloved genre. Yes it has Eric Roberts (I can only assume he was bribed to be in this) and it has some rather attractive females, but even the added and quite full on sex and gore can’t save this abysmal piece of total silliness. Starting in the 1920’s, an early sex scene will grab your interest, for all of a minute. Things go downhill fast as two sexy girls in the present spend a night in the so-called haunted house while trying to sell it. Ghosts turn up looking more like zombies, and the entire second half is about these undead trying to get laid. It is pointless, painful and pathetic and there is absolutely nothing here worth watching it for. The seriously bad makeup for the dead clearly had a budget too, for it only covers the actors faces! If you ever needed a lesson in how not to make a horror film, or any film for that matter, then feast your eyes on this (review)

(Follow me on Twitter)