One tier above the Worst Films of the Year, we find our decidedly bad movies that still have their occasional moments of entertainment sprinkled throughout. Which is why this bad but not terrible tier is named after SNL C-lister, Chris Kattan.
#89. Aftersun
This may be a little too low on the list but honestly, I'm just so tired of this kind of slow-burn arthouse tragedy porn. It's such a bore watching silhouettes sob in the reflection of a big box television playing glitchy digital home videos. The asymmetrical "artsy" still shots of Polaroid photos developing, the ham-fisted rendition of "Under Pressure" bellowing "This is our last dance" over and over as the father/daughter centerpiece of the film dance together; it's all just too much. And yet not enough. Paul Mescal and Fankie Corio are fine but there performances and characters here are not enough to anchor an entire film around. It's frustratingly uneventful and the karaoke scene butchering R.E.M. is downright criminal. I'm frankly stunned that critics are praising this as one of the best films of the year when it's such an utterly disposable sympathy play. And ***SPOILER ALERT*** everything this movie does, The Whale does better.
#88. Bullet Train
I was all in on John Wick co-director David Leitch giving Brad Pitt a massive summer blockbuster to reignite his post Brangelina career but Bullet Train just takes way too long to leave the station. I was hoping for a big dumb, relentless action movie and what I got was way too much uncompelling exposition with way too many flashbacks. It's like Leitch was trying to make his own Kill Bill but this can't even measure up to John Wick. Pitt can't sell the hand to hand combat scenes like Keanu does which leaves the biggest action sequence in the film as a massively phony CGI train crash. Which is almost as uninspired as the contrived Thomas the Tank Engine bit Brian Tyree Henry is handcuffed to. As much as I liked Atomic Blonde and disliked John Wick: Chapter 2, I think my opinions of David Leitch and John Wick co-director Chad Stahelski have reversed as their careers have progressed. Leitch seems in over his head with Hobbs and Shaw, Deadpool 2 and Bullet Train while Stahelski has only improved his ability to deliver break-neck mindless action thrill-rides.
#87. I Want You Back
As much as I love Charlie Day and Jenny Slate, it feels like they should be getting better movies than this by now. But I guess I never realized that these two have been on the brink of breakout success for close to a decade and formulaic rom-com fare like this isn't pushing them any closer to breaking through as feature film headliners. Big Time Adolescence director Jason Orley has a tough time managing the confused tone of combining genuine sentiment with a revenge comedy but the primary issue here is the predictable plot that anybody could piece together by simply looking at the film's poster. We've seen this a million times before so try as they may, Slate and Day cannot salvage this exercise in futility.
#86. Smile
With all of the great low-budget, independent horror films popping up in 2022, I'm stunned that this was the one that achieved the biggest box office success. Not that it's terrible, it's just much worse than the majority of it's peers. There are so many unintentionally funny moments with the ridiculous smiles and onslaught of jump scares that even though it postures as a deeper interpretation for mental health, the story itself plays out like a series of motivational facebook memes tossed into a cheap Final Destination survival horror flick. However, the sound design and original score by Cristobal Tapia de Veer is among the best of the year. As highly flawed as everything else is in the film is, this thing sounds impeccable.
#85. The Good Nurse
You would think that a "based on a true story" depiction of a sociopath, rogue nurse intentionally overdosing numerous unsuspecting and helpless patients would be a lot more riveting than this. It honestly sounds horrific. But unfortunately there's nothing to really gain from watching this story unfold outside of reassuring yourself that Eddie Redmayne can act his ass off when he's not contractually obligated to capture Fantastic Beasts. His unbelievably creepy performance is chilling and the tension he brings to each scene he inhabits is the only suspense this film provides. Everything else plays out painfully slow and predictably.
#84. Bones and All
To say Bones and All misses the mark implies that it even had a target in mind, which there is very little evidence of. Taylor Russell is incredibly flat as the lead, Mark Rylance is uncharacteristically corny and for the first time EVER - I found myself actively disliking a Trent Reznor / Atticus Ross score. The tone is so lost and bizarre that it feels like every piece of this film is pulling in a different direction. Was this whole thing made just for the irony of Timothee Chalamet re-teaming with his Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino making a movie about cannibals (which Timothee's Call Me By Your Name co-star, Armie Hammer, is reported to be IRL)? To try and make a Twilight-style dark romance with cannibals instead of vampires? To get Timothee Chalamet to inexplicably belt out "Lick It Up" by Kiss? I don't know. Other than Michael Stuhlbarg's stirring performance and some compelling photography during a road trip montage; not much of this movie worked and none of it seemed to have a purpose.
