Horror Movies Which Make You Scream and Run... for all the wrong reasons

Inspired by the epically awesome horror movie thread, here's one for the epically awful horror movies. There are way too many of them, but a couple stand out in particular to me.

The Blair Witch Project. OMFG What a piece of utter CRAP. Shaky camerawork, whatever, I can put up with that. Utter stupidity on the part of the protagonists? Yeah... no. I do get horror movie cliches, but this was just pure idiocy. I wanted to reach through and slap Mike when he screamed he kicked the map into the river. Oh, and crossing that stream 80 bagillion times and not thinking about following that bad boy downstream to the coast? NO. NO NO NO NO NO. Maybe it's because I live in a rural area and I'm not really scared of the woods (not that we have any around here), or maybe it's because, I don't know... I have common sense? Whichever it is, this movie just pissed me off. And not seeing the witch at the end? The final cheat. Hell, I liked the crappeh SEQUEL better than this POS.

Silent Hill. OH GOD. Horrible. An insult to the game, and the producers couldn't make up their minds if they wanted a man in the movie or not. In the original video game, it was a guy looking for his daughter. Then, they changed it to a mom. Fine, whatev. Then, they decided "Hm, there's too many women in this movie--let's add Sean Bean!" Wut. *sigh* And the nurses... and pyramid head. Yah, I like pyramid head too, but didn't he show up in Silent Hill 2? This was almost as bad as...

Ghost Ship. ARRRRGH! I love Gabriel Bryne, but he insists on being in as many crappeh movies as he possible can. The plot really didn't make sense, and while the special effects were decent, the crew were just as stupid as fucking possible. It seemed a blend of as many horror movie cliches as they could stick together. The only thing that was missing was half-naked teenagers running around.

Exorcist II: The Heretic: Hands down the worst sequel ever made, one of the worst horror films ever made, just one of the worst films ever made, period. Takes everything that made the first film the classic that it is and pukes all over it (pun intended). We get treated to some incomprehensible mish-mash involving Father Merrin, Africa, locusts, Richard Burton having random spaz attacks and the Nut 'O Fun*.

*Nut 'O Fun--a term created by Jabootu.com while reviewing this film, which describes any prop or object meant solely as set dressing, but which is so interesting as to provide a much needed distraction from the film. In this case the Nut 'O Fun is a big hexagon-shaped wheel the children at the hospital play with.

Cabin Fever: a bunch of oversexed, foul-mouthed college kids rent a cabin and battle a flesh-eating virus. After ten minutes with those asshats, you're routing for the virus to melt them into puddles of goo so they'll shut the fuck up already.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch: Has nothing to do with Michael Myers and everything to do with some lunatic out to kill all the children in America with Halloween masks. No, really. The damn Silver Shamrock jingle will be stuck in your head for weeks.

Alone in the Dark: Tara Reid as an archaeologist. Ha haha HA ha ha HA HA!!!

The Ring 2 - The US remake, of course, which makes even less sense than the Japanese sequel. One of the biggest WTF?! parts of the film was the deer attack. Seriously, it had a flimsy tie-in to the plot at best, and worst of all it was so out of place for this sort of film destroyed your attention.

And, although I've never seen it for fear of going braindead, Piñata: Survival Island. I've heard waaaaay too much about it and nothing is good. Oh, and can't forget Shakes vs Plates. I saw the end fight and... what. the. hell. In fact, I'll share it with you.

I like the Blair Witch Project. :hmm:

Here's a movie with great potential that stumbles on bad acting and slow pacing throughout the entire movie: The Poughkeepsie Tapes. Possibly never released to a theater near you!

This movie's been in release limbo for two or three years, but the premise and rather disturbing trailer caught my eye. It's a fake documentary not unlike one you'd see on a crime network on TV about a killer who videotaped his murders and tortures. The crime scene and crime expert opinions are interspersed with video footage from the killer, who soon takes on an unwilling apprentice.

However unconvincing acting (from the police and from the killer when he's "in costume", the killer is actually pretty creepy), boring bits with the crime people, and a camera that's TOO bad knocks the movie down to mediocre/crap. Watch it yourself and see what you think.

I liked The Blair Witch Project, mainly because it created enough subtle dread throughout that the ending freaked me right the hell out - both in the theaters and later that night. It was like "weird, weird, isolation, people upset, OMG HOUSE WRITING HANDPRINTS can't sleep offscreen witch will eat me".

