1- Scream of the Banshee: Director, Steven C. Miller (review)
A group of college students (who else?) discover the head of a Banshee in a mysterious box, head screams, people die. Terrible film, some of the worst effects I have seen all year, daft plot and easily the year’s most painful acting. An embarrassing appearance by Lance Henriksen couldn’t even safe this tosh. The film was slow, and will make you ashamed to call yourself a horror fan.
2- Chain Letter: Director, Deon Taylor (review)
Brad Dourif, sexy girls and the story of a mysterious email that if you delete it, you will meet certain death! Sounds a promising premise for a horror? Yes it does. Did it work? No it feckin didn’t! Shite is too kind a word for this nonsense, a slow, boring, dull mess of a film trying desperately to be cool and down with the kids of today and failing miserably. I was praying I would have been sent the dreaded email so I could delete it myself, and die before getting to the end of this tosh!
3- Alice in Murderland: Director, Dennis Devine (review)
It’s Alice’s birthday, and to celebrate her friends want to hold a fancy dress party based on Alice in Wonderland, queue lots of hot girls in sexy outfits and lots of murder as a killer stalks the partygoers. This film is dreadful, however as a bit of a perv fest, it is actually quite enjoyable. The plot is crap, the acting is worse than a primary school play, and the effects look like they were made by a five year old, but the film had a strange charm to it. Don’t get me wrong, it is rubbish, but seriously how can you hate a film that shows a hot girl in a revealing, sexy outfit every two minutes. A guilty pleasure then, and one I am not happy to admit to!
4- The Rig: Director, Pete Atencio (review)
It is a sad state of affairs when the once great William Forstythe’s name can pretty much guarantee a bad film, but that guarantee was certainly upheld here. The Rig should have slotted nicely in with films like Octopus and all those Mega Shark type films, a creature feature proud of being bad. Sadly, the makers of The Rig actually thought they were making something great, and this ludicrous sense of greatness ruined all the fun this film could have delivered. Instead of having a laugh, it took itself way too seriously and ended up being the worst creature feature film of the year. A painful and stupid endurance test.
5- Episode 50: Directors, Joe Smalley and Tess Smalley (review)
Two rival TV crews battle it out in this Grave Encounters wannabe, the film delivers zero scares and even attempts a little religious preaching. The feeling of being let down, and a genre of handheld horror coming very close t ruin thanks to this one film made me very angry and very upset. If I could burn every copy of this dumb shite I just might be able to settle my emotions again. Avoid!
6- My Soul To Take: Director, Wes Craven (review)
Wes Craven completely ruins his credibility by delivering a predictable, irritating, clichéd pile of absolute shite. A killer named the Ripper returns on the birthdays of nine victims, each born on the day he was killed, each living in the same little town, and each character cannot die off quick enough. This is a bad, bad horror and it is painful to see Craven’s desperation to connect with the youth of today. Hoping for a new horror franchise, this awful first film has destroyed any plans for a sequel with the film appearing on many fans ‘Worst’ lists of 2011.
7- Dream House: Director, Jim Sheridan (review)
When the director asked for his name to be removed, that should have hinted at the badness about to be shown on screen. However, there’s me thinking that with a cast that included Daniel Craig, Naomi Watts and Rachel Weisz, what could possibly go wrong? Well, see for yourself, the first cinema film this year I very nearly walked out of. The story of a house which holds dark secrets, and a twist in the tale, should have delivered, big time. However, the twist came too early, and the film ended up a complete mess.
8- The Resident: Director, Antti Jokinen (review)
As I said in my review, this was a silly film, with multiple plot holes and daft ideas that rendered the film a joke. The creepy idea of a man spying on his new tenant should have delivered some creepy, unsettling moments, but The Resident had none. Hilary Swank did he best as the victim, but sadly she just doesn’t do it for me, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan did an OK job as the landlord, but blimey what those poor actors had to work with, it’s no wonder they looked confused and out of place for the whole film. Shocking!
9- Your Highness: Director, David Gordon Green (review)
The story of two brothers: one a pathetic drunk, the other a brave fighter with respect and good looks, who are sent on a quest to save better brothers bride to be. With the now famous naked backside of Natalie Portman helping sell the film, and the equally gorgeous Zooey Deschanel also in the film, this promised a lot. It delivered very little, in fact, I barely laughed, I barely even smiled. Comedy? It would seem the joke was on me for actually watching this crap!
10- Quarantine 2: The Terminal: Director, John Pogue (review)
Firstly, I respect the fact that director Pogue decided to not remake (Rec)2 and decided to take his sequel to Quarantine (a remake of (Rec)) off in a new direction. I was excited at the prospect of the virus shifting into a plane and the passengers being quarantined in an airport terminal, it was all very promising. What happened? Bad flaming acting, bad pacing, poor direction and a lack of any scares or horror, that’s what!
11- Evil Things: Director, Dominic Perez (review)
Another film which came close to sealing the found footage horror genres doom. Evil Things actually started off really well, with the opening half hour containing some really unsettling moments, but things just went from bad to worse as a group of friend’s party in a secluded house in the woods, followed by a stranger in a large van. Everything is caught on camera, but sadly the director was desperate to give us too much, too many clichés and I was left confused and worn out. It started simple and good, and ended all over the place and lost all its menace and sense of believability. A wasted opportunity.
12- Slices of Life: Director, Anthony G. Sumner (review)
We get three slices of life in this anthology, Work Life, Home Life and Sex Life, and each story is blessed with amateur acting, the cheapest special effects you can imagine, and bad direction and production. Some of the ideas are good, and the final story, Sex Life, is actually very good indeed, but it is hard to get past the cheapness of the films, the lack of talent and the poor presentation. I really wanted to enjoy this, but found it pretty much impossible.
13- Panic Button: Director, Chris Crow (review)
This supposedly clever British horror failed on just about everything. Four strangers win a competition, jet off on a holiday and while on their private plane, are met with an endurance test as a deadly game is set up for them. They have to reveal their darkest secrets and perform more and more vicious tasks as a computerised lizard prompts them to follow instructions or their nearest and dearest will cop it. This aint Saw on a plane, it aint big and clever, it is dull, slow and boring.
14- Creature: Director, Fred Andrews (review)
Rumoured to be one of the worst films of all time, and even making headline evening news thanks to its poor performance in US cinemas, I didn’t think Creature deserved the critical panning it received. Yes it is a bad film, yes almost every death cuts away before you see anything, yes it is un-original, but there was a bizarre charm to the film. It knew it was crap, and relished in it. The story of a group of friends hunted by a mysterious Croc-man hybrid, with locals adding to the backwoods mayhem, Creature is a ‘so bad it’s actually quite good’ type of film, if you can bring yourself to try and like it.
15- The Roommate: Director, Christian E. Christiansen (review)
Labelled as Single White Female at college, the Roommate was a poor, sorry attempt at the familiar psycho friend story. However, it did offer up a fair amount of sex and even a brief lesbian scene (always helps), but everything moved at a snail’s pace and nothing ever really shocked or made me feel like anyone was in any real danger. The girls were good looking though!
I couldn’t believe that Dreamhouse ruined it’s own plot by revealing the twist in the trailer *facepalm*