I thought about the movie Mixed Nuts today. Which… God help me that I still remember it, because it is one of the worst movies I have ever seen in a theater. It’s been fifteen years, and the vile stench still lingers in my nose.
But that got me thinking: What are the worst movies you’ve ever seen in a theater? After the jump, I’ll give you my top three.
(1) Mixed Nuts (1994)
Seriously, you guys. Terrible. Written and directed by Nora Ephron, the movie follows a night at a crisis hotline during the Christmas holidays, but what it really follows is a trail of terrible, terrible acting. Everyone’s either devouring scenery or looking slightly embarrassed. Sometimes both. (I know because I watched part of the movie recently when it came on TV, just to make sure it was as bad as I remembered.)
Burned in my brain forever is a painfully uncomfortable sex scene between Rita Wilson and Steve Martin. They looked like they want to fire their agents as soon as they get out of that bathtub.
In hindsight, it’s kind of remarkable that the movie turned out so poorly, as the cast is incredible. Parker Posey, Jon Stewart, Liev Schreiber, Madeline Kahn, Juliette Lewis, and Adam Sandler have all been great in other things, so it almost takes a miracle to make them all look so hacky.
(2) Weekend at Bernie’s II (1993)
In which Bernie’s corpse gets reanimated by some kind of tropical island voodoo. My friend Laura and I got so bored watching it that we had a SweetTart fight. To this day, I remember that an orange one landed in my shirt pocket.
(3) Gomorrah (2009)
Critics literally lost their minds for this movie about a crime ring in Naples, so I went expecting great things. What I got was two hours of interchangable characters and a plot whose ending was obvious in its first five seconds. Essentially, no one can escape the crime bosses, and anyone who tries ends up dead or severely punished. No one flees, nothing changes. I’m not saying I needed a false happy ending or a musical number, but if I wanted one-note gloom, I’d listen to Slipknot.
The film is based on the real-life exploits of the Camorra crime syndicate, and as a documentary, it might have held morbid appeal. But as a fictionalized drama, it’s a cheaply cynical, finger-wagging lesson about how the world is evil forever and ever amen. That’s not smart, and it’s not insightful. It’s lazy.
If my expectations hadn’t been so stoked by the great reviews, I might have been less irritated by all this, but they were stoked. The result: One of my worst cinematic experiences.
61 responses so far ↓
1 ChrisA // Jun 3, 2009 at 3:20 pm
“From Justin to Kelly”
I was so set on not giving my money to this movie that I remember buying a ticket to “Finding Nemo” and sneaking in…I may have also worn a hoodie, a baseball cap and sunglasses upon entering…
2 Kerri // Jun 3, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Mark, as you know, I rarely see movies in actual movie theaters, so when I see a bad one it’s doubly painful. “Original Sin” was a cinematic root canal.
I was promised two of the earth’s sexiest people–Angelina Jolie and Antonio Banderas–in flagrante and all I got was some Cuban period piece shitshow.
That’s why I Netflix now. And maybe that’s why Tony is the Nasonex Bee.
3 Zach Erwin // Jun 3, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Back in 1994, I went with a friend and his dad to see some movie we’d been looking forward to. Can’t remember which one. But the newspaper had published the wrong schedule, and when we got to the theater, which was about 45 minutes from home, we discovered that the movie we’d meant to see was already half over. The only movie starting anytime soon was Jimmy Hollywood, starring Joe Pesci and Christian Slater and written/directed by Barry Levinson. I remember very little about the film, except that Joe Pesci had long, bleach-blond hair and that he was even more irritating that usual. And I I’m not sure if we actually walked out before it was over or just talked about walking out. In any case, I still remember it as the worst movie I’ve ever seen in a movie theater (not counting film festivals, of course).
4 Laura Mc. // Jun 3, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Dr T and the Women!!
5 Amanda // Jun 3, 2009 at 3:44 pm
So, I started thinking about the two movies during which I physically left the theater. They were Lost in Space and Moulin Rouge.
