Rambling about Worst Movies: A Quest to Find a New Worst Film of All Time

In 2021, I saw the Prom which I dubbed the worst movie I have ever seen. Ever since, I haven't found anything that remotely awful. You might say that's a good thing. But nay I say. I am a man of contradictions, and I say this shit is awful. 

I like really bad movies, or what I like to call Worst Movies. Being a cinematic self-flagellant aside, there is a lot you can take away from a truly awful film. They often teach what not to do when crafting a story. You see bizarre choices that not even the most experimental art projects would dare touch. And hey, a little schadenfreude isn't remiss when seeing a filmmaker just eat their gonads on screen. 

Unlike so bad their good movies, which you can gleam genuine positivity from, Worst Movies are interesting to me solely for their lack of anything of value. 

There are two reasons I found my interest in Worst Movies resurfacing this year. If you recall my post on Passion of the Christ, I felt almost done with torturing myself with bad movies. Why the change? 

Well for one, movies have gotten really good lately. Some may see that as a joke with shit like Madam Web and the like, but movies have genuinely been great. We are starting to see a sea change where comic book films are going out of style. Like the Westerns, the oversaturated genre gets pushed aside for greener pastures. Keep in mind, what followed the Western were the 60s and 70s which are arguably considered some of the best years in cinema. I think we are seeing that now. 

Like, Dune Part 2 is a box office success. Everything Everywhere All At Once won Best Picture. Oppenheimer and Nope proved that a director's name still has power to draw an audience. It seems the most cherished films from the last few years have been unique, finely crafted, and or touched audiences in resonant ways. Avengers Endgame's title had more significance than intended. Comic book films aren't the apex predators anymore, and we are eating good. 

The second reason is that I feel my opinion on what a bad movie is has changed. For the longest time, my go-to answer has been God's Not Dead as the worst movie of all time. And now, when I look at it, I don't feel that vitriol I did when I was a teen. 

I believe some of it is the cynicisms of getting older. I don't think a bad intentioned Christian film is as bad as stochastic terrorism or black olives. A bad film doesn't ruin my day the way five minutes on Reddit would. 

So what kind of movie would qualify as being one of the worst movies of all time from a more objective standpoint? Frankly, I don't know. What I can tell are the things that don't make a bad film truly awful. 

Worst Films AREN'T Amateur Projects

Sometimes when I peruse Letterboxd by the lowest ratings, I see a lot of these films that are made with either no talent and budget. You see a lot of Christian films that fit this category. Films like Finding Jesus or 2025 where these likely first time filmmakers just want to get their message out there, and they don't seem to care about the artistry of the medium. 

To me, these movies don't qualify for criticism and are generally a waste of time. I feel like Alfred Molina in that skit critiquing a school play when I watch something like 2025. 

Now, if it is professionally grade film with at least a decent budget, that's more compelling. Star Wars: The Phantom Menace is a compelling Worst Movie. The train wreck that is the Emoji Movie is a compelling Worst Movie. These anomalies. Failures despite having the resources are more interesting when looking at films from a critical standpoint which leads me to my next point.

Worst Films AREN'T Generic

One of my favorite Worst Movies is a film called United Passions. At first glance, it just seems like a generic biopic. But with context, the film becomes fascinating. It's not everyday a corporation funds a propaganda film of themselves while they're WERE UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR FRAUD!!!

It's like Ben Yahtzee said about bad games. Bad movies are often stories about the creators on top the story at play. United Passions is an absurdly boring film, but it is elevated by the underlying narrative of desperately trying to hide skeletons that fell out of the closet. Actually a more apt analogy is them leaving the skeletons pretty out of the open for decades and only to try hide them when your neighbors start to notice the smell. 

It's even better when the reality of the filmmakers is apparent through the movie. I think why the Room captivated so many people is because Tommy Wiseau's personality as a person stands out more than the personality of the character he is playing. It's interesting. So much so, I argue you can remove the unintentionally funny elements and still have an engaging film. 

 

In other words, it's not interesting to simply see the man behind the curtain. We got to see him shit in pants in the process. We gotta see a train wreck. And unfortunately, like train wrecks, there is some collateral damage along the way....

Worst Films AREN'T Harmless

One of the reasons why my opinion God's Not Dead has softened is this idea that I don't think God's Not Dead is as offensive I thought initially. I can't imagine God's Not Dead changing minds. I wouldn't call it a persuasive film. It's at worst an echo chamber to confirm Christian beliefs. And honestly, one person's Worst Film is another person's confirmation bias. And hey, films are about escapism. And at the end of the day, conservative Christians are merely using films like these to escape into their victimization fantasies. It would be like blaming the heroin for someone's heroin addiction. It's more productive to figure out what lead that person to drugs than wasting time blaming the drugs themselves. 

Oh and for the record, don't take this as a defense for God's Not Dead. I still think it's an awful movie. I would easily prefer the heroin. 

For me, the final factor that can elevate a bad film into legendarily terrible status is that the movies bring about actual collateral damage from its badness. Sometimes it's as simple as the film being painful to watch. This is where I imagine the masochism comes in. There is no shortage of painful films from your string of terrible comedies, disappointing adaptations, and bigoted laced narratives.

However, there are rare cases where a film actually causes damage outside the reality of the film. Box office disasters or careers ending. Or somehow, they get just enough of an audience to have an effect on the industry. The Beauty and Beast remake or Jurassic World come to mind spawning a tidal wave of terrible live action remakes and soft reboots. 

So what's a movie that encapsulates all three? Is there a Worst Movie that's professionally made, interesting, and had a genuine negative impact? Probably, let me do some calculations and find out. 

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Ok, Im back. The results came in. And after thirty minutes of calculating from our world's best computer, we found the worst movie of all time to be...Showgirls???? 

...yeah that makes sense. 

Oh, and I ain't doing a review of Showgirls. Go watch Red Letter Media if you want that.