Worst movies I saw in 2022.

This is not a post about the worst movies of 2022.* This post is about the worst movies I saw this past year that came out before 2022. Big distinction.

Spoilers, of course.

ASHANTI

Blame curiosity for my watching this proto-Taken thriller where, in the midst of performing health work in Africa, UN doctor Beverly Johnson is abducted and in danger of being sold into slavery, spurring husband (and fellow doctor) Michael Caine into action. Caine once called this 1979 yarn the worst movie he'd ever starred in. Michael Caine said this. Clearly, there was something there. While not quite the worst movie he's made, it's certainly down there. Exploitative (so many shots of young African children in shackles), poorly-scored (the budget may not have been big enough for Ennio Morricone, but Michael Melvoin’s imitation is unimpressive) and sluggishly paced. A fine supporting cast (Rex Harrison, William Holden, Omar Sharif) is wasted and while Peter Ustinov’s casting as an Arab slave trader is problematic af, his performance is the only thing approaching entertainment in this misbegotten project.

BUS STOP

In watching movies of all colors and stripes, one aspect I run into from time to time (principally in romantic comedies) is one person annoying their way into the heart of another (Bringing Up Baby is the ur-example). Not to put too fine a point on things, but this sub-trope sets my teeth on edge. Having two characters get to know each other, then seeing if they belong together is hard work, but it beats the alternative. This 1956 movie sees cowboy Don Murray falling hard for singer Marilyn Monroe, but she wants nothing to do with him and so, he spends the remainder of the running time pretty much pestering (and forcing himself on) her until she’s worn down enough that they end up together and none of the other characters, save for Murray’s fellow cowpoke (and lone bright spot of the film) Arthur O’Connell, see a problem with this. Perhaps the most galling thing about this movie is that Murray’s performance was actually nominated for a Supporting Actor Oscar, thus reinforcing my theory that Oscar voters are like diapers: they need to be changed every once in a while and for the exact same reason.

EYEWITNESS

Cornel Woolrich’s "The Boy Cried Murder", about a boy who tells tall tales, only to witness a murder, received an effectively creepy film adaptation as The Window in 1949 that earned a special Oscar for its lead, Bobby Driscoll. It was, more or less, remade in 1984 as Cloak and Dagger by director Richard Franklin and writer Tom Holland (who specialized in these kind of ‘Boy Who Cried Wolf’ stories). Less remembered is this British variation from 1970...and for good reason. Also known as Sudden Terror, the film starred Mark Lester, fresh off his breakout as Oliver!, as a boy whose talent for spinning lies gets him into trouble when he learns the identity of a political assassin. What should’ve been a straightforward telling dissolves into meaninglessness through John Hough’s show-off direction, as if to distract from the story, but even this could’ve been excused if not for the scene where Lester’s Ziggy seeks help from a young female friend, only for the conspirators to murder her and her father, both of whom had next to nothing to do with the story. It’s fortunate for screenwriter Ronald Harwood (adapting a book by Mark Hebden) that this film was forgotten. Otherwise, who knows if he’d have enjoyed a career scripting the far more reputable likes of The Dresser, The Pianist and, ironically enough, Roman Polanski's non-musical Oliver Twist?

THE FARMER

One of the best (and worst) things to happen to films in the 1970s was the proliferation of violent revenge movies. You know the drill: a morally upright protagonist runs afoul of dangerous criminals who murder and/or rape his loved ones, forcing him to take gruesome action to bring the offenders to some kind of justice. A good revenge story can make for an entertaining time at the movies, but this thriller - shot in Georgia in 1975 and released as a negative pick-up by Columbia in 1977 - isn't quite that. The filmmaking doesn't even show the artistry of a Michael Winner and then, there's the 60-second stretch of film that sees, in quick succession, the hero's a) love interest raped by one of the bad guy's underlings and b) best friend - the elderly, Black farmhand - murdered by selfsame underling. A script by four people ought to have shown a little imagination. Not long after its release, the film was lost to oblivion until a specialty Blu-Ray released early last year restored it to (some) public consciousness. It should've stayed buried.

FIRECREEK

In the late-1960s, while the Italian film industry flourished with Westerns from Sergio Leone and his less noteworthy colleagues, the prominence of the genre was lessening in the United States...and entries like this didn't exactly help the cause. Said to be resemblant of High Noon (mainly due to its use of allegory), but far more suggestive of Blackboard Jungle transposed to the Old West, this 1968 movie told the story of pacifist farmer and part-time sheriff Jimmy Stewart and how he tries to protect the citizens of the titular town against outlaw Henry Fonda and his gang. The antics of the gang members (much like those of the juvenile delinquents in the earlier film) come off as far more annoying than menacing, making one wonder why someone - anyone - in this town full of human-shaped jellyfish didn’t put them in their place sooner. For a good western with a villainous Fonda, there’s always Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West and for a Stewart/Fonda team up that won’t piss you off, try The Cheyenne Social Club.