True story. Don’t worry, I’ve already caught plenty of heat on the Moulin Rouge tip. But I still haven’t seen it past the first twenty minutes…is that unforgivable?
6 Jenn // Jun 3, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Either Lost in Space or The Man in the Iron Mask…
7 Lisa // Jun 3, 2009 at 3:55 pm
1) Because I Said So – No other movie has made me want to physically hurt a fictional character so much in my life. Congratulations to Diane Keaton for making that happen.
2) Saw – The fact that there have been four sequels to this completely baffles me. Though I did have nightmares for a week about the dude in the mask riding the tricycle.
3) What Happens In Vegas – Technically I saw this at a drive-in, not in a theater, but it was still really awful.
8 James // Jun 3, 2009 at 4:11 pm
I have to say that the only movie I have ever walked out on was the Matrix.
When my brain is tired at the end of the first 45 minutes, it’s not enjoyable enough for me to stay.
9 Sasha // Jun 3, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Shark Boy and Lava Girl. Just utter crap dreck – there aren’t enough words to describe how bad this movie is. Even the kids were bored, and they’ll watch anything. Robert Rodriguez’s children (Rocket, Racer and Rebel – good lord) should stick to t-ball, and he should have known better than to indulge them at our expense.
10 Shiny // Jun 3, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Hollow Man. I wanted to leave the theater.
11 Mark Blankenship // Jun 3, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Hey Amanda, don’t feel bad about “Moulin Rouge!” I liked it way back in 2001, but even at the time, I was kind of forcing myself to like it. Or at least, I was totally overlooking the parts I didn’t like in order to love Ewan McGregor’s performance and Kylie Minogue’s cameo unabashedly.
I suspect that I watched the movie today, I might not be able to blind myself so fully to the chaotic storytelling and look-at-me editing. Of course, who can say? Maybe I’d like it even more than I did. (But I doubt it.)
12 Mark Blankenship // Jun 3, 2009 at 4:21 pm
@Shiny : Holy crap! Hollow Man! I’d forgotten about that, but I saw it in theaters too.
Yikes. That’s definitely at the top of my list. The invisible rape scene was one of the worst things I’ve ever experienced.
13 Gonzalo // Jun 3, 2009 at 4:39 pm
“Poseidon”, the 2006 movie. I was in New York with some friends running around the east village, it started pouring with rain, and we had an afternoon to kill with nowhere to go. We went in to the first cinema we found, and to the first movie they were playing. We knew it’d be bad going in, but by god, this movie was absolutely terrible.
My friends and I kept shouting at Fergie to die (we were sooo glad when she did), and then we hoped the little kid would follow (we were sad when he didn’t). We laughed, we cried, and it was all at the wrong moments. And worst of all, we traded the pissing weather outside for a bad movie about a boat slowly being flooded. I think I felt even wetter and colder when I left the theater.
14 EricGilde // Jun 3, 2009 at 4:41 pm
The Jerky Boys Movie.
Dude, Gomorrah is amazing, you are CRAZY!
15 Gonzalo // Jun 3, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Bonus point! I distinctly remember one of the trailers before Poseidon: it was for “The Lake House”. Making it worse, a few months later, I watched that one too (though this time it was on a plane).
16 Michelle // Jun 3, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Down to You. I still want a refund of the $5.50 I paid.
17 BHL // Jun 3, 2009 at 5:06 pm
This is really old, but so am I. The worst movie I ever saw in the theatre was Salsa! in 1988.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096030/
Tagline: “The Dirtiest Dancing of them All”
We expected dancing. There was much less dancing than the title (and trailer) suggested.
18 Blair // Jun 3, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Shanghai Surprise. Sean Penn. Madonna. For my fifteenth birthday.
19 InfoMofo // Jun 3, 2009 at 5:18 pm
I walked out of “The Whole Nine Yards”. I can’t imagine that it got much better from the point I left it.
20 Megan // Jun 3, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Oh god, Mindhunters. It was the only time I’ve ever seen an intense suspense/horror thriller that had the audience rolling in the aisles with laughter. Why Val Kilmer, WHY?
