The nature of the horror genre tends to invite some of the worst excuses for films or film attempts. Film students are often told that horror is the easiest to attempt for low-budget effectiveness, and each year there are numerous entries that might serve better as paperweights or melee weapons than watchable content. Even worse are the bad films made with a decent budget and concepts, as it feels more is wasted and squandered. Rather than expend more effort into a review than most of these films invest in writing, here’s a quick roundup of some ‘It’s so bad, it might actually be worth watching’ if you are the type to indulge that mentality.
Grimcutty (2022)
Sometimes filmmakers make an unintentional comedy. This movie is so absurdly, hilariously bad on so many fronts, despite a decent budget and actors. The plot is a straight-up ripoff of the Momo game, dealing with an internet meme brought to life and technophobic parenting. The writing is an example of what happens when old people try and write what they think ‘kids these days’ are using as slang and l33tsp33k. The CG monstrosity behind this is absolutely comedy gold, as he looks like Gru from the Despicable Me films mated with an early 80’s animatronic. There’s actually some decent direction and the well shot dark scenes that plenty of better movies could learn from, so hopefully those behind it can find a better script for their next project.
Werewolf Castle (2021)
Werewolf Castle (2021) - Respect the ambition to make a sprawling fantasy-horror epic on a minuscule budget, but it is unfailingly a red flag when the writer/producer/director credits are all the same person. The director must be a film student who found a great shooting location (to paraphrase Eddie Izzard, ‘Europe… Everyone’s in castles… we long for a bungalow’). There’s a decent setup, but by a quarter of the way through, the film’s budget and poor characterization rob any further potential. The werewolf costumes are hilarious throwbacks to ‘The Howling’ and you can easily find better versions at a local Spirit Halloween.
The Prey: Legend of Karnoctus (2022)
That title is a lot… And the best writing this ‘film’ has to offer. Imagine that 13 year old edgelord Call of Duty players were tasked to write dialogue for an elite military unit. There’s sexism and racism and bad jokes and all manner of trolling between absurd parodies of functional adults. How they got Danny Trejo to sign on is probably the film’s greatest mystery, and they certainly milk his appearance for all it is worth. The enemies look absurd, like someone spray-painted blacklight colors onto a dollar-store ape costume. The colors and settings are bright and over-the-top, and cave scenes are lit like everyone is at a rave. This might be fun if you’re a young boy lacking in emotional maturity and intellectual capacity, or drunk enough to mimic such, but everyone else will probably shut this off before their first eye-roll is over.
They/Them (2022)
A conversion camp could be an amazing setting for a horror film, but like the pun of the title movie has elements that look good on paper, but nowhere else. It fails as a slasher, it fails at messaging, it fails at dialogue and characterization, it fails at tone and consistency, it fails at horror, it fails as a film.
Choose or Die (2022)
This movie ambitiously thinks it is going to be a franchise starter. A pitch that might have serviced on a show like Buffy or Supernatural, featuring an app called CURS>R. There is plenty of potential on the nature of how the app curse works, but instead we’re treated to absurd plot points, unengaging characters, and an overall smorgasbord of nonsensical notions.
House of Darkness (2022)
This has a decent cast, high production values, a gorgeous gothic setting, and thinks it’s clever enough to pull of a decent ‘Player becomes Prey’ concept. Justin Long admittedly seems made for the role of douche-bro PUA, and Kate Bosworth pulls off a nuanced and rather good performance from the conversation between them. That’s pretty much the entirety of this movie. They talk. For the entire runtime it’s bad dialogue, uninteresting asides, and just Justin Long being obnoxious. Once you meet Lucy and Mina early in the film, any adult human can probably anticipate what’s coming next. And it takes forever to get there. An agonizing exercise in tedium.
Mr Harrigan’s Phone (2022)
Great acting. Intriguing setup. Concepts in the story that could be fascinating… But nothing. Garbage technophobic monologues absurdly convinced they are profound. Buildup and setup for an absolute non-event. Everything of significance happens offscreen, and instead we focus on weepy pensive looks and nothing more. Ryan Murphy seems very prolific, but whatever goodwill he might have earned from Dahmer has been squandered with each and every successive entry.