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

Posted on January 6, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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)

(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:

Horror Film Review: The Lazarus Effect (dir by David Gelb)

Posted on October 14, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I finally saw The Lazarus Effect and … bleh, who cares? You may remember that the Lazarus Effect came out earlier this year and it got some attention because it was one of the first horror films to be theatrically released in 2015. But then the reviews came in and they were all awful. And then the movie opened in theaters and audiences saw it and soon, social media was full of tweets and updates about how disappointing the film was. I meant to see it but the movie just kind of came and went. Looking at my records, I can see that — when the Lazarus Effect was still in theaters — I instead chose to see Kingsman, Cinderella, and Maps to the Stars.

But, last night, I finally found the time to watch The Lazarus Effect and … well, I think I made the right decision skipping it. The Lazarus Effect is about a bunch of scientists who discover a serum that can be used to raise the dead. For instance, they use it to bring back to life a dog but guess what? The dog isn’t very happy to be back and he spends most of the movie glaring at every human that he sees. One of the scientists (played by Olivia Wilde) worries that the dog may have happily been in “doggie heaven” and now resents being brought back to life. Mark Duplass, playing her boyfriend and fellow scientists, laughs at her but it turns out that Wilde had a point.

The other scientists are played by Donald Glover and Evan Peters. There’s also a videographer, played by Sarah Bloger, who is there to record all of the experiments. You may notice that I’m not using any character names and that’s because the characters themselves are not that memorable. You remember them because of who played them and not because of anything that the character may have said or done. It’s true that The Lazarus Effect has a pretty good cast but it doesn’t matter because none of them are really given anything worthwhile to do. It’s not so much that anyone gives a bad performance — though the usually very effective Mark Duplass certainly does come close — as much as it’s just a case that the characters just aren’t that interesting. They’re all recognizable stereotypes and, if you can’t exactly predict the order in which they all die from the minute they show up on screen, you obviously haven’t seen enough horror movies.

Anyway, after they bring the dog back to life, Olivia Wilde ends up getting electrocuted so, of course, Mark Duplass decides to use the serum to bring her back to life. Needless, that was a big mistake. Not only does she return with a lot of super powers but it appears that Wilde left her soul in whatever afterlife she was inhabiting.

So, now, you’ve got an angry Olivia Wilde wandering around and killing people…

And it should be interesting but it’s not. The idea has promise but the movie does nothing new or unusual with it and the talented cast mostly just goes through the motions. The Lazarus Effect ends with the promise of a possible sequel. Let’s hope it’s a promise unfulfilled.

Here’s The Trailer For The Lazarus Effect!

Posted on January 7, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, here’s yet another trailer. I say yet another because the trailer for The Lazarus Effect resembles the trailer for just about every other horror film that will probably be released during the first half of 2015. However, I’m still sharing this trailer because the film appears to have a cast that’s much more interesting than its premise. Not only do we have Olivia Wilde and mumblecore pioneer Mark Duplass but it also features none other than Community‘s Donald Glover!

Unfortunately, the trailer seems to indicate just what exactly Glover’s fate is going to be in this particular film. Between Donald Glover in the trailer for The Lazarus Effect, Joel McHale in Deliver Us From Evil, and Alison Brie in Scream 4, what’s the deal with Community actors dying in horror movies?