FROGS

Thanks to the surprise success of 1971’s well-acted but TV-scaled Willard, killer animal movies became all the rage. 1972 produced two of the more notable entries, for good or ill: MGM’s Night of the Lepus about a horde of giant killer rabbits (please stop laughing) and this one from American-International. Night shot itself in the foot with the fundamental error in its premise: rabbits are simply not terrifying and all the slow-motion, smeared ketchup and forced perspective in the world can’t change that. Frogs, at least, kept its amphibious critters normal size, backed by some of its numbers being genuinely dangerous. Still, there is very little else to the film other than its characters constantly and blithely wandering into danger (and you gotta love - he said, sarcastically - how the film unceremoniously kills off its African-American characters in one fell swoop off-screen) to the strains of an overdone electronic score from AIP stalwart Les Baxter. Sam Elliott made his film debut as the nominal hero, but it has to be said: a clean-shaven Sam Elliott just looks wrong.

HOME ON THE RANGE

Comedian Patton Oswalt once did a routine about doing punch-up (verb; adding jokes to the screenplay) on animated movies to make them funnier. 2004’s Home on the Range can be seen as a strong example of when this practice goes horribly wrong. This Disney story - three cows (voiced by Roseanne Barr, Judi Dench and Jennifer Tilly) try to save their farm from foreclosure, only to run into a cattle rustler (Randy Quaid) - struggles to reach 76 minutes, but even this abbreviated run time becomes an ordeal because of the overabundance of unnecessary supporting characters delivering stale, unfunny quips. (Buck the horse - voiced by Academy Award-winner Cuba Gooding, Jr., a phrase that sounds more and more ridiculous with each passing year - is particularly unbearable.) There is a neat throwback to Dumbo's “Pink Elephants on Parade” in the animation of Quaid’s yodeling number, but two minutes of entertainment out of 76 is a bad ratio.

NIGHT WATCH

This British-made 1973 thriller bore a number of similarities to the made-for-TV adaptation of Ray Bradbury's "The Screaming Woman" that premiered the previous year: an older woman (played by a one-time darling of the studio system) recovering from a deep, emotional trauma believes that someone is being endangered close to her property, but no one around her can or will believe her claims. For a while, both films play out the same, but the major difference is that "The Screaming Woman" didn't have an insulting twist ending that completely saps away at the sympathy we’re meant to feel for the beleaguered protagonist. Ultimately, neither film is all that good, so for a better version of this basic premise, do seek out the “Screaming Woman” episode of "The Ray Bradbury Theater" starring Drew Barrymore.

UNDINE

The story of Undine, about a water nymph who falls for a human, has its roots in the Renaissance era. This legend has inspired stories, pieces of music, motion pictures and even video games (it is said that Hans Christian Andersen took this as his inspiration in crafting "The Little Mermaid"). With such a creative history behind this creature, why does the 2020 movie, which updates the tale to the modern era, inspire such ennui and confusion instead of awe? Maybe, one has to be German to be truly enchanted by this, but as for me? Nein.

THE VAGRANT

The third of the year’s ‘Something bad just happened. You have to believe me!’ movies to make this list (alphabetically and chronologically), 1992's The Vagrant told the (ultimately irritating and inconsequential) story of a stock analyst (Bill Paxton) whose new house is haunted - in a manner of speaking - by a homeless man (Marshall Bell) and the analyst’s methods of trying to keep him off and out of his property unravel his life. Writer Richard Jeffries (of such other misfired horrors as Scarecrows, Blood Tide and Disney’s Man of the House) seemed to be going for a Kafka-esque feel, but one would hardly be surprised to learn that he’s never even read a Kafka book. An interesting cast (including Colleen Camp, Stuart Pankin and Michael Ironside, especially wasted as a Javert-like detective) is thrown away and while Paxton overdoes the nerdy yuppie schtick, it’s a testament to his talent that the audience still sympathizes with his character. Having owned Christopher Young’s oddball soundtrack for years, one was curious to see how it played within the film. You know what they say about curiosity...


Other movies that I didn't care for, yet didn't care enough to write an entry about: Bless the Child, Blood Harvest, Bratz, Count Yorga - Vampire, Embryo, Ferdinand, Final Analysis, Firepower, Fresh Horses, The Haunted Strangler, It! the Terror from Beyond Space, The Killer Shrews, Komodo, The Long Night, Night Game, Players, The Real McCoy, The Slumber Party Massacre, White Mile and Why Would I Lie?

* - Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers, The Contractor, The Man from Toronto and Pinocchio (the Zemeckis one). Aren't you glad you asked?