21 Sarah // Jun 3, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Air America
22 Michael // Jun 3, 2009 at 6:44 pm
An oldie: I took my young-teenage son to “The Stupids” with Tom Arnold (we love the books, which I would recommend to any parents). About ten minutes in, my son turned to me and said, “Dad, just kill me now.” We left.
A highbrow classic no one has ever seen: Dr. Faustus with Richard Burton. Elizabeth Taylor appears coated in silver paint. Really.
23 Michael // Jun 3, 2009 at 6:45 pm
Amanda–don’t apologize. Come with me to land elsewhere where no one ever made “Moulin Rouge.” It must exist–it must.
24 Collin H // Jun 3, 2009 at 7:18 pm
Worst movie I ever paid money to see in the theater was Dracula: Dead and Loving It. A group of us went to go see it in high school thinking that “It’s Mel Brooks, how could it be bad?” Merciful Zeus, we were wrong. There is nothing on Earth that is worse than a comedy that doesn’t make you laugh.
Honorable mentions include the epically awful Catwoman and the overblown Die Another Day.
Huh. Upon reflection, Halle Berry has been in a lot of bad movies I’ve seen.
@Shiny From the Starship Troopers commentary, Verhoeven paraphrases the critical response to Hollow Man: “When I did publicity for Hollow Man, [the critics] now said, that how come after doing such a beautiful movie like Starship Troopers you did such a piece of shit like Hollow Man.”
25 KeiferNandez // Jun 3, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Twilight – this movie was terrible. I’m sorry.
The Island of Dr. Moreau – holy crap, was this bad. I especially enjoy watching Val Kilmer lying around like he was posing for Playgirl.
26 Collin H // Jun 3, 2009 at 7:24 pm
@Gonzolo Ha! I remember Poseidon’06 as well. What cracked me up about that movie was William H. Macy playing the Ace of Spades. Macy has the touch of death in that movie; he inadvertantly kills pretty much everyone he knows and meets over the course of the movie.
27 Gregg // Jun 3, 2009 at 7:59 pm
The Thin Red Line…..That’s all I have to say about that!
28 dimestore lipstick // Jun 3, 2009 at 8:23 pm
3000 Miles to Graceland. Kevin Costner, Christian Slater, Howie Long, David Arquette, and about 7 tons of the smelliest cheese they ever called a movie. Just ghastly.
29 Meg // Jun 3, 2009 at 9:45 pm
1) Cloverfield. Yeah, yeah, I know a lot of people love it, but I spent the whole time hating all the characters and wishing they would die faster.
2) The Pallbearer. I really don’t remember much about it…I think I went to this during junior or senior year in high school. It confirmed that I can’t watch David Schwimmer in anything but a TV role. I still don’t know what the plot was, exactly.
3) Urban Legends. So much (campy) potential. So disappointing.
30 Ginger // Jun 3, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Cabin Boy. My best friend still reminds me I picked that one whenever I complain about seeing a bad movie.
Me: Damn, Wolverine sucked ass.
MBF: Couldn’t've been as bad as Cabin Boy.
That Chris Elliot stinker earned her a lifetime pass to get me to any flick of her choice.
31 Bunting // Jun 3, 2009 at 10:27 pm
“City Slickers II.” AH GAH SO BAD.
32 Cacala // Jun 3, 2009 at 11:01 pm
What a great topic!
1)Johnny Mnemonic–only went because at the time I had a crush on Keanu Reeves. It was stupid and horribly violent, so we walked out 45 minutes in.
2) Daredevil–went with my brother and his wife. We all hated it but thought everyone else was enjoying it. Afterwards we were saddened to learn we could have left and saved ourselves.
3) The Bachelor–horrible sexist dreck. Put Chris O’Donnell on my shit list.
33 Amy // Jun 3, 2009 at 11:37 pm
I enjoy bad movies if they’re the fun kind of bad, so I’ll often go to movies I know are going to suck just so I can make fun of them. But there are a few that either made me angry or were so unremarkable that I forgot everything about them (except for the fact that I hated them for wasting my time) a week after seeing them.
