2025 was a pretty good year for movies but it also had it's fair share of stinkers. We saw Mel Gibson return to the director's chair for what is the worst film he has ever directed (FLIGHT RISK), an animated film "Inspired by a concept from Clive Barker" (NIGHT OF THE ZOOPOCALYPSE), and the final MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE film (MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE: THE FINAL RECKONING). Still, there were more films that were worse than these and I have compiled a list of them of them (well, eleven but you'll see what I am talking about when you get there.)
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Out of any of the films on this list, DROP being bad makes me the saddest. Director Christopher Landon has given us a bunch of really great horror films in the last ten years like HAPPY DEATH DAY and SCOUT'S GUIDE TO THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE. DROP is not one of these films. DROP is surprisingly avoid of any suspense whatsoever. We know how the film is going to turn out and we have guessed who the caller is pretty early on. This would be ok if anything that happens in the film were even mildly interesting but I couldn't have cared less about anyone in this film. Some of the blame can be put on Blumhouse, who goes out of their way to spoil the vast majority of their films in their trailers. Even so, DROP would still have been a bad film.
Jason Statham's career had been on a downward for many years before the release of THE BEEKEEPER in 2024. That film took everyone by surprise and it seemed like Statham was back. It SEEMED that way until A WORKING MAN was unleashed on us. This takes what made THE BEEKEEPER so good (Statham being badass, killing everyone he comes into contact with) and adds so much seriousness to it. This should have been a homerun but the story gets bogged down in conspiracies and whatnot and it goes limp pretty early. The action scenes are fine, I guess, but there is no fun to be with them. It was clear people did not want this because the film made half the money THE BEEKEEPER made. We need more goofy Statham films like THE BEEKEEPER and less like A WORKING MAN.
I feel bad for Bill Skarsgård. He is a genuinely good actor but he picks the worst projects. His remake of THE CROW had so much promise but shit it all away with pointless falseness and extra added bits no one wanted. They had a simple story to tell and did so in a bafflingly bad way. LOCKED is no different. The film is 95 minutes of Skarsgård being locked inside of a car that can emite no sound, can't be driven by anyone other than Skarsgård tormentor, and can't be broken out of. If this sounds like a good time, trust me, its not. While there is a lot of stuff that happens in the film, none of it is even remotely interesting. I could see this film being a short or even an episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE, but a feature? No way.
STRANGE HARVEST is a fake documentary about a serial killer who returns to do some more killing after being gone from the scene for years. This is a film that should have been a slam dunk...if it were told as a traditional narrative. Making the film a documentary means that the more graphic stuff reminds us we are watching a fictional film and not a documentary. I was pulled out of the film so many times by these types of things, that I pondered wether I shoud stay around to the end. This is not a good thing for a film to do. Nothing should be able to break the connection you have with a film but STRANGE HARVEST does it in spades. I really wanted to like this one but it just didn't work.
UNTIL DAWN cemented, for me at least, that David F. Sandberg is not a good director. He knows how to get a film to look a certain way but everything here from the writing to the direction doesn't work. The actors are trying their best but they are boxed out by poor writing and lazy direction. I will give the film credit, though as there was a scene that shocked me but I couldn't tell you if it was the scene that shocked me or the jumpscare music sting jolting me back to the land of the conscience. I have only liked one of Sandberg's films (Shazzam!) and I am not even the biggest fan of it. Sandberg does hold the dishonor of being one of two directors on this list I don't think are any good.
HEART EYES should have been a good film. We hadn't had a good Valentine's Day slasher film in a long time and this one was gearing up to be that good one. Then I watched it and hated it. The slasher stuff is pretty well done. There's some nice gore and the stalking scenes are tense. It's everything else that sucks. I couldn't have cared less about anyone in this film and I felt the romance was lacking. The filmmakers said the film is supposed to be a satire on romantic comedies but that doesn't fit at all. Just because you present something and call it a "satire" doesn't mean it is. Just look at all of the spoof movies that came out in the 2000s. They presented something, said it was satire, and it clearly wasn't. HEART EYES is not as bad as those films (nothing really is) but it still isn't satire. Its shitty writing only said to be satire as a shield against those who didn't like the film.
One of my least favorite things to do is to shit on a film where the filmmakers were actively trying to make the best thing they could. Since that does not apply to Shelby Oaks, I don't feel so bad. In 2024, YouTuber Chris Stuckmann told his audience he will no longer talk bad about movies because he knows what it is like to be a filmmaker. Everyone said he sold his soul and now we see what made him do it and we wonder: this? SHELBY OAKS is well acted and the film does have a professional look and feel to it but that is it. This thing is as "cookie-cutter" as it gets. Its as if Stuckmann sat in his living room for a month and wrote down all of his favorite scenes from horror films and then copied them. He offers us nothing we haven't seen before and the film quickly becomes tedious to watch. If you have ever seen a horror film that deals with witchcraft, the paranormal, or demons then you have seen SHELBY OAKS and the hundreds of better films that came before it. I hope that Stuckmann isn't regretting selling his soul. He should.
2025 was a treasure trove of riches for horror fans. We finally got a sixth FINAL DESTINATION film (which rocked). We got a scary film starring a dog (which also rocked) and then we got the one two punch from two well loved franchises (which both sucked). First, we got the first live action, official FRIDAY THE 13TH thing in the form of a fucking hard cider ad with a terrible looking Jason. SWEET REVENGE was awful. Jason's new look is horrendous and the story is really stupid with the girl becoming possessed by the spirit of the lake. Really? Why does a Jason film need to be this confusing. All fans want is Jason killing people. We don't need to expand the lore. Just give us some cool death scenes and we will be happy.
SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT is a bit better than SWEET REVENGE but not by much. The film is poorly written, butt ugly to look at, and has a twist that negates what came before it. I liked the two leads. I thought they worked well together but almost nothing else works. The Nazi Santa scene should have been the best scene in the film but it is so lazily put together that I was having a hard time trying to figure out what was going on. Please, do not let Mike P. Nelson anywhere near any other horror franchises anymore. He is terrible.
This is the film Juicy Smu-lee-eh thought was going to clear his name? What a loser. The film tries to get us to believe that he didn't do anything wrong while some internet sleuths try to convince us that someone who looks exactly like Juicy is actually a white guy? Really? Fuck Juicy. He did that shit and everyone knows it.
Just read my review. I have nothing more to say on the matter. :)
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