A reader, David, asks, simply:
“What is the worst movie you’ve ever seen?”
Thank you for the question, David. It’s a good one.
In general, I try not to think too much in terms of negatives, or about bad movie experiences. I like to focus on movies that I admire instead.
In my opinion, the “worst movies” are not necessarily the most incompetent ones, but rather the ones that seem most cynical or calculated, or are aggressively unpleasant to watch in some way.
For example, I can watch Ed Wood’s movies and note their general ineptitude while also seeing that there was, at least, some enthusiasm and imagination involved in the making of them. That enthusiasm goes a long way with me.
I think the most unpleasant (and most unnecessary) movie I’ve ever watched -- and thus the worst -- is the remake of Carnival of Souls (1998). I tagged it as the worst horror movie remake “so far” in a blog post I wrote in October of 2009, and I don’t think I’ve seen a movie since then that beats it out in terms of rank unpleasantness.
In addition to being hideously unpleasant, the film doesn’t even bother to credit the original film’s writer, John Clifford, and it substitutes the great ideas of the original 1960 film with some pretty lousy new ones. There’s also a totally gratuitous and ridiculous sex scene in the third act (with an angel, no less), and that scene, along with others, suggests to me the film was aiming low. The Carnival of Souls remake is ineptly staged, and every other line of dialogue is a sentimental New Age platitude. This is a remake-in-name-only kind of film too, cynically grabbing a (moderately) well-known horror genre property and then mining it for brand identification, but with no real narrative or thematic value of its own.
If I never, ever, have to watch Carnival of Souls (1998) again, I’ll be one happy camper.
Don’t forget to ask me your questions at Muirbusiness@yahoo.com
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