Silent Hill was utter garbage. It didn't even scare my mom, who freaks out when an actor jumps around the corner at her in a haunted house. And it didn't scare me, although I could barely stand to watch a friend play through the sewers in the first game.

Dead Silence had a reasonable premise, downright freaky intro, and utter failure thereafter. Many of the characters (including the hero) lacked any concept of common sense or self-preservation, and the setting was some laughable town that came off like live action Scooby-Doo. The big plot twist made me LOLWUT for all the wrong reasons.

Spoiler:

Vampire Assassin. It looks like some people taped themselves LARPing. Badly. It was so bad it failed to be even funny. My husband and I actually like bad horror flicks for the humor value. We got not even twenty minutes into Vampire Assassin and had to turn it off.

I liked Silent Hill. Mainly because of that awesome skinning PH performed on the nude chick.

Troll 2. So bad, it was worthy of a Rifftrax featuring none other than the owner of Something Awful, Rich Kyanka!

I loved Silent Hill. It was a bloated and plotless movie, but buried within it was about ten minutes of pure awesomeness. It wasn't a good representation of Silent Hill, however. A better title would probably be Pyramid Head Harasses Lesbians or Hellraiser 9.

Cursed. I know it's supposed to be campy, but hideous CG werewolves (some of whom are supermodels) who emit pheromones that turn people gay? It feels like a fanfiction made into a movie.

All the Hellraiser sequels (except Hellraiser: Inferno, which was mediocre but not horrible). They have blurred together in my mind at the moment, but I remember that Pinhead terrorized a spaceship, there was an evil MMO, there was a cenobite who shot CDs out of his head, and Kirsty Cotton became evil.

I have no desire to see Silent Hill, but when I'm reminded of it, I always think of this.

WTF Shakes vs. Plates? That was Warwick Davis. I am so sad now.

The Grudge made me yawn and say "Wake me when something scary happens." Is the original Japanese any better.

Oh, and that TV remake of The Shining. That guy from Wings just isn't as scary as Jack Nicholson.

Melissa wrote:

The Grudge made me yawn and say "Wake me when something scary happens." Is the original Japanese any better.

I watched the original before the remake came out. I spent most of the movie going, "What the fuck is going on???"

SokMunkie wrote:

Melissa wrote:

The Grudge made me yawn and say "Wake me when something scary happens." Is the original Japanese any better.

I watched the original before the remake came out. I spent most of the movie going, "What the fuck is going on???"

Japanese horror which touch on mysticism (as both Ju-On and Ringu do, The Grudge and The Ring for us Americans) are hard to appreciate without some knowledge of Japanese myths and legends. A little bit goes a long way, more so for Ringu--which touches on the subject of Japanese demons, or onis, as it was hinted at that Sadakao's mother "went away" for a while and came back with a child. That's a pretty common theme in some Japanese myths, indicating that she may have bartered with some demonic entity to have a kid. Hinted at, anyway, and I found the reference interesting.

I found both to be enjoyable, though, if a little hard to follow at times.

EDIT: Some clarification.

Ayakashi: Japanese Horror Stories just left me scratching my head*. Maybe I don't have the right appreciation of Japanese myths, but I would classify them all as tragedy, not horror.

*This does not include the last arc, Bake Neko. That and its spin-off series Mononoke were *awesome*. Not really horror either, but very well done mood pieces.

Japanese horror movies have a way of storytelling all on their own. It usually takes a second viewing to be able to interpret what's going on - although that sorta ruins the atmosphere.

What most J-horror movies tend to do is hint at things very subtly, or very quickly. It's different from western horror movies because they tend to over-state and dwell too long on the obvious (which is why a lot of those sorts of movies resort to the cheap jump-and-scare tactic). The plot in J-horror movies seem to jump around quite a bit too which makes it even harder to keep up. Tie that in with hints done by people talking in the background, or objects momentarily popping up, it can make for a confusing movie to keep up with. It takes a while to get used to those sorts of movies, and a bit of reading on Japanese mythology and basic culture.

Raine wrote:

Oh, and can't forget Shakes vs Plates. I saw the end fight and... what. the. hell. In fact, I'll share it with you.

