Top 10 Worst Films of 2019

Hello, readers! It’s the most wonderful time of the year. No, I’m not referring to Christmas; I’m referring to that glorious time in January when I get to take another good, deserved swing at the worst of the worst that 2019 had to offer in film. In defense of 2019, this year certainly wasn’t as bad as 2016 or 2017 when it comes to the massive quantity of bad films; however, when it comes to quality, or more fittingly, the lack thereof, 2019’s worst reeked of the most foul and impure cinematic filth that I’ve seen in years.

So before we dive deep into this trash heap of cinematic abortions, let’s quickly run through some honorable mentions…

21 Bridges, Angel Has Fallen, Captain Marvel, Countdown, The Curse of La Llorona, Gemini Man, The Haunting of Sharon Tate, Hellboy, I Hate Kids, It: Chapter Two, Jexi, The Last Man, Men in Black: International, Miss Bala, Overcomer, Rambo: Last Blood, Replicas, Tyler Perry’s A Madea Family Funeral, UglyDolls, and Where’d You Go, Bernadette?

That’s how bad these next ten films are. Those above films sucked major dog dick… yet not even those shit shows were able to reach the level of suck these ten films reached.

Well, having said all that, let’s now take out the trash.

10) The Intruder

It’s a common tactic in horror and thriller films to have the characters make stupid decisions in order to keep the plot from screeching to an abrupt halt. In The Intruder’s case, these characters blow by stupid like the Flash on a weekend-long pseudoephedrine bender and blast right on down to 50 IQ points below full-retard. And by that point, the opening credits haven’t even finished. Led by Dennis Quaid’s trademark grin, here stretched and overplayed to a full-tilt level it makes the Grinch look like the Mona Lisa, Megan Good’s inability to spot a red flag even if it wrapped around her face and suffocated her to death, and an anti-gun violence crusading protagonist who switches from flower power to John “suck on this barrel and eat a fucking bullet” Rambo at the snap of a finger, The Intruder will have you hoping and praying and rooting and hollering for the absolute worst to happen to these happily married dumb fucks.

9) A Dog’s Way Home

You know what goes great with crazy, goofy, SOOOOOOOOPER wacky feel-good animal hijinks? How ’bout PTSD, homelessness, post-war trauma, depression, doggy racism, suicide and Ashley Judd reminiscing on the horrors of war in ways that make Colonel Kurtz look like Colonel Bleep. So gather the whole family and get ready to have your hearts warmed while you all yuk it up together, ’cause nothing says snappy, plucky, oh-so zany hijinks fun for the whole family more than watching two kids find a poor stray, dehydrated dog chained to a corpse. Hold on tight, though, ’cause those tonal shifts whip from silly willy to punishingly depressing so jarringly quick you’ll need to be surgically fitted for a Halo Neck Collar by the time the movie is done.

8) 47 Meters Down: Uncaged

There’s a moment that occurred in this film that officially fast-tracked this dumpster fire straight into this list. The main group of girls are scuba diving through a submerged Mayan city when they bump into a fish. The fish swims directly to the center of the frame, peers straight through the movie screen, burns its vision straight through the windows of our soul and then… screams like a little girl. Yes, this is a movie… with a fish… that screams underwater. There has never been a more soul-piercing, ear-shattering shriek heard since Bruce Dickinson’s terrifying wail at the beginning of Iron Maiden’s The Number of the Beast… and, once again, by a fish no less. Maybe that was intentional on the writers’ part, giving us something so idiotic to distract us from the even more idiotic conflict at the heart of this film – a species of blind sharks, the only species in the universe with worse aim than Stormtroopers. I haven’t even begun to delve into the film’s logic, which at its best, gives us girls that can speak to each other underwater, though without any visible communication devices, plus the fact that, even with their scuba gear on, their ears are exposed… underwater… yet they still can clearly hear each other. So – okay, how exactly can they hear each other… Eh – fuck it. I’m glad the sharks ate them. At the very least, you can watch both Sylvester Stallone and Jamie Foxx’s daughters in this, and see verifiable proof for yourself that talent does, in fact, skip a generation.