The worst movies were probably Hollow Man, AI: Artificial Intelligence (it should have ended about three times before it actually did — at one point I worried I was going to grow old and die before the credits rolled), Cold Creek Manor (all I can even remember is something about snakes), Identity (I guessed the twist well before it arrived and was bored until it finally did), Angel Eyes (I can’t remember ANYTHING about this other than that it sucked), Urban Legends: Final Cut (although my friend and I had fun predicting which non-white, non-straight members of the cast would die — to no one’s surprise, it turned out to be all of them), and Swimfan (it starred Shiri Appleby; I should have known better). The worst, though, BY FAR, was fear dot com. It was incomprehensible noise to me and I walked out halfway through. That’s actually the only movie I’ve ever walked out on — I sat through Date Movie, for heaven’s sakes, so you KNOW fear dot com was awful.
34 jkc // Jun 3, 2009 at 11:45 pm
Tarzan. Starring Bo Derek. In my somewhat defense, my small town only had a drive-in and we were at the mercy of whatever the owner thought was the “hip” movie to show that week. The line, “they’re painting me whiiiiite,” moaned by Ms. Derek still sends my best friend and I into uncontrollable laughter all these years later.
35 Mark Blankenship // Jun 4, 2009 at 12:59 am
@Gregg… Oh my God, “The Thin Red Line.” I went to a MIDNIGHT SHOWING of that endless, endless movie. Trust me, the ponderous nonsense is much worse at 1:45 AM.
In general, you guys, I’m honored to be sharing your company. We are people who have paid money to see “Weekend At Bernies II,” “The Stupids,” “Dracula: Dead and Loving It,” “Jimmy Hollywood,” and “Salsa!”
We are America.
36 Andy // Jun 4, 2009 at 3:50 am
Jade
What a piece of crap. I can’t believe David Caruso had a career, let alone still has one. It was right after we all thought Chaz Palmenterri was so cool in The Usual Suspects. He showed off his Ray Liotta-like colors of being great in one movie, then sucking in lots more.
37 sara // Jun 4, 2009 at 8:12 am
“dreamcatcher” was the worst movie i have ever seen in a theater… and maybe EVER.
and “view from the top” which is only slightly better than dreamcatcher b/c of mark ruffalo.
and oh, oh, recently: “Wanted”: proof that morgan freeman will now do anything for a buck.
38 ferretrick // Jun 4, 2009 at 9:13 am
Oh Lord, I’ll just stick to the ones I haven’t seen mentioned yet:
1) The DaVinci Code-Ok, the book was crap also but it was ENJOYABLE crap. I read it in less than a week. The movie seemed to last for 52 of them.
2) Doomsday-This nearly caused gay divorce. A few weeks earlier, I had taken him to Sweeney Todd and he HATED it-the violence and general horrible view of humanity he found really distasteful, not to mention he doesn’ t like Sondheim’s music (he has many other redeeming qualities, I promise!). Anyway, he takes me to this deplorable film a few weeks later and makes me sit through the whole thing as revenge. Truly gratuitous violence with no purpose, message, or theme other than to be as disgusting as possible.
3) Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, all three of the “new” Star Wars-I’ll just lump all these into the category of Making a Shit Movie For The Paycheck.
39 ferretrick // Jun 4, 2009 at 9:19 am
Oh, and speaking of Sweeney Todd…when Sondheim’s music is being “sung” by Helena Bonham Carter, I can understand hating it. Whatever happened to those lovely days when they DUBBED the actors who couldn’t sing in movie musicals? I’m looking at you, PIERCE BROSNAN.
40 KKB // Jun 4, 2009 at 9:26 am
Cabin Boy! I haven’t thought about that movie in years! Well, other than the David Letterman bits, anyway. And now that it’s back in the front of my mind, I can’t shake the memory of Chris Elliot shouting “My pipes are clean!”, so thank you for that [/shudder].
