The 10 Worst Films in My DVD Collection (Part 1)

So, I'm always asked "What's your favorite movie," or "What are your top 10 desert island CDs" or "Do I have to get a restraining order?!"

The first two are always difficult to answer, because it's hard for me to pin down absolute favorites.  It's easy, however, to recognize absolute crap, and that's what this post is about.

If you've known me for more than a month, you know that I have an extensive DVD collection, and that I often buy movies without actually having seen them first.  However, for some reason, I can't bring myself to part with even the worst of the worst, taking a perverse sense of pride in knowing that these films are so bad, that I wouldn't even give them away for fear of retribution.

So here are the 10 Worst films I own, in descending order, beginning with 10 through 6:

10. Date Movie

I am officially over the whole "Spoof Movie" phenomenon thanks to this movie.  It all began with Scary Movie, which was a fun way to parody a lot of the stereotypes in horror films, poking fun at specific films (namely the Scream series, which I have never seen).  The  sequels to Scary Movie became just as formulaic as the movies they were starting to make fun of.  Unfortunately, the trend has continued with films like Date Movie, Epic Movie, and Superhero Movie.  Parody, if done well, can be extremely entertaining.  This, however, resorted to too much toilet humor to be watchable.

9. Smokin' Aces

There's a truck near my neighborhood that's painted camouflage, and has the word "S-s-s-smokin'" painted on the tailgate.  It's incredibly white trashy, and yet it's exponentially more entertaining than Smokin' Aces.  I like movies that have guns, violence, and Jeremy Piven.  So one would think that this would be a winning combination.   However, this one misses on so many levels, it's not even funny.  Apparently, someone decided that it would be a good idea to remake It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, but instead of a treasure, everyone was trying to assassinate Jeremy Piven.  They should have gone after the writer, director, and casting director for this movie.

8. Hostel

This movie should be called "Hostile" because that's how I feel after having seen it.  Now, I'm a big fan of horror films.  I remember the chest-burster scene from Alien when I was just a kid, and my parents could find a sitter, so they made us "sleep" in the back of the station wagon while they watched a movie at the drive-in.  I remember seeing A Nightmare on Elm St. at a young age, and just being transfixed (and scared to death) by it.  You might say I'm somewhat of a horror film connoisseur.  Hostel, however, is less of a horror film, and more of a giant disappointing waste of celluloid.  I don't know if Hostel introduced this trend, or it just highlighted something I hadn't noticed before, but this movie was the first film that employed an incredibly bad formula of "filling the first half of the movie with gratuitous T&A, and the second half with gratuitous gore."  I don't know about you, but I prefer my horror and gore to be consistent throughout a movie, or at least if it's going to build up to something, don't bore me in the first half of the movie.  What made this movie incredibly offensive is that I liked the concept, it just failed miserably in execution.

7. Reign of Fire

Reign of Crap is more like it (OK, that was a cheap shot, but if you've seen this movie, you know it's deserved).  I don't know what I was  thinking.  Dragons awaken an invade the earth in the near future, causing humanity to retreat into hiding, and Matthew McConaughey comes to save the day.  Christian Bale has been in so many good movies, I guess the law of averages requires that he make a stinker every once in a while but... c'mon.  McConaughey, of course, gets shirtless (I believe it's part of his standard contract), and the movie just gets pretty ridiculous after a while.  Granted, I take responsibility for having bought it (even if I only paid $3.00 for it).  Let's just move on.

6. Bug

"From the Director of The Exorcist"

I'm listening....

"Starring Ashley Judd"

Sold.

"and Harry Connick, Jr."

Ummm...

"Based on a play by ..."

Cancelled.

I should have done more research on this film, and learned that it was a stage play that had been (barely) adapted for the screen.  There's only seven actors in the whole film, and you only get to see six of them.  I expected it to be a lot like the story in Creepshow where a Howard Hughes-esque mysophobic millionaire isolates himself in a clean room, only to have his apartment infested with bugs.  Bug, however, plays like a straight-to-Lifetime drama about a woman who's escaped her abusive husband (recently released from prison, of course), and finds her savior in a guy who might not be as wonderful as he seems.  I made my wife, her brother, and his wife sit through this drivel, and I think they still hold it against me.