These are movies that are so bad you killed them (had to turn them off or leave the theater because you could not stand to watch them any more). I'm pretty tolerant and have a high pain threshold. I can generally watch even really bad movies (like Lifetime channel ones). Either I'll mentally ridicule it and amuse myself that way or I'll just use it as a two hour brain nap. But even with my inhuman resistance there are movies that I simply could not finish watching.

I want to work up a list of these killer movies, sort of a "worst of" list. I'll start it off with one of mine and then y'all pile in on the comments and I'll update the list periodically. No rules except you must literally have walked out on it or turned it off, never to return to it again. Let's keep it limited to first run movies too. If it was direct to video even the distributors knew it was lousy. Give some sort of clue why it was so bad, too.

The List of Killer Movies:

About Schmidt (Trey): I hate him for peeing on the floor. I hate him for making me see those huge, gross boobies. I hate this movie because like Eyes Wide Shut it is boring, except instead of being about walking, this movie is about driving, which is just as boring. At least it's day time.

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (Mark): As if watching Jim Carrey talk through his butt wasn't enough, there's a truly excreble love scene with "In The Jungle" in the background. My brother and I, though only having paid a dollar to witness this cinematic treat, raced each other to the car after that.

Battlefield Earth (Ilyka): My boyfriend rented it as an exercise in masochism. Turns out he's a much bigger masochist than I am, because he made it all the way through and I had to quit at about 45 minutes.

Blood Work (Trey): This is a movie about how some women really just want to have sex with really old, gross, wrinkly men. That's their business, but it should have been on the poster so that I would know to avoid it. Also, there is some boring talking. I swear I saw a boom mike come into the frame a couple of times. Oh, and there's a kid that stands as a good argument for abortion.

Cabin Fever (Trey): Ok. I take it back about there being an exciting movie about flesh-eating bacteria. This movie has that and it's just dumb. Dumb + about 75 million gallons of fake blood. It's a movie about how movies sometimes don't have any relationship at all with reality. The only good thing about this movie is that it's the movie TGD and I watched on our first date.

Eyes Wide Shut (Trey): This is a movie about walking. Tom Cruise is a good walker especially after dark. It was almost a movie about Nicole Kidman's Heiney, but it doesn't show up enough to make it worth watching. There are some other naked people, too, but they also do not outwiegh the apparent vast importance this movie places on walking. And also some talking about boring things. [ED - This one's on my list too. It's a terribly serious movie too. I turned it off when I realized I was waiting for a crying clown to appear.]

Farewell my Concubine (Simon): Had me wishing I was in a room with someone actually draggin their fingernails down a blackboard. Not only did my girlfriend at the time and I walk out, it was so bad it put paid to any chance of sex that night. Damn that movie.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (Me): Yeah, the definitive 'guy' movie was so bad I turned it off. It was shortly after Lee VanCleef's character beat some information out of a whore that I realized that this movie just flat out sucked. The dialog is too over the top to survive even the suspension of disbelief rule. The characters are so universally reprehensible that I was hoping for a three way shootout with no survivors. The dubbing and sound effects were unbelievably bad. There was at least a half-second difference between the video track and sound tracks and that gave it the feel of a Japanese monster flick. There were no sounds except dialog and guns and an occasional door. Just a horrific train wreck of a movie overall.

Insomnia (Trey): Insomnia is not an exciting affliction. Name a movie "Flesh-eating bacteria" and then you can talk excitement, of course, the movie would be much shorter than Insomnia, which if the movie IS insomnia wouldn't be a bad thing. Robin Williams isn't scary like Hannibal Lector. He's scary like Chester the Molester and that's also not good. I don't think there's a likable person in the whole movie. I want them all to die.

It's Pat (Emma): Proof that Hollywood hasn't had an original idea since 1940 and that not all SNL skit rip-offs are a good idea. Horrific.

Johnny English (Me): It was so trite, juvenile, predictable and plain not funny that even the promise of Natalie Imbruglia in tight cleavage-revealing outfits could not entice me to endure it.

Lost in Space (LeeAnn): Such horrendously "written by the sappy woman at the end of the assembly line" Hallmark dialogue that even Gary Oldman couldn't save it. One of the few movies I've walked out on.

Lost in Translation (Trey): This is movie about an old and not very funny man who fancies himself to be either not as old as he is or way older than he is and definitely more funny than he is. And he stays up late at night. This movie should be stopped after the "Lip my stocking, Mr. Hallis" scene. Again, boring.

Meet Joe Black (Harvey): Beloved Wife & I figured it ought to be good, what with Anthony Hopkins. Bleah! Bad dialogue, turtle-paced-plot, a lot of blank expressions, and conversations that did nothing to advance the plot or story. I think we lasted half an hour.

Naked Lunch (Me): I only rented this because it starred Peter Weller. If Robocop was the star it had to be good, right? Oh man was I shocked when I discovered it was actually a porn/snuff flick featuring a lunatic fucking a typewriter. This one got turned off the first time Gizmak the Typer licked itself clean with its twelve inch tongue.

Passion of the Christ, The (Helen): I had thought it would be inspired, but instead it was like watching defrost meat get whipped on a kitchen counter. Dude, can you say "gratuitous"?

Punchdrunk Love (Trey): This is a movie about what if Adam Sandler were just a smidge more retarded than he already is and is still able to convince a pretty lady to put up with him for more than five seconds. If I were Adam Sandler in this movie, I wouldn't be retarded, but I just might kill everyone I know with a tire iron or a steak knife.

Scream (Mark): I also made my friends get up and leave the theater after the beginning of Scream (when the girl gets her throat slashed and can't scream to her parents) because I realized I could no longer stomache slasher films. We saw Beavis and Butthead Do America and had (at least I did, and I'm not much of a fan of Beavis and Butthead) a grand ole time.

Seabiscuit (Ilyka): I probably could have stayed with it if I'd tried harder. As it was I was mocking the condescending narration a lot: "Now y'see, back in the 1930s was a time known as the Great Depression, because it was very depressing not being able to find 'nuff to eat. But it was Great if you were rich." But I cracked and we walked out of the theater halfway through.

Starsky & Hutch (Susie): I think it was the first movie I literally walked out of the theater on since The Man Who Fell to Earth. Thank God it was playing at my theater and I hadn't paid anything to get in. The absolute bottom-scraping of "let's turn old tv shows into movies between making remakes and sequels because thinking is hard" school of film making.

Touch of Evil (Ilyka): One of mine is one which repeatedly makes the "best" lists by people who know far, far more about the art of filmmaking than I do: Touch of Evil. Couldn't watch the damn thing. Couldn't take Orson Welles' mumbling. Couldn't buy Charlton Heston (yes, Charlton Heston) as a Mexican. Couldn't stand the female lead. Couldn't even follow what was going on because, oh my God, did I mention the mumbling? So I guess I have no taste in cinema.

Toxic Avenger, The (Clancy): I remember being in the video store with my (then) girlfriend and looking at the (then) old campy movie section. A guy stranding next to me said, “Hey Pal, watch this one. I just say it and it was good.” So we took it home. And had to kill it about 30 minutes in. I still wonder about that stranger. Did he really think it was good, or is he still laughing?

Truth or Dare (Dopple-G): It was all about girlfriend secrets and stuff like that. I was really looking for tits and ass - you know, spank material - and this was targetted for girls and homosexual guys.

Posted by: Jim at 05:33 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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