Top 10 Worst Movies Of 2018

Traffik

Human trafficking is a hot-button issue right now with a lot of movies trying to shed light on one of the darkest crimes on the planet. However, Traffik completely undermines that cause with its absurd premise and disgustingly dislikable lead played by Priscilla Quintana. I don’t like to victim blame, but everything terrible that happens in this film is the direct result of the stupid choices this “reporter” makes when confronted by human traffickers in this film. It gets so bad that it’s hard not to get angrier and angrier at her as the film goes on. Then again, director/ writer Deon Taylor takes the easy way out every chance he gets when it comes to this poorly written excuse for a thriller. It’s a film that ignores the true victims of human trafficking which makes it an easy addition to my list of the worst movies of 2018.

The First Purge

I’ll admit that The Purge movies are a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine, so I was excited to see that a new one was hitting theaters in 2018. There was one important aspect to the trilogy missing this time around though. Unlike the three other Purge films, The First Purge is not directed by the series writer James DeMonaco and it’s easy to tell. The other films focused on the horror elements while still maintaining plenty of subtle, but firm, political elements. However, The First Purge abandons all that in favor of a more action-oriented premise with clumsily handled political themes that border on obnoxious. The film totally misses the point of the franchise, which is a metaphor for the boot the wealthy places firmly on the have-nots throats. Instead, it’s just another bad horror flick.

The Darkest Minds

Amandla Stenberg might have made quite an impression this year with The Hate U Give, but that doesn’t mean I’m letting her off the hook for this piece of young adult trash. The Darkest Minds is easily one of the worst movies of 2018, which is saying something considering most of the young adult movies that hit theaters were pretty bad. However, no matter how disappointing movies like Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald and Mortal Engines were, I didn’t actively hate them like I did The Darkest Minds. The film is basically a rip off of the X-Men right down to the disease that gives children superpowers based on mental abilities. The thing is that I’d rather watch the Brett Ratner travesty X-Men:The Last Stand before I’d ever subject myself to this cinematic abomination ever again.

Slender Man

Slender Man is one of the biggest urban legends to ever hit the internet. It’s a cultural phenomenon and has all the makings of a truly terrifying story. So, how do you screw up a Slender Man movie so bad? Well, you probably give it a PG-13 rating and hand it off to a director with no experience when it comes to horror movies. Slender Man managed to do everything wrong with a character that could have easily been one of the most nightmarish in movie history. Now I tend to give horror movies a lot of wiggle room because of the inherent risks that come with the genre. But Slender Man didn’t even get a chance to be “so bad it’s good.” Instead, it managed to be not only one of the worst movies of 2018 but also one of the most disappointing as well.

The Possession of Hannah Grace

There have been quite a few horror films on this list of the worst movies of 2018, which is weird because there were so many good ones. Movies like A Quiet Place, Hereditary and Halloween managed to revitalize my love for the genre while others, like The Possession of Hannah Grace, made me groan. The film is basically a mash-up of The Autopsy of Jane Doe and The Exorcism of Emily Rose (the title is eerily similar too) but proves to be nowhere near as good as either. Now, I wasn’t expecting The Exorcist when I walked into this film, but I was at least hoping to get a few good jump scares out of it. Needless to say, it’s inclusion among the worst movies of 2018 disqualifies it from my top 10 Possesion Movies list. The good news is that it was one of the last terrible films I had to sit through in 2018.

As I said before, bad movies come with the territory when you’re a film critic. However, the ones I just listed were some of the worst I’ve ever seen. That being said, I’m eager to hear what you think some of the worst movies of 2018 were, so leave a comment below. Come 2019, I’ll be back and ready to take on a new year of bad movies in order to let you know which ones are so bad they’re good and which ones are abominations unto the gods of cinema.