2015 in Review: Lisa’s Picks For The 16 Worst Films Of The Year


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There’s always a little bit of risk involved in making a list of the 16 worst films of the year.  People take movies very seriously and, often times, the crappiest of films will have very passionate (and very ignorant) defenders.  I was reminded of this in November when I wrote my review of The Leisure Class and I discovered that there actually are a few misguided dumbfug toadsuckers who actually enjoyed that movie.

But you know what?  Even with that risk, I always enjoy making out my worst-of-the-year list.  Let’s be honest: stupid people tend to like stupid movies.  And it’s important to point out that stupidity.  Only by pointing it out can we hope to defeat it.  I’m sure that some people will disagree with some of my picks.  After all, people initially disagreed with me when I announced that Man of Steel was the worst film of 2013. However, just 2 years later, most people now realize that I was right.  There were also people who insisted, in 2011, that Another Earth was a great movie.  Again, they now realize that they were wrong and I was right.

So, with all that in mind, here are my picks for the 16 worst films of 2015!  For the most part, 2015 was a pretty good year for cinema.  However, there were still a number of terrible films released and here’s 16 of them.

(Why 16?  Because Lisa doesn’t do odd numbers!)

16) Stockholm, Pennsylvania (dir by Nicholas Beckwith)

15) Aloha (dir by Cameron Crowe)

14) The Lazarus Effect (dir by David Gelb)

13) The Woman In Black 2: The Angel of Death (dir by Tom Harper)

12) The Stranger (dir by Guillermo Amoedo)

11) Get Hard (dir by Etan Coen)

10) Fantastic Four (dir by Josh Trank)

9) War Room (dir by Alex Kendrick)

8) Tommorrowland (dir by Brad Bird)

7) Jenny’s Wedding (dir by Mary Agnes Donoghue)

6) The Gallows (dir by Craig Lofing and Travis Cluff)

5) Tooken (dir by John Asher)

4) The Last House on Cemetery Lane (dir by Andrew Jones)

3) Vacation (dir by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley)

2) The Leisure Class (dir by Jason Mann)

And finally, it’s time to name the worst film of 2015!

And the winner is….

1) Ted 2 (dir by Seth McFarlane)

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(Feel free to also check out my picks for 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014!)

Agree?  Disagree?  Leave a comment and let us know!  And if you disagree, please let me know what movie you think was worse than Ted 2!

Tomorrow, I will be posting my 10 favorite songs of 2015!

Previous Entries In The Best of 2015:

  1. Valerie Troutman’s 25 Best, Worst, and Gems I Saw in 2015
  2. Necromoonyeti’s Top 15 Metal Albums of 2015
  3. 2015 In Review: The Best of SyFy
  4. 2015 in Review: The Best of Lifetime

The Green Inferno’s Eye-Popping Red Band Clip


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It would be difficult to call Through the Shattered Lens a film blog that appreciates grindhouse filmmaking if we didn’t mention something about the cannibal subgenre of horror once in awhile.

Once a huge thing during the 70’s and right up to it’s demise during the early 1980’s, the cannibal films from Europe (especially by exploitation filmmakers from Italy) would compete with Italian giallo film and Euro-zombie knock-offs for on which one could be the most gory and grotesque. It was like a grand guignol royal rumble.

As founders of the site there’s one particular cannibal film that both Lisa and I have some sort of admiration for. This film is Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust. It would go down as one of the video nasties that kept the film as one that new fans of horror were told they must see if they were to complete their journey into the dark side.

After two years of distribution limbo, Eli Roth’s homage to the cannibal films of the 70’s and 80’s finally gets to show it’s wares up on the bigscreen and this red band clip will give audiences a brief taste of what to expect.

The Green Inferno is set for a September 25, 2015 release date.

Trailer: The Green Inferno (2nd Official)


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Ah, the Italian cannibal subgenre of grindhouse and exploitation films. It’s been awhile since we’ve had something like this. Sure, we’ve had cannibal-based films throughout the years with some even becoming cult hits (I look at Ravenous as an example), but not one that takes it’s setting and basic plot straight out of the cannibal films of the late 70’s and early 80’s from the Italian horror filmmakers of that era.

Eli Roth returns to directing after a seven years in hiatus to give horror fans a taste of the old-school cannibal flicks with his homage to Ruggero Deodato’s classic grindhouse film Cannibal Holocaust. The interesting bit about Roth’s film is how it’s title actually is part of the homage to Deodato’s film which was originally suppose to be called….The Green Inferno.

This is the second official trailer for The Green Inferno and it even uses a quaint, serene song to open it up the way Deodato’s film and trailer for said film does over thirty years ago. We don’t see much cannibal feasting going on, but it’s hinted at that it’s what’s for dinner.

Eli Roth’s The Green Inferno is set for an September 5, 2014 release date in the US.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnzHivBcTe8

Trailer: Green Inferno


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Let’s make it a triple-bill of trailers.

Here’s the first official trailer for Eli Roth’s first film in 6 years. It’s been awhile since we;ve had a proper cannibal film in the theaters and from the buzz coming out of the festival circuit this one could be something to keep a look out for.

Trailer: Aftershock (Official)


Horror is still my first true genre love when things get boiled down to their most basic. 2013 looks to be full of horror films to more than satisfy my appetite for them. One such film that I’d be itching to check out is the Chilean horror-thriller titled Aftershock.

The film was co-produced by horror filmmaker Eli Roth who also had a hand in co-writing the script with Guillermo Amoedo and the film’s director, Nicolás López. The film is a fictional account of the aftermath of the 2010 8.8 earthquake in Chile and how a group of young partygoers try to escape the chaos of the city after the quake. Part of the film’s story uses the real-life prison breakout of prisoners after the quake and the resulting chaos in the damaged areas of the city.

Aftershock looks to be in the same extreme horror that the French have been helpful in making one of the newest trends in horror cinema. The trailer is not the glorious red band variety everyone has been waiting for but there seems to be enough hints throughout to show that Aftershock will not be a bloodless affair.

The film premiered during last year’s Toronto International Film Festival and the buzz surrounding the film has been quite positive. Unfortunately, there’s still no word on a release date in the US or anywhere for that matter, but it definitely joins Franck Khalfoun’s Maniac as one of my must-see horror films for 2013.