#83. Studio 666
Anyone who's followed the Foo Fighters or their spectacular music videos over the years knows that Dave Grohl has always had a theatrical side but I'm not sure anyone ever expected him to develop his own feature length horror-comedy. And while Dave obviously thrives in the comedic areas of this movie (although his bandmates struggle to keep up); the cheap CGI, bloated runtime and slow pacing hinder the horror elements quite considerably. But even though I didn't love it, there was part of me that enjoyed seeing the band's not so subtle nods to Evil Dead (even though they did it better in the "Everlong" video) and Dave's infatuation with getting the perfect drum sound driving the story along. And the film was certainly more entertaining than what their actual 10th album turned out to be in "Medicine at Midnight". In fact, I wish that record sounded more like the fictional "Dream Widow" that demonic Dave Grohl starts working on in the film.
#82. Scream
I've never been a huge fan of the Scream series. If I'm looking for a scary movie satire, I'd prefer - well, Scary Movie. But I did enjoy the way Scream 4 picked apart remakes and reboots so I was open to seeing what this latest entry had to say about elevated horror and legacy sequels. But unfortunately the Prescott family melodrama and layers of meta self-involvement weigh this film down beyond recovery. There are some gruesome kills and spectacular breakout performances from Jack Quaid and Jasmin Savoy Brown but for the most part, this is just another Scream movie that prioritizes flexing for it's audience how smart it is rather than just entertaining them. Cool to see them go back to the house from the original though. Hopefully the inevitable sequel is worthwhile but so far the Scream franchise batting average isn't great so I'm not holding my breath...
Check Out Our List of the Best Horror Sequels of All Time Here.
#81. The Black Phone
Director Scott Derrickson re-teams with his Sinister leading man Ethan Hawke for this peculiar coming of age abduction thriller. Yeah that's a weird fucking genre, huh? Anyways, Mason Thames and Ethan Hawke deliver spectacular performances here but the story itself just drags on at a snail's pace with our protagonist spending the majority of the film locked in a basement with his psychic visions. The supernatural elements just don't gel with the gritty realism of Ethan Hawke's black balloon wielding "Grabber" and the dirty 1970's setting. The whole thing seems to be relying way too heavily on shocking imagery, with very little story to invest in. And why the fuck does a child abductor leave a phone in the basement with the kids he snatches? And how doesn't "The Grabber" hear the kid bashing a toilet lid through a concrete basement wall? And how doesn't that toilet lid break? Whatever, I'm over it. Just please don't make a sequel.
#80. Jerry and Marge Go Large
This quirky, feel-good PG-13 comedy feels like a bygone artifact from the early 2000's. And not just because of it's horribly dated score. But it's the kind of "inspired by a true story" premise that doesn't have much depth beyond the anecdotal headline appeal of a retiree using a loophole in the lottery to try and help his struggling, small town Michigan stomping grounds. And as charming a venture as Bryan Cranston and Annette Benning make it, you can never really shake the disheartening feeling that these two should be working on better projects than this. But it's fairly harmless, even if the story doesn't really go anywhere except for some cliche, villainous, know-it-all college kids coming in and threatening the whole enterprise. But again, it's not a terrible way to kill a lazy afternoon.
#79. Texas Chainsaw Massacre
The latest attempt to revitalize the Texas Chainsaw Massacre "franchise" (this being the 5th film in the series over the last 20 years) does it's best to conjure up a legacy sequel in the vein of the 2018 Halloween re-qeul but honestly, it's hard to make a legacy sequel around a series without much of a legacy. Especially when you have to re-cast your returning final girl. But the film has plenty of other failings as well - most notably the fact that it needlessly leans on political topics like late capitalism, gentrification, and school shootings to prop up what little plot there is while saying absolutely nothing about any of the hot button issues the film unnecessarily drudges up. Worst of which being when Leatherface corners a school bus full of kids who all simultaneously pull out their phones to record him, with one victim at the head of the pack even spouting "try anything, you're cancelled bro". Jesus fucking Christ... It's not the worst film in the series but without the foreboding atmosphere of the isolated farmhouse setting and Leatherface as the only member of the deranged family even in the film, it definitely continues the tradition of disappointing sequels failing to recapture the magic of the original.