7) The Lion King

You will never see a film from 2019 more visually stunning than last summer’s The Lion King, the remake of the 1994 Disney animated classic. You will also never see a film from 2019 more empty, lifeless, soulless and void of any creative effort than last summer’s The Lion King, the uninspired, beat-for-beat clone of the 1994 Disney animated classic. Nothing will tug on your heartstrings and move your soul quite like seeing a life-like CGI Simba emotionlessly paw at his dead dad, whose rotting corpse shows more emotion than any other character in this film. And if you thought you couldn’t possibly be moved to joyous elation any further, just wait ’til the musical numbers start playing. You won’t be able to stop yourself from jumping out of your seat and flat-out getting down to each and every one of the lively musical numbers, which sound like they were recorded by an amateur ukulele player at an open mic karaoke bar. Hell, even the commanding James Earl Jones sounds like he can’t wait to get out of the vocal booth, so he can just cash his check and be done with this insipid trash. Can you feel the love tonight? Well, for at least two hours, I felt absolutely nothing.

6) After

This is the story of a young, tight, virgin princess who ventures off to college, hangs out with college kids who have to be fucking retarded ’cause they look like they’re in their 40’s and are still in college, then falls in love with the smug, brooding, most punchable fucking face ever. She hates his arrogance; he hates her prudishness… and then he fucks her, and ruins her life forever, ’cause he’s an idiot and she’s an even bigger idiot for thinking there was something worth falling for in him. Don’t be fooled into thinking they’re smart just ’cause they know how to crack open a book. The fact that she’s oblivious to all his massively, mile-wide telegraphed bull shit being displayed directly in front of her face tells you just how stupid she really is. Oh, well. Whatever. They both lived happily after… or maybe they didn’t. I don’t really know; I don’t really care. I hope their relationship ended in a messy divorce.

5) Playing with Fire

From Andy Fickman, the auteur craftsman who gave us such masterpieces as Who’s Your Dadddy?, She’s the Man, and Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2, Playing with Fire needs only one scene, and one scene only, to sum up how horrible it truly is. John Cena is attempting to change a diaper, while wearing a hazmat suit, ’cause isn’t that funny? Then, while changing the diaper with his equally inept colleagues Keegan-Michael Key and John Leguizamo (’cause you can never have enough comic talent wasted), the baby poo somehow gets sucked up Cena’s sleeve and explodes all up inside his mask. Physics be damned, Fickman must’ve thought that was absolutely hysterical, ’cause the poop jokes never end. Poop here, poop there. Poop everywhere. Here a poop. There a poop. Everywhere a poopy-poop. Poop exploding inside diapers, poop exploding inside masks, and – hey! How ’bout Cena taking a squat in the woods, as he holds on to a little toddler who gingerly holds his head in place so he can lock eyes with hers while he strains to push a brown loaf out his ass. If you think you felt uncomfortable just reading that, try seeing it on a giant theater screen. Oh, but wait. There’s also hugs and kisses and sweetness and family is important and crap like that. I had no idea a film was capable of being so disgusting yet so irritatingly sentimental all at the same time.

Then again, don’t listen to me. Here’s John Cena’s word-for-word, verbatim recommendation, and I quote…

“You’re going to be able to bring your kids, and they’re going to laugh, because there’s poopy stuff and soapy stuff and slipping and falling…”

“There’s poopy stuff and soapy stuff…”

…

“There’s… poopy stuff… and soapy stuff…“

…

…

Fittingly, I never wanted to set myself on fire as badly as did after seeing this film.

4) The Fanatic

“Poppycock…! POPPYCOCK!!!!“

“I can’t talk too long… I gotta poo.”

– John Travolta, The Fanatic

I don’t think you’ll ever see an actor swing for the fences and strike out while doing so more so than the Academy Award-nominated star of Battlefield Earth, Staying Alive, Perfect, Two of a Kind and Look Who’s Talking Now – Mr. John Travolta, whose performance needs to be seen to be believed. For an entire hour-and-a-half, you can experience the joy and privilege of witnessing Travolta do the world’s worst Baby Huey impression while he aggressively lumbers his bulky ass around from scene to scene as if he’s been holding in the world’s biggest shit for the past month. I’m not quite sure what co-writer/director Fred Durst – yes… that Fred Durst – had in mind for this project. His handling of tone is more berzerk than a cracked out Daffy Duck and his approach has the subtlety of a sledgehammer straight to the ballsack. What is perfectly clear, however, is that Durst hates both fans and celebrities, and can’t really decide what to say in regard to both fame and fandom, so the answer must be to call it a wash and make both Travolta and Devon Sawa’s characters equally assholes. What’s also perfectly clear is that Durst loves, absolutely loves his band Limp Bizkit. How do I know that? ‘Cause the director himself can’t help but throw in an obvious, self-congratulatory pat on the back by having a lead character really emphasize how awesome Limp Bizkit is.