Does it count if you didn’t realize how awful they were until later? Because as a wee lass, I went to see “Kuffs,” “Stop or My Mom Will Shoot,” AND “She’s Out of Control.” I was in elementary school, but we had the complete set of “Thin Man” movies at home, and a library full of good stuff two blocks away, so I should have known better.
41 Kay // Jun 4, 2009 at 10:15 am
“Joe vs. The Volcano”. Sweet merciful crap, that was terrible.
42 BDanger // Jun 4, 2009 at 10:16 am
Gone Fishing is the WORST movie of all time and I paid good money to watch it in a theater AND I was on a diet and couldn’t have popcorn to distract myself! It was a late 90′s buddy comedy with Danny Glover and the worst dialouge of all time. If you hate someone, sit them down and make them watch this movie.
43 Mark Blankenship // Jun 4, 2009 at 10:30 am
Oh no, Sara! I just got “Wanted” from Netflix. Am I in for punishment?
44 Liz // Jun 4, 2009 at 10:34 am
My boyfriend (now husband) and I received free passes to Demi Moore’s version of “The Scarlet Letter”, which was “loosely” based on the Hawthorne novel. Truly the worst garbage I’ve seen on the big screen. It was amusing, though, when the theater was rocking with laughter at the supposedly serious moments of the film.
I think I may have to rent it and watch it again to remind myself of how bad it was….
45 Shissher // Jun 4, 2009 at 10:47 am
My sister and I went to go see “Pulp Fiction” on Christmas Eve, which was advertised to start at 8 p.m. It was a misprint in the paper, so we ended up seeing “IQ.” Worst movie.
Mark, you’re overusing the phrase “after the jump.” When ever I see that you have it written into one of your entries, I think of other phrases that were overused in their times: “you go girl!” or “no you didn’t!”
46 benvolio // Jun 4, 2009 at 11:05 am
Either Timecop or Timecode. Either Jean Claude Van Damm or Paul Walker. Either futuristic timetravel or medieval time travel.
I don’t miss the money nearly as much as I miss the brain cells lost to these execrable pieces of celluloid.
47 Deanna // Jun 4, 2009 at 12:19 pm
From 1986-1990 I went to Berry College in Rome, GA. One of the greatest time-killers for us poor college students was the dollar movie theater out on Shorter Avenue. It was there my friends and I saw the worst movie I’ve ever seen – “Where the River Runs Black.” When I read the description now on imdb, it sounds like it should be an interesting movie. It wasn’t.
48 Carol Elaine // Jun 4, 2009 at 12:32 pm
I see many more movies in the theaters these days than I used to (thanks to my boyfriend), but the worst “movie in theater” experiences were pre-boyfriend:
1) Meet the Parents. I wanted to walk out and would’ve if I hadn’t been with a friend. You have no idea how much I hate that movie. To quote the late great Madeline Kahn, “It, it, the, it, flames, flames, flames . . . on the side of my face. Breathing, breathless, heaving breaths, heaving . . .”
2) Van Helsing. Gah. I love Hugh Jackman. I love horror movies and vampires and such. A friend (different from above) took me for my birthday. We ended up quietly giving the movie the MST2K treatment. In the theater. With other people around. As I absolutely HATE people talking in theaters during movies and have been known to tell them off, well, this was one damn bad movie.
3) Titanic. Again, hate. I didn’t want to see it, the guy I was dating at the time did. I acquiesced and later regretted it. I love the character actors in the movie (Victor Garber, Kathy Bates, David Warner, Bernard Fox) and even like Kate Winslet as an actress. But the central story was so boring and the entire movie was horrendously overblown. Also, why would a woman like Winslet’s character be interested in a little boy? DiCaprio does nothing for me in general and he did even less for me in that movie. BTW, the next week that same guy said I had to see Forrest Gump, so we rented it. We stopped seeing each other soon after that. (Pssst – I don’t like Forrest Gump either.)