#78. Empire of Light
Much like last year's Belfast or this year's The Fabelmans, Empire of Light is director Sam Mendes' love letter to cinema and a more indirect point of origin as to where it seemingly left an imprint on how impactful the medium can be. But even Spielberg collaborated with a co-writer to tell his origin story and watching Empire of Light, it's painfully obvious why Mendes' best work has been written by someone else. But on the plus side, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross deliver a brilliant score and Olivia Colman is absolutely remarkable. She's one of our best performers out there and has elevated every film she's been a part of over the past several years. Her performance exudes a subtle rage boiling beneath her mundane surface appearance that evokes more intrigue in itself than anything the plot throws at you. In other words, she carries this fucking movie like a champ.
#77. Prey
I wonder how different the Predator franchise might have turned out had 20th Century Fox ponied up the money to get Arnold Schwarzenegger back for Predator 2? As it stands, the follow ups to John McTiernan's extraordinary original have been varying shades of disappointment. And with the bar set so low by 3 lackluster sequels and 2 xenomorph injected crossover events, everyone seems to be praising this unexpected approach to pitting the alien super-hunter against a teenage Comanche woman in a period piece. But for me this sequel lacked the horrific tension, over the top action sequences and jocular ensemble chemistry of the original. Just a bunch of bad CGI animals and cheeky, nonsensical call-backs. And how the hell is one puny little native american girl supposed to take down this technologically advanced Predator? I mean, I guess you had to have some pretty impressive hunting skills to survive in that environment but the film did a really poor job of convincing me she could take this thing down in her first hunt. Especially with that lame ending. The other follow ups in the series were far from perfect but in my opinion, Prey is the worst of the bunch.
#76. Clerks III
I really didn't think Kevin Smith would return to the Quick Stop again unless he had a truly fitting addition to the lore of Dante and Randall. But so much of this movie not only re-purposes the same jokes from the original Clerks in a kind of referential scavenger hunt (not so much hiding Easter eggs as much as it smashes them down your throat) - but the entire premise of the film revolves around Randall recreating the original Clerks, scene by scene, in a wholly different kind of nerdy self-involvement for Smith. Especially when the creation of Clerks has already been tackled ad nauseam through Smith's various stand-up symposiums, a feature length documentary in 2019's Shooting Clerks, and fairly similarly in his own 2008 feature Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Which is all to say, this comes off incredibly lazy and stale. Outside of the barrage of fan service, Elias' transformation may be the lone bright spot of the film. Especially with the jarring way things end, which feels like an incredibly sloppy and unearned attempt at wringing emotion out of a threequel that hasn't really earned it. Dante, Randall, and even Jay and Silent Bob deserved a better ending than this. And don't even get me started on how they treated Rosario Dawson's Becky...
Check out our list of Every Kevin Smith Movie Ranked from Best to Worst Here.
#75. Noecebo
2020's Vivarium wasn't a perfect film by any means but the phenomenal script was promising enough for me to seek out director Lorcan Finnegan's next picture. Unfortunately though, he didn't have a hand in writing this one and boy does it show. From the laughably contentious bed making scene to the way Eva Green's pain is tickled away, the expository build up here is quite the chore to get through and requires far too much suspension of disbelief to really work. Even if the finale is kind of beautifully twisted, the journey to get there is undeniably treacherous. And this definitely deserves being thrown into the conversation for worst titles for a movie in 2022. Hopefully Lorcan can rebound with his next outing because I was really hoping for a leap forward here and instead found the director taking a big step backwards.
#74. Crimes of the Future
David Cronenberg's long awaited return to sci-fi infused body horror is as unapologetically bizarre as you might expect it to be. And even though it has some interesting things to say about the dystopian, not so distant future evolution of technology and art; it says them in a rather uninteresting fashion. It's incredibly slow and full of uber-awkward performances (which to no surprise, Kristen Stewart excells at); but overall it just feels utterly underwhelming. It's as drab and morbid to sit through as one of Saul Tenser's surgical performance pieces. The opening with the kid eating a plastic trash can was definitely memorable though.
