The Top 10 Worst Films of 2018

It’s that time of year again.

Let’s discuss 2018 as a year for bad movies. Really, it wasn’t too terrible. A lot of the films on this list would not make it onto my list on other years. I’ll discuss this a bit more on the best list, but there was a lot of movies which could have been terrible but had just enough redeeming features to keep it away from the list, though that happened in reverse with a lot of good movies too.

Some ground rules first. Obviously I’m only going to include films I’ve seen and I class a 2018 movie as one released in the UK in 2018.

But what was the worst of the worst? Well here they are.

Dishonourable Mentions: Unfriended: Dark Web, Game Night, Downsizing, Sherlock Gnomes, Mile 22.

10. Skyscraper

More proof that not all Dwayne Johnson touches is gold. Here, The Rock is trying to replicate the success of the other disaster movie he was in, San Andreas. This is just a disaster though. For the most part this is plain boring, with the movie just trying to be a futuristic version of The Towering Inferno without doing anything to differentiate it from so many other disaster movies. If you rate it on the rip-off level though, it’s Benidorm market rip-off as it falls apart as soon as you get it back to the hotel. There is nothing unique or memorable about this other than the fact Dwayne’s character is without a leg, though that does not really play into things too much. The council should have denied planning permission to this one.

9. The Hurricane Heist

A talking point this year was how Netflix kept buying all these terrible movies and putting them on their streaming service. Well while Netflix put some proper crap out, it was better than what Sky Movies did. They decided to get into the original movies game and it ended up making Netflix look like a hit factory. One of these movies was The Hurricane Heist. The title is awesome, can you imagine a fun caper with a heist taking place in a hurricane? Sounds like it could be one of the most fun movies of the year. But this ends being a sea of grey. Grey. Just grey. That’s all I remember. A dull movie that takes place in a sea of grey. Oh and a mediocre truck chase and Ralph Ineson’s accent. But Ralph Ineson’s accent can’t save this movie which is just a whisper in the wind to me now.

8. I Feel Pretty

Look, I don’t want to hate on Amy Schumer. It feels like I’m joining a sea of angry neckbeards who send her terrible messages because she dares to be a feminist. But I have to call out crap movies. Here, Amy gets a knock on the head and believes she is the most beautiful person in the world. While it seems like this is a good idea, I certainly thought so going in, it turns out there’s about enough material to fill a sketch and that’s about it. What it turns out to be is Amy playing up her in-movie delusions as much as possible and you just cringing at the idea you paid money to watch this load of rubbish. Amy Schumer does have talent but this showcases exactly none of it which is why you definitely won’t feel any good after watching it.

7. Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

Oh god I’m going to get sent hate for this. But this is one of the worst musicals I’ve seen. The story isn’t even paper thin, it’s about the level of the cheap toilet you get for 50p from Wilko’s. But the movie doesn’t care about that, it forgets about the story all the time in favour to play ABBA album tracks because it turns out you can use all of the memorable ABBA songs in one movie which is why you should have never made a sequel to an already crappy movie! I get that this movie is deliberately cheesy but it’s jokes never land, meaning you are in a sea of awkward performances where I’m pretty sure the actors have been liquored up so they stay on set. The fact what is essentially a karaoke session for well known actors is one of the biggest hits of the year is a shame on us all.

6. Fifty Shades Freed

It’s over. Finally it’s over. One of the worst trilogies put to film, a regular on this list, is over with what may well be the worst of them all. And it’s terrible for all the same reasons the previous movies were terrible. The acting is dull, the story is dull and the sex is dull. Yes you get to see a lot of lavish places but Crazy Rich Asians shows that you can show off billion pound homes and still have a fun, enjoyably moie. Oh and it made me think of thta awful word problematic as Christian Grey continues to be one of the creepiest men this side of Norman Bates. So what does the freed part of the title mean? It is actually represents the audience who are freed from ever seeing one of these movies again.

