Introduction: In Defense of Worst Lists (and a roasting of a bad one)

Every year there is an annoying discourse about whether or not worst lists should be a common practice in film criticism. Why don’t we spend more time lifting up what we like? Why are you being so mean? The truth of the matter is, negative criticism is just as valuable as positive criticism. It would be dishonest as writers to hold our tongues about art that frustrates us, and plenty of great writing would be lost if we were expected to maintain some sort of consistent positivity.

That being said, I want to take a second to reflect on Variety's awful worst list from this year. This is the kind of list people mean when they say worst lists are a waste of time, two lists that show either fundamental misunderstandings of the films on the list (see Bones and All being called YA trash) or punching down at already low hanging fruit. Well, successful popcorn movie low hanging fruit like the Minions sequel, not bottom of the bargain bin low hanging fruit. When half of the films on your list could conceivably receive an Oscar nomination you better have a damn good reason why it’s such a waste of your particular time, otherwise you just look like a lazy critic - afraid to stretch their muscles even though you know you’re going to have to put out a list like this to meet your quota.

That being said, I’m pretty proud of this list. Sure, I took a couple of shrugs and moved on with an entry or two, but I always revel in the opportunity to surgically pick dumpster fires like these apart. Let’s begin.

10. Death on the Nile - dir. Kenneth Branagh

Poorly crafted but not enough to be fun to watch, poorly acted but enough to be fun to watch, pretty much just all around dull but not bad enough to actually enjoy or deconstruct in any valuable way. But every worst list needs a least worst, and Death on the Nile is the perfect example of inexcusably mediocre.

9. Lightyear - dir. Angus MacLane

A movie positing itself as a movie that exists within the Toy Story universe, but this would not be inspiring to any child, especially not if it was released in 1995. Sporting a surprisingly ambitious time travel plot, the worst part of Lightyear is how it bends over backwards to include nods to Toy Story, while Buzz as a protagonist is entirely uncompelling on his own merit. I will give it credit for its incredible lighting, done with a realist approach with mise-en-scene in mind that I hope Pixar uses again.

8. Bullet Train - dir. David Leitch

A direct to video level Guy Ritchie wannabe script supposedly elevated by its ensemble cast. Leitch provides the occasional bit of directorial flair, but wants to have his cake and eat it too by having scenes that would work much better as dialogue intercut with flashy recreations of whatever previous events the characters are discussing, trying to force as many cool scenes into the runtime as possible and losing sight of the plot in the process.

7. Bodies Bodies Bodies - dir. Halina Reijn

Bodies Bodies Bodies will hurt your eyes and ears with its deathly combination of college student level cinematography and college student level social commentary masquerading as dialogue. A slasher movie with no slashing, and a movie claiming to be a deconstruction of youth culture but only looking at it with a resounding shrug. At least it caused an entertaining Twitter feud.

6. Thor: Love and Thunder - dir. Taika Waititi

Waititi’s latest contribution to the Marvel Cinematic Universe is easily the worst film in the franchise so far, and this is a franchise with considerable lows. While it contains an impressive turn from Christian Bale as the villain, that’s the only diamond in a very rough movie. Despite being one of the shortest MCU entries we’ve received in a while at just under two hours long, Love and Thunder is jam packed with poor attempts at both comedy and drama. The transition from the Guardians of the Galaxy exiling themselves from the movie to Jane Foster being pulled out of the darkness of an MRI scan is one of the most unintentionally funny moments in a movie this year. What’s not funny is the scene right after, where the newly diagnosed Jane has ‘witty banter’ with Kat Dennings. Featuring overdubbed CGI characters, egregious tell-don’t-show attempts at queer representation, and a horrible sense of tonal inconsistency, Love and Thunder is one of the worst examples of not just this genre, but nearly every trend in current blockbuster filmmaking.

5. Texas Chainsaw Massacre - dir. David Blue Garcia

The new Texas Chainsaw drops any notion that it will have anything real to say as soon as the first kill comes, which is frankly sad. I was very tenuously on board with a movie about Texan gentrification, especially with the character who’s extremely suspicious of these young influencers buying a whole block to revitalize the ghost town of Harlow. One of the characters survived a school shooting, possibly the biggest cop out of a backstory in modern slasher history. It only comes back in the story proper once, in a moment so crass I actually paused the film and took a breather from it. Aside from the poor attempts at themes, bringing back the protagonist from the first movie Halloween-2018 style makes for a film that’s redundant at best and offensive at worst.

4. Scream - dir. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett

Scream 5's relationship to the other legacyquels in this genre should be way more incendiary, but the direction this movie aims its subtext is entirely backwards and the conversations characters have about the genre are just as empty as the movie itself. Scream came out in a time where slashers were out of style, and this one is trying to lampoon a type of movie that is very in-style - while also fully committed to being the type of movie it's lampooning. The previous films all have ideas about moral panic and the effects of tragedy and exploitation of it on the public at large, but this movie just has a bunch of Characters who are aware that they are characters moving through a Plot that they spend the whole time talking about. The thing about the original Scream’s internal analysis is that all of that is being done by one character who isn’t being listened to by the people around him, because it comes to us in the form of a drunken ramble. In Scream 5, every character in the movie has decades of metatextual knowledge behind them and sit around brooding about The Rules while still doing extremely contrived things so that big moments can happen. Having a digitally de-aged Skeet Ulrich reprise his role from the original as a Star Wars-esque force ghost haunting our main character is somehow not the worst writing decision this film makes.