#73. Pinocchio
It may be a bit unfair to expect knock-out visual aesthetic from everything Guillermo Del Toro is attached to but this animated interpretation of Pinocchio looks like a bad Laika knock-off and without his name plastered all over the promotional materials, you'd never know Del Toro was involved simply from looking at it. With all of the unfinished passion projects Del Toro has been rumored to be developing over the years, it's beyond disappointing that this is the one he brought to fruition. The expanded scale of the story is handled incredibly clumsily, the character interpretations are uninspired, the musical sequences add absolutely nothing to the proceedings and the entire ensemble cast (including Cricket and Pinocchio himself) are incredibly unlikable.
#72. Don't Worry Darling
I really hope Jason Suedekis directs a Disaster Artist style, behind the scenes "making of" comedy about whatever the hell happened with the production of this movie. But separating the actual film from all of the gossipy bullshit that made this one of the most talked about movies of 2022, the final product was pretty lousy. The script is full of so many holes that try as she might, director Olivia Wilde's forced messaging of a feminist uprising to unplug from the patriarchy-Matrix can't make up for the feeling that you're watching a third rate Black Mirror episode stretched out into a feature film. But the production value is exquisite and Florence Pugh really does her best to sell this dud, even when everything around her fails to do so.
Listen to our Extended Conversation on Don't Worry Darling Here.
#71. Dual
Writer/Director Riley Stearns really blew me away with his breakout 2019 feature The Art of Self-Defense, so I've been anxiously waiting for his follow up. But this was frustratingly anti-climatic and impersonal. The premise of having to fight your own clone to the death is intriguing enough but there's so very little exploration of it that's hard to feel anything but let down by how much Stearns seems to focus on the least interesting parts of his story. Karen Gillan and Aaron Paul are given absolutely nothing to work with in terms of character here, which is stunning given how much time you spend specifically with Gillan. It's seems that she's written intentionally droll, as to imply a mystery around whether or not she's actually the clone, but with her as the central focus for the entire film it really just leaves you with an unshakable feeling of indifference.
#70. Bardo: False Chronicles of a Handful of Truths
Another director I've been anxiously awaiting to unveil his next project is Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. With the back to back tandem of Birdman and The Revenant, in my opinion, the man declared himself the best living director working today. But this brazenly bizarre, pseudo-autobiographical exploration of a filmmaker trying to balance his career success while honoring his cultural heritage is highly ambitious but deeply flawed. The erratic narrative; attempting to string together Mexico's muddled history with puzzling CGI sequences of a newborn baby being shoved back inside of it's mother, a weirdly unnecessary dance sequence, and the shadow of a man running through the desert and repeatedly leaping into the air just feel like a series of aimless short film concepts that don't really connect. The cinematography and visual appeal here are grandiose but the story leaves you feeling like Alejandro is grasping at something meaningful to say and never finds his grip.
#69. Dog
Channing Tatum returns with this overly sentimental clap-trap that feels kind of like a feel good chick flick (can we still say that in 2022?) aimed at emasculated meat heads. It's always an easy win with your audience to pair a hunky leading man with an animal or child counterpart but toss in the military based origin story and this is just begging for easy emotional adornment. And while Tatum mostly succeeds in being a charming enough leading man to make this movie work, the story deals with some fairly sensitive subject matter a little too flippantly for my taste. Particularly the bit where Lulu the military dog chases down an innocent middle-eastern hotel guest due solely to his appearance. It's framed as a comedic moment but the implications of military training leaving this animal to believe anyone in middle-eastern attire is a threat left me feeling really uncomfortable.
#68. Uncharted
As much as I'm looking forward to seeing how an 80 year old Harrison Ford can convincingly bring Indiana Jones back for one last ride into the sunset, I think it's obvious that Indiana Jones can't retain sole ownership over the treasure hunting adventure sub-genre forever. From Tomb Raider to National Treasure, Uncharted is hardly the first attempt to pick up that mantle but with how well developed the Uncharted video game series is I really expected this adaptation to be much better. The casting choices all around are subpar, particularly with Mark Wahlberg playing himself more than he is franchise favorite Sully and Sophia Ali lacking any of the charisma Chloe exudes in the source material. But worst of all is how limited the action sequences are. The biggest set piece is basically spoiled in the trailer and the next most tense moment is set inexplicably in a Papa John's. Definitely the most egregious product placement I've seen in a film in a long time.
Check Out Our List of the Top 10 Video Game Adaptations That Will Probably Never Get Made But Kinda Should Here.
View the Rest of the 2022 Year in Tiers Here:
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