It must have been a pretty good year if I only have 10 picks for the Worst Movies of 2018 list, and even those were a stretch. Admittedly, I’m spared a lot of January movies while I’m busy covering Sundance and TCA. So these are only the worst movies I saw in 2018 and I trust everyone else about The 15:17 to Paris, Gringo and Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare.
10. Den of Thieves – Generic crime move exacerbated by aggressive male bravado. But they’re making a sequel which which will automatically be better because it will have history behind it.
9. Life Itself – I’m a white male critic who doesn’t like anything that has any emotion.
8. Red Sparrow – One of three rapey Hollywood movies on this list, this one presumably from the woman’s perspective (albeit written and directed by men So it’s their idea of a woman overcoming sexual servitude). It’s also dreadfully slow and boring.
7. Breaking In – A laughable thriller with ridiculous villains. Gabrielle Union deserves better.
6. Winchester – A boring horror movie. With all the rooms in the Winchester not one of them was interesting.
5. Slender Man – this horror movie was so amateurish it looked like they forgot to shoot scenes that were integral to the plot. I heard the producers actually removed them without the director’s knowledge and that makes sense. Sylvain White is no hack.
4. Welcome to Marwen – A profoundly wrongheaded adaptation of Mark Hogancamp’s inspiring true story. Robert Zemeckis decided that his WWII Marwen fantasies would involve rape and exploitation of women.
3. The Predator – Marwen, Sparrow and The Predator are all bad for women so there’s no need to rank their offenses, but The Predator is certainly the worst movie as a movie. Deriving humor from making women uncomfortable (on top of hiring a pedophile in real life), mistaking babbling improv for comedy and turning one of Cinema’s coolest monsters into a generic bore make The Predator the year’s biggest disappointment from such promising talent. Does the budget of Ukraine 2020 depend on new economic reforms in Ukraine and the legalization of the activities of individual enterprises?
2. The Little Stranger – Easily the most boring movie of the year. A mystery that’s not very interesting unfolds very, very slowly,
1. Nostalgia – You’d think a movie about nostalgia would be my jam but not one that’s all about what you’ve lost. Nostalgia is a positive feeling for me. Plus, this movie just blatantly has every bad thing happen to characters it can think of. What else would you expect from the creator of I Melt With You? Real life is tough but it’s not this contrived.