That only BEGINS to touch on how godawful and WTF-inducing that movie was. It doesn't include the hydrocephalic-is-understating-it guy daydreaming about skipping down main street buck naked (and we are shown EVERYTHING), his head getting cracked open and stop-motion baby blocks spelling out "LOVE" tumbling out (they spell out "HATE" when the lead steps on them), and the lead vomiting ON THE CAMERA (my sister had to stop the movie while I had a Moment). But yeah, Plates was pretty fuckin' inexplicable too.

I think I posted about this extensively on the House, but The Killer Tongue. Just...The Killer Tongue. It makes even less sense in-context, believe me.

I GIVE YOU THE GINGERDEAD MAN. I would watch this movie.

InkWeaver wrote:

I GIVE YOU THE GINGERDEAD MAN. I would watch this movie.

And in a similar vein, Pinocchio's Revenge. Oh Lordy Lou that movie sucked balls.

Plus the obligatory snowman rape scene. Cyberwulf, start your raging.


Speaking of rape scenes, one of the more uncomfortable snark moments I've had came from watching a baseball-themed horror movie I've unfortunately forgotten the name of. One of the characters, a hitter, had written "WILL YOU MARRY ME" on a baseball bat that he was going to show to his fiancee as his proposal. Cue zombie player attacking him with the baseball bat in a nice display of irony. Then the camera angle switches so you can see the guy bent over a table, screaming, and not much else. My sister and I promptly start making jokes about how the zombie is shoving the baseball bat up the dude's ass.

He actually was.

Guess everyone gets to be a pitcher for a day...

Miraba wrote:

Ayakashi: Japanese Horror Stories just left me scratching my head*. Maybe I don't have the right appreciation of Japanese myths, but I would classify them all as tragedy, not horror.

Your appreciation of Japanese myths isn't at fault so much as deceptive marketing is. The Japanese name of the series doesn't have the word "horror" in it; "strange stories" or "mysterious stories" is a far better translation.

InkWeaver wrote:

I GIVE YOU THE GINGERDEAD MAN. I would watch this movie.

I wouldn't. I'd avoid it at all costs.

I watched Stay Alive on the recommendation of a few friends, who I always forget have horrible taste in films and literature. It's about a video game featuring Elizabeth Bathory, and anyone who dies in the game is killed in the same way in real life. Except it throws that out the window less than halfway through. Characters begin dying even when they aren't playing the game because the game has started playing itself you guys. Whatever. Not only that, the film claims that Elizabeth Bathory lived in a mansion on a plantation in Lousiana - conveniently near where the protaganists live. Yeah, I'm sure the Countess of Hungary was totally running around New Orleans. There's a lot about Elizabeth Bathory that's horribly mangled, but that was the last straw for me. Seriously, don't watch this shit unless you want a huge headache.

Just... Humpty Dumpty.

Shrooms.

It's so unbearably, inexorably dull. Some teenagers go to Ireland to trip out on mushrooms. They get killed off after some girl eats a Death's Cap mushroom and nearly dies.

It's so damn predictable.

Quote :

The Ring 2 - The US remake, of course,
which makes even less sense than the Japanese sequel. One of the
biggest WTF?! parts of the film was the deer attack. Seriously, it had
a flimsy tie-in to the plot at best, and worst of all it was so out of
place for this sort of film destroyed your attention.

I also loathed the first Ring. I can't get over the stupidity of a cursed VHS tape. In the American version, the stupid video was right and center of the story, while Ringu is foreign enough for me to ignore the glaring idiocy. I give Ringu a pass because it was atmospheric, but that wasn't that scary either.

I nominate The Happening: Is it horror? Is it sci-fi? Is it comedy? Is it Nicholas Cage being a dick? Is it the Christianity parallel that came out of nowhere? Is it the fact that a Christian friend who watched it with me started babbling about 'Jesus story being timeless' when the aliens/angels in the movie were cleary assholes? I. don't. know.

Anyway, the group with me was clearly jumping in their seats, and they're a smart lot, so WTF. It could be me, however... I don't scare easily. The only time I jumped out of my seat was when I tumbled on a zombie while playing Resident Evil, even then, I greeted him with a hail of bullets.

30 Days of Night--A grim, depressing, endless bloodbath. Blech! Where's Christopher Lee when you need him?