Dear Horror Fans,
As you know, the only thing better than a great horror movie, is a terrible one.
That’s why we decided to change gears in our A-Z series with WatchMojo. This will be the first of a series of “worst” movies from A-Z for some of our favourite genres. What makes them “the worst”, exactly? See for yourself:
As you can see, we gave ourselves some guidelines:
- Worst film per letter
- Skip articles in the title (the, an, a, etc.)
- Big let-downs more likely to be picked
We changed the last rule from having a list that “encapsulates” the genre to one that prioritizes disappointment over sheer incompetence. There are no doubt a bunch of low-budget, student-made feature films that are objectively worse, but we care about movies, so subjectivity matters. Most of these films had a means to be so much better. Not all, for sure - but we tried to maintain a balance.
Only two Ed Wood films allowed, for example.
But failure is the best teacher, so here’s a bit of what we learned along the way:
LESSONS FROM WORST HORROR A-Z
WORST DECADE: 2000s
Just a total trash fest. The gory glory days of the 80s slasher were long gone, the 90s ressurgence ran its course, and the new wave of horror still hadn’t really hit. Instead, we got Uwe Boll.
WORST LETTER: H
The Happening, House of Wax, Hobgoblins, The Haunting, Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf, all the Human Centipede movies, bad Hellraiser and Halloween sequels - the list just never ends. We went with House of the Dead because it’s Uwe Boll at his worst (which says A LOT), but really - pick your poison.
CHEATED OUT: Birdemic: Shock and Terror
Birdemic is the kind of purposely incompetent filmmaking we didn’t really want to reward - the kind of movie that tries to cross over to it’s-so-bad-bad-it’s-good territory. Like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!, which never tries to be taken seriously in the first place.
BEST BATTLE: Creepshow 3 vs Cabin Fever
The remake of Cabin Fever was exceptionally disappointing, but Creepshow 3 is an anthology film that had multiple chances to get something right. It didn’t, so it wins.
SPECIAL CONSIDERATION: Zombie! vs Mardis Gras
This one actually does feel more like an embarrassing student film (with miserable attempts at comedy) than a properly funded feature, but it somehow got a version of a proper release, so it deserves to be properly shamed.
Think your list would be better (aka worse)? Let us know.
Sincerely,
Dear Cast & Crew