5. Hereditary

This is a controversial one. I’ve been looking at a lot of Top 10 lists, both of the worst and best variety, and this has ended up on the best list a lot. I can understand why as it’s certainly different and if you allow me some hedge sitting, I’d rather movies fail by going for it like this one. But now I must get off the hedge and say how stupid this movie is. First it’s just shocking and yes, I’ll always be opposed to a move that has a lingering shot of a young child’s beheaded head being ate by ants. The movie didn’t have that much goodwill going into it’s final act where it doesn’t just jump the shark, it skateboards over it and does a flip. It’s one of the most derailed, daftest ends to a film that turns this movie from unpleasant to down right laughable. I get liking the first two thirds but that final bit? No way.

4. Monster Family

Remember that I talked about Sky Movies being worst than Netflix for their original movies? Well this was their attempt at a family movie. It was the worst. I could talk about how terrible the story and voice acting was but that’s a given with so many bad animated movies. I want to talk how this was a technical failure that should not have been released in the state it was. The dubbing, something so utterly basic in the world of animated movies, was completely off and you could not concentrate on anything else the film was trying to do. But I realise looking back that it may have been a good thing as it meant I didn’t realise how stale the rest of the movie’s themes were. Sky, you are my TV provider. Please reduce your fees before thinking about making another original movie.

3. Patrick

A late entry. If you are going to make a comedy based around a pug so that all the pug owners come and coo over how cute the pug is, you should probably include the pug for more than about 30 minutes. Seriously. Yes, it’s bad enough that this is a cliched mess that sees the most basic slapstick being used to poor effect but when your main selling point, the fact there is a mischevious pug, is forgotten about in favour of a bland two guys which will she pick and fun run subplot, you know you’ve made a bad dog movie. I suppose it’s a dog movie that doesn’t kill a dog in the first five minutes, but at least that movie had some original ideas. This is just dogshit.

2. Book Club

I’m not too fond of things like American Pie and The Inbetweeners when they decide that they are just going to go on about sex for a seemingly endless amount of time. It is always so cringeworthy. So when they decided to make a whole movie about talking about sex, with Fifty Shades of Grey being the main influence, and those people talking about sex being a bunch of old ladies, you hide behind the sofa more than you would a 1970s episode of Doctor Who. The characters are not defined by traits and personalities but by how much they want sex and by how much they are hiding how much they want sex. And the humour that is not sex related would fit better in a toddler’s cartoon than a comedy for the mature audience. Just the worst. Well, not the worst.

1. Status Update

There is a place for every movie. People tuning in to Hallmark would not want to see an Eli Roth movie and people at a midnight screening would hate to see something like The Christmas Prince. For me when I go to the cinema, I expect a certain type of movie. And even for all of the bad movies on this list, I get why they were in the cinema. They were cinematic movies, they had the traits of something that belonged in the cinema. Yes they were all awful, but I can’t dismiss their spot in the multiplex.

That is not the case for Status Update. This movie about a teen that gets a magical app that makes all his wishes come true is a Disney Channel movie rip-off, something that is trying to be something like High School Musical. And if it was on one of those sort of channels, no one would be angry. It would be judged along side those movies and rated on that sort of basis. It still would be utter rubbish, but it would be utter rubbish alongside a load of other rubbish movies that were only ever meant to be time fillers.

But they released it into cinemas. At the same time you could see movies such as I, Tonya, Black Panther and The Shape of Water, Status Update was released into cinemas. This utter piece of trash with cringeworthy jokes, a story that is trying to be relevant but comes off as that Christopher Walken meme and performances that would be better served in a local amateur theatre than the cinema. And it’s all shot and made like it’s for TV, not for the cinema.

Yes, there are a lot of films like this released and put onto the kids movie channels. But they don’t make this list for the same reason Hallmark movies don’t make it on here. They are for a certain audience. But by going into the cinema, you open yourselves open for an audience that expects far more than just to fill some time. That’s why Status Update popped up on my radar and why it is number one on this list.