From Jeremy Kibler

There seems to be a stigma against writing “Worst Movies of the Year” list, but with the good, we do have to talk about the bad. We’ll make this short and not so sweet.

10. Meg 2: The Trench

I’m all for a big, dumb, fun shark movie (I rather enjoyed The Meg), but Meg 2: The Trench was a huge bummer. If you came to this place to see beautifully bald zaddy Jason Statham in a wetsuit fending off sea monsters, get ready to wait until the last half hour.

9. Freelance

John Cena and Alison Brie were directed by Taken director Pierre Morel in this lame, perfunctory geopolitical action-comedy. I saw this dud at one of Regal’s Mystery Movies for $5, and once I realized it was Freelance, I only stayed because I’m extremely committed.

8. Maybe I Do

Here’s a reminder that awkward direction and a vapid script can happen to an overqualified cast. I do believe in love, but not even Diane Keaton, Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, Emma Roberts, or William H. Macy can make this beige, annoyingly overwritten romantic dramedy less depressing.

7. Til Death Do Us Part

I loved this movie when it was called Ready or Not, where a bride had to fight for her life. I do admire the stunt work that goes into an action movie, even here, but this interminable genre exercise needed a more emotive lead and a less-terrible script.

6. Sick Girl

Nina Dobrev pretends to have cancer so her friends will hang out with her more in this unintentionally irresponsible, terminally unfunny comedy. See the excellent Norwegian black comedy Sick of Myself instead.

5. Fear

Pandemic horror, so fun. This mid-budget thriller has a promising nugget of idea, but then it’s unevenly acted, poorly paced, visually muddy, and never scary, not even in a lazy jump-scare sort of way.

4. Children of the Corn

Yes, they made another one of these, and whoever asked for it needs to pay. It’s kind of depressing when this 2023 incarnation doesn’t add a darn thing to a long-running horror series that never really rose above mediocre.

3. Last Call for Istanbul

“What is this movie?” you may ask. Well, my parents chose it on Netflix over Thanksgiving, so I have them to thank. It’s a Turkish chance-encounter romance that actually turns out to be something else, and the performances are as stiff as the writing is completely artificial. A true turkey.

2. Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey

Slasher movies can be fun, but this stalk-and-slash take on Christopher Robin’s woodland pals killing a bunch of young women with no real personality and no actual names is incompetent and even misogynistic without being sleazy fun. It’s only 84 minutes, but it felt like an entire day wasted.

1. The Flood

SyFy Channel movies can be a lot of fun when you take them on their own terms, but this isn’t even a SyFy Channel original. Cops and convicts running afoul of alligators in a police station during a raging hurricane should be a total hoot. This was a stunningly dull and inept waste of time.

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