49 Russ Jackson // Jun 4, 2009 at 2:10 pm
“Dracula, Dead and Loving It”. The girl at the ticket counter knew me from high school, and she warned me it was very, very bad. I insisted, so she showed pity and printed me a free ticket. I thanked her after the film. It had some funny parts but definitely wasn’t worth seeing in the theater.
Other than that the only movie I walked out on was Lost Highway. That was over 10 years ago and I still haven’t seen the rest of it.
50 Cori // Jun 4, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Stop or my Mom Will Shoot. Instead of Wayne’s World.
What? I was a big Golden Girls fan.
51 Missicat // Jun 4, 2009 at 2:57 pm
xXx. With Vin Diesel. Feel free to mock me mercilessly, I so deserve it. I think I picked it to watch, but now I blame my ex.
52 Mark Blankenship // Jun 4, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Cori — I ALSO saw “Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot” in theaters. Mostly, I remember Estelle Getty making a really unsettling joke about the size of her son Sylverster Stallone’s “package.”
53 Nataly // Jun 4, 2009 at 4:14 pm
I paid money to see Undercover Brother! Dear lord, Denise Richards character was named white she devil.
To be fair this movie did teach me that my love of mayonnaise is apparently because ALL white people love mayonnaise…
54 Tracy // Jun 4, 2009 at 4:21 pm
200 Cigarettes. Left after 20 minutes.
The Matrix Reloaded.
She’s Out of Control. I was 14 and forced against my will by 6 of my friends to go. Damn peer pressure. Tony Danza on a movie screen for 90 minutes is something that still haunts me to this day.
55 Sarah // Jun 4, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Hulk, the 2003 version with Eric Bana, is by far the worst movie I’ve ever seen, in theaters or otherwise. It didn’t have enough camp to be funny, it was just so so boring. I left in the middle for like half an hour, to get food, because I was so bored, and when I came back, I hadn’t missed a thing!
56 Fay // Jun 4, 2009 at 5:11 pm
OMG, Mixed Nuts is my “worst ever in the theater” too! I was so excited b/c it was by Nora Ephron, and had such a great cast. And it was SO AWFUL.
My other one, and I guess they’re tied: “Species.” My god. I thought it’d be all cool like Alien. I was wrong.
57 Julie // Jun 5, 2009 at 10:43 am
The Thinner.
Movie based on a Stephen King novel. Awful. Absolute misery (no pun intended!) And, I saw it in a *filthy* movie theatre in Times Square (before TS turned into Disneyland).
58 Collin H // Jun 5, 2009 at 3:47 pm
I neglected to put Matrix Reloaded on my list. Never before have I seen a movie destroy a franchise as throughly as Reloaded. Most of it is so tooth-grindingly boring that even I have a hard time laughing at it.
However, there is one scene that gets me laughing. When Zion finds out that they’re all about to die and a shirtless Larry Fishbourne starts a giant rave/orgy in the caverns of Rock City. Meanwhile Neo and Trinity have one of the most repulsive sex scenes in the history of cinema. It’s like watching two androgynous Borg Queens going at it.
59 Jenn Lindsay // Jun 5, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Scarlet Letter.
View From the Top.
But I watched them all the way through. The only movie I walked out on was The Cowboy Way, with Woody Harrelson and Kiefer Sutherland, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109493/.
Thank God…I never even tried to watch Nacho Libre.
60 Jenn Lindsay // Jun 5, 2009 at 5:14 pm
You know what, I forgot about the worst movie I ever saw in a theater because I repressed the memory. I sat through it all because I had just been fired, and decided to cheer myself up and take myself to a movie and spend my very last $20 on movie tickets and movie food, and I just couldn’t leave, even though the movie made me feel worse than ever before. Or was it the indigestion from movie nachos and movie gummis? No…it was the movie.
It was “Failure to Launch” with Matthew McC and Sarah Jessica Parker. Bad. Bad. Bad.
61 Darryl // Jul 13, 2009 at 7:04 pm
Nah, “Porky’s” with the rest of my rugby teammates from my Grad class. The forced hilarity on-screen was only matched by the brainless guffawing around me. Nearly thirty years later and still I cringe…
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