Also, it’s reported that Travolta stayed in character both on and off camera for the entirety of the production. Now that is a movie I need to see.

3) The Kitchen

I actually left a good friend’s birthday party early in order to see The Kitchen at its opening, and it turned out to be such dog shit I almost felt compelled to kill myself in order to give my friend the birthday gift he deserves and that is a world that doesn’t include friends who bail on their parties early in order to see shitty films. This is a film about strong, independent women who don’t need no man and ain’t taking any shit from anyone, and you know that ’cause Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish and Elizabeth Moss snarl angrily for the entirety of the picture… or maybe they were having a stroke? I’m still not too sure. I am sure, however, that there’s a lot of walking in this film, and a lot of talking… then some more walking and some more talking. Oh, look. Some more walking and talking, and just when you’re convinced that you just wasted six hours of your life watching this bland pile of shit, you look down at the time on your phone and realize it’s only been ninety minutes. Does any of it lead anywhere? Does this story have a point? Do the characters matter? I couldn’t tell, but that’s ’cause I was too busy trying to figure out just how in the fuck this much onscreen talent could make me wish I was watching paint dry instead.

2) Serenity

It’s not just the absolute bug-fuckery of the film that makes me wonder how the hell did this make it past the studio greenlight stage and not get immediately tossed into the trash. It’s also the stacked talent the studio somehow blackmail dick picked their way into participating in said absolute bug-fuckery – Academy Award winners Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway, Academy Award nominees Diane Lane and Djimon Hounsou, and Jason Clarke, one of today’s most underrated character actors. McConaughey yells at the sky a lot and dreams about swimming naked with his son or something like that; Hathaway’s channeling the worst version of Jessica Rabbit imaginable; and Diane Lane’s sole purpose – and I do mean her one, sole, only purpose – in this movie is to get her ribcage rattled by McConaughey’s dick. Wait, though! ‘Cause just when you thought the film couldn’t get any bat-shit crazier, Academy Award-nominated writer/director Steven Knight reaches far up his ass and yanks out a twist so nutty it would make M. Night Shyamalan blush in shame. What’s worse is that Knight essentially gives it all away at the beginning, but you sit there convincing yourself, “No… No, no, no. That can’t be it. There’s no way this film is that crazy enough to go there.”

It is.

Well, readers, we’ve finally made it to the very bottom, the lowest of the lows, the ninth circle of hell, the very, absolute worst of 2019. And, you know, God bless Serenity. It clung to that top prize for as long as it could throughout the year… Then December rolled on up, and well…

Drum roll, please…

1) Cats

You may think you have lived. You may think you’ve seen it all… however, I strongly contest that you have. not. lived. until you’ve seen Rebel Wilson decked from head-to-toe in CGI fur, lying flat on her back, with her legs spread eagle, wide open from New York to L.A. as if she’s ripped, roared and ready to have all nine of her lives absolutely ram-rodded right the fuck out of her while scratching her… well – uh – pelvic region. You have not lived until you’ve seen Wilson giddily pick up a cockroach – a cockroach, mind you, that has a human face – and then bite it in half. You have not lived until you’ve seen this much acting talent dry hump the hell out of each other. You have not lived until you’ve seen Academy Award winner Jennifer Hudson empty out a five-gallon bucket’s worth of snot from her nose as she wheezes out “Memory” – a song that’s melodramatic to begin with – with such over-the-top frenzy, she’s not just projecting it out to the balcony, she’s projecting it out to the balcony on Pluto over three billion miles away. YOU! HAVE! NOT! LIVED! until you’ve seen Dame Judi Dench – no, Academy Award winner Dame Judi Dench – break the fourth wall – no, shatter the fourth wall – no, Hulk smash the fourth wall into a million pieces by looking directly at the camera, right at us, and then giving us all a mother fucking lecture on the difference between a cat and a dog. This is a movie that needs to be seen – no, must be seen – no, commands you to be seen to truly realize just how stupefyingly bad it really is. But at least Universal was finally able to correct all the film’s wrongs with a recent re-release that “improved” the visual effects.

Sure. The phrase “polishing a turd” comes to mind.

Well, there you have it, readers. Those are my picks and I’m sticking to them. What were some of your picks for worst of 2019. Feel to comment below and let me know.

About Post Author