3. France - dir. Bruno Dumont

Mainstream media bad, hot woman vain, man (director) yells at cloud. Half of the jokes in this satirical comedy involve a camera crew having to set up shots. You know, the thing camera crews do.

This movie made me empathize deeply with the subject of this Onion report.

2. Grimcutty - John Ross

Sometimes as a critic, you go into a movie knowing you’re probably not going to have a very good time. Every movie has potential, but let’s be realistic, not everything can be a winner.

If I could assess the creepypasta Reefer Madness wannabe that is Grimcutty in one word it would be ‘pathetic.’ Pathetic, but occasionally profound in its fearmongering. “Everybody’s freaking out about it but no one knows what it actually is” is a surprisingly apt throwaway line for a movie whose biggest goal is to scare old people who don’t understand the internet from a technological or sociological perspective. A movie for parents who want to use Life360 on their kids but can’t get it to work right.

1. They/Them - John Logan

Forgive my full length review of this compared to the previous entries, but I must do justice by how much I hate this.

The horror genre, and especially the slasher subgenre, have long been a source of solace for queer and trans people. It is often a genre for the outcast in society to thrive, even when cast in villainous roles. Movies like Sleepaway Camp and Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker show the outcasts of society taking brutal revenge on their tormentors, meant to scare cis and straight people into treating people with care. But sadly, that effect has been lessened. Other films like Psycho and The Silence of the Lambs instilled a fear of trans bodies into the masses through brutal imagery and psychotic characterization. So when this movie was announced, about a conversion therapy camp where a masked killer begins knocking people off, I was excited for about two seconds. Then the first trailer dropped, and my expectations were spectacularly lowered. The tone just seemed so... off, in a way I can't explain even after seeing the full film. But don't worry, I can tell you a lot about the full film.

I see no need to be anything but blunt: this is a torture chamber. A horror movie with no horror, and a movie claiming to represent queer young adults that does nothing but stereotype them and submit them to psychological torture. Let's just start with our cast. We have your stereotypical jock who resents himself for being gay, a girl seeking your typical suburban future marred by her lesbianism, a heavily feminine Black gay man, and a bisexual woman with dyed hair and piercings everywhere. Stereotypes are what they are, and they exist for reasons that have to do with storytelling and cultural regurgitation, but writer/director John Logan shows little desire to have his more stereotypical characters have anything going on underneath the surface. What's more egregious is the plot, that so desperately wants to be But I'm a Cheerleader but is held back by its want to be a horror movie even if it doesn't try very hard to be one.

At this camp, the kids are separated by gender assigned at birth - except for our nonbinary protagonist Jordan, who is given the choice to go wherever they please, unlike the Black trans woman forced to sleep next to them in the boys’ cabin. The campers endure tests of gender conformity: the men shoot rifles, the women make pies, and all of the campers undergo therapy sessions. The inclusion of a song and dance number set to P!nk's "Fuckin' Perfect" wants to be a crowd pleasing moment of the characters finding unity, but comes off as stilted and forced.

But speaking of those therapy sessions I previously mentioned, it's where we get the first indication that something isn't right here. Indeed, it's shot exactly like the exchange between Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter, shot-reverse-shot with the actors taking up varying sizes of the frame as the conversation moves. It's here where the therapist, an older woman, tells our protagonist that "if I were born in your generation I'd probably become a boy too." Which, if you'll recall, is almost word for word something J. K. Rowling said.

By the time the horror actually kicks in the movie loses even more steam. There's one kill for the first hour, and after that all the movie knows how to do to give these queer characters catharsis is to have them start hooking up. I get it, this is a slasher movie, but by portraying self-acceptance as something only achieved through sex in this context, you're driving home the point that queerness and gender non-conformity is purely about sex. This is painfully obtuse, and allows cis audiences to be shameless voyeurs to something they may condemn in the next breath.

Even worse is the film's ending. See, the killer is actually seeking revenge for her friend who attended the camp in her youth and came back shell shocked, no longer the person she once held dear. But when she asks Jordan to help her kill the leader of the camp and join her on a revenge quest to cleanse other places like it, they refuse to succumb to violence. We are meant to see this as Jordan taking the moral high ground as they allow police to drag the killer away and stare longingly into the sunrise with their fellow campers, a bright future ahead. But this is bullshit. This is a movie that tells queer people to suffer in silence. It is a movie that tells you it loves you, but that fighting against a system that kills you and erases you is not the way. It preaches perseverance without any true acknowledgment of the need to persevere. It makes homophobia and transphobia into a monolith, one that cannot be defeated but must be constantly endured. It is a heinous message to send to audiences, and I truly believe Logan should be ashamed that this is what he thought we needed to hear at a time when transphobic violence on a legal scale is at an all time high.

Much like Hillbilly Elegy, this is a movie I find especially egregious, because I should find something for myself in it. The first movie I've seen with an explicitly non-binary protagonist (I know others exist), and this is what comes of it. A slasher movie marketing itself as queer that doesn't have the guts to truly be either.