The Worst of 2010

Before we start on the good, I need to get some bile out of my mouth. Last year, I included some movies that, while undeniably terrible, I absolutely loved; for instance, the Friday the 13th remake. This year, I decided to go with the movies that I know I will never, ever see again. Not without some convincing, at least. For this reason, Legion is left off the list.

Can I say, though, that this was one of the most disappointing cinema years for me? These films were outright terrible, and the "awards" films are great, but for the most part, it was twelve months of mediocrity. You won't find Robin Hood, The Tourist or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo here, but you won't find them in my Top 25 either.

10. The Crazies

If you can't be a good movie, at least be amusingly wretched. But to be as mediocre and noncommittal as The Crazies is disappointing. I turned 21 while in that theater, but it felt like I turned 31.

9. You Again

Creepy unintentional incest, inconsistent characters, and not a laugh to be found. At least Sigourney came to work.

8. Clash of the Titans

(Number Eighteen on 25 Most Anticipated)

Ugh. The mystery that is Gemma Arterton continues. She has all the charisma of Polly Pocket.

7. Chloe

(Number Twenty-One on 25 Most Anticipated)

How can a movie featuring a sex scene between Amanda Seyfried and Julianne Moore be boring? Chloe, sadly enough, answers that question, again and again, throughout its runtime.

6. Jonah Hex

Wait...I saw this?

5. The Wolfman

Gaaaaaah I wanted to love you why did you betray me? Your VFX looked like VFX! Your cinematography was too dark to see anything! Anthony Hopkins stopped acting years ago! Gaaaah!

4. Love Ranch

I think I balanced my checkbook or something during this movie.

3. A Nightmare on Elm Street

I love horror movies. I love terrible horror movies. I've seen all the Saw movies in theaters. I love the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remakes. I hate this movie.

2. Alice in Wonderland

So much money wasted on an unimaginative and ugly wasteland. Mr. Burton, you disappoint me.

1. Splice

There are few movies out there that fill me with such frustrated, seething anger. Every time I remember it, I go blind for a moment, the world goes red, and all I see is that fucking Dren. "Inside...you..." Drop. Dead.

I Hate You, Splice

Splice is a very uneven movie. It starts out promisingly enough, with Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley as kick-ass (or, as most reviews call them, rock star) geneticists who are so awesome, they made the cover of Wired. And as Sarah Polley says, "Losers don't make the cover of Wired." Bam. They're splicing genes together to make new species that will hopefully develop a protein that can be used to do something amazing with livestock, and if they can continue with their research...maybe cure human ailments too! They secretly develop a human/animal hybrid that evolves rapidly, and the movie centers on their raising this thing and the eventual problems that arise. Evil, horrifying problems.

And it's so incredibly stupid. So fucking dumb. The beginning is so great, and the first encounter with the baby creature, eventually known as Dren, is genuinely suspenseful and terrifying. I expected it to be a movie that served as a metaphor for parenting, and it certainly is...albeit a strange, inconsistent, retarded metaphor. Webster tells me that retarded means "slow or limited in intellectual or emotional development or academic progress". Therefore, my word choice is apt, for this view of child-rearing and parental jealousy and Daddy Issues and Mommy Issues, despite being written by a 40-year-old, seems to have ceased its own development during a pot-influenced conversation where every idea seems profound because you're leaning forward importantly and squinting. It is SO DUMB.

Beware, now, for spoilers lie ahead. Some of this was spoiled for me prior to my showing, and the events still took me off guard. Why? Because of the insane leaps in logic and character motivation.

Really, though, the first twenty minutes are pretty neat. I think it was when they named her that I first got worried. She spells the word Nerd using Scrabble tiles. Sarah Polley looks at it from the other side, where it spells Dren, only with the letters all upside-down and backwards and bim-bam-boom it's got a name. After this scene, it slowly starts to get more and more ridiculous. At one point, Dren spells out "tedious" with the Scrabble tiles, and boy is she right. What began as a promising, Cronenberg-esque horror with potential for actual insight becomes a sub-Freudian mess. All character motivations become hazy and illogical, as though the director told his actors to play one emotion at a time.

"No, dammit, we don't need anything like motivation, just be maternal in this scene! Okay, now you're cold-blooded! What do you mean why? It's a comment on how we become our parents! And sometimes, we wanna fuck them! It's deep, man, it's Freud! It's intellectual! Pass the bowl."

Who could like this movie? Who? Certainly not the audience I was with, who right after the Dren naming scene all banded together to mock the film. We almost high-fived each other, with one girl claiming that, were it not for my roommate and I, she would've fallen asleep and wasted her ticket.

Sarah Polley is head-slappingly uneven. Adrien Brody actually seems to be trying, but then it just made me wonder if he thought this script was profound, so then he began to irritate me. Everyone reads their lines like they're lines. Every single person is ACTING, but it never seems intentional. The only person I believed was Simona Maicanescu as the Frenchwoman funding the splicing research. She alone sounded like a real human being, give or take a scene or three with Polley and Brody.

The score was good, at least. It just boggles my mind that this thing has a 75% on Rotten Tomatoes. I can't believe the critics that think this is a smart, well-acted, finally-something-for-adults horror film. Are they so desperate for "adult" horror fare that they'll accept anything that doesn't rely on jump scares? Admirable, yes, but it takes more than that to make a good horror movie.

Perhaps Final Girl, who I love and adore and who you all should read, put it best:

"By the time the horror actually happens, I was deeply ensconced in disappointment...This film wants you to think there's something going on below the pretty surface, but there ain't much beyond some CGI-laden soap opera drama."