100 Worst Movies of All Time

The Scary Movie franchise, developed by the Wayans brothers, has grossed more than $800 million by parodying the horror genre. It features dozens of cameo appearances by stars. But the comedy formula was exhausted by the film’s fifth installment, garnering a 4% Freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

While 75% of critics enjoyed the original, John Carpenter-helmed “The Fog” from 1980, a mere 4% approved of this 2005 remake, according to Rotten Tomatoes. According to consensus critics on the movie website, the updated “The Fog,” lacks “scares, suspense or originality,” three of the most important traits for a horror film.

An “odd fusion of psychodrama and supernatural hokum,” according to Variety, this low-rent “Poltergeist” was widely panned for being derivative and low on the scares.

“A Sound of Thunder” is a time travel movie about hunters who return to prehistoric times to prey on dinosaurs, with catastrophic results. Critics questioned the logic of the film and gave it a 6% Freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes, while just 18% of audiences liked it.

Twenty years after the original “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” was released, Kim Henkel, who produced the first version of the film, unleashed this reboot of the slaughterfest. Owen Gleiberman of “Entertainment Weekly” called this version “luridly abysmal.” Critics gave the film a 15% Freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes, while only 17% of audiences liked it. The original, credited with launching the slasher genre, received a Freshness rating of 88% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and 82% of audiences liked the movie.

The third installment in the Jaws franchise, “Jaws 3-D” was a financial success, grossing over $45 million in the U.S. The 3-D gimmick could not save this film from a critical thrashing, however. The movie went on to be nominated for five Razzie Awards – a mock award for the worst films of the year.

A constellation of star cameos –” including appearances by Jackie Chan, Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine, and Sammy Davis Jr., among many others – couldn’t save this follow-up to the original from being “one of the laziest insults to the intelligence of moviegoers that I can remember,” as Roger Ebert put it.

David Zucker – director of comedy classics such as “Airplane!” and “The Naked Gun” – delivered less than his best with the 2003 Ashton Kutcher vehicle “My Boss’s Daughter.” Film critic Nick Schager summed it up by saying, “Few films are as consistently pathetic.”

Despite the poor reception to the first “Problem Child” film, director Brian Levant forged ahead with a sequel, with problem child Michael Oliver paired with an equally bratty girl. Critics still weren’t won over — the consensus on Rotten Tomatoes said it was “the cynical nadir in family-marketed entertainment” — and the sequel garnered just a 7% Freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

With a cast starring acclaimed actors Richard Burton and Louise Fletcher, and helmed by “Deliverance” director John Boorman, how bad could “Exorcist II: The Heretic” be? Apparently bad enough. Critics lambasted the film for bad special effects, a lousy plot, and poor acting. Critics gave the movie a 17% Freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes, while only 12% of audiences liked it. The sequel paled in comparison to the groundbreaking original, which received an 86% Freshness score from critics, and 87% of audiences liked it.