The 8 Worst Movies of 2022

Normally, I do a 10 Worst Movies of the Year post, but I actually only saw 8 movies that I would consider bad.  So we'll do an 8 Worst Movies instead.  From Best to Worst, here is my list!

#8. Clerks III

I really like the first two Clerks movies, so this one was a bit of a letdown.  Some of it works, especially the more dramatic elements.  When it gets darker near the end, and with the stuff involving Rosario Dawson, it works very well.  And some of the comedy is funny, especially Justin Long's cameo, but most of the comedy falls flat.  The movie relies too much on references to the first movie, which I find distracting.  Stop reminding me of better movies and do your own thing!  This movie was also directed, written, and edited by the same person.  The worst movie of the year also shares that quality.  If you're going to do that, you have to be willing to cut material you love in service of the story.  Kevin Smith failed to do that here and severely hurt the film.  This probably would have been better had there been more collaboration.

#7. Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore

This was a better movie than the 2nd film, but hopefully this killed the Fantastic Beasts series once and for all.  Jude Law, Eddie Redmayne, and Dan Fogler all do a good job, I appreciate some of the political themes, and the series finally acknowledges that Dumbledore is gay, but that's all of the positives I have.  This movie is mostly just bland.  I feel like I've forgotten most of it.  Most of the characters had no idea what was happening over the plot of this movie and neither did the audience.  That made it hard to get invested in the story or characters.

#6. Halloween Ends

Now we're getting into the really bad.  Halloween Ends has a great opening sequence, some fun kill sequences, and I will give them credit for trying something new.  The story involving Corey could have worked if this was just another Halloween sequel, but this was the end of a trilogy.  This was supposed to be the final showdown between Michael Myers and Laurie Strode.  The fight between them is fun, but it's far from the focus of the story.  This is a bad follow-up that wastes most of the surviving characters and they assassinate the character of Allyson, who I really liked in the first two movies.  This should have been two separate movies.  Finish up the Michael/Laurie story and then do a 4th film about someone new taking up his mantle.  Instead, we got this, the most disappointing movie of the year.

#5. Firestarter

This remake isn't as good as the original, which was already not a great movie.  The music is awesome because John Carpenter was involved, Zac Efron also does a good job in an unusual role for him, and there was some solid gore.  However, horror movies need rules to function.  We need to know what characters and monsters can do and what their strengths and weaknesses are.  We don't get that and everyone is very vague about everything.  The stakes are unclear, which makes it hard to care.  The second act is snooze-fest, it has some of the weakest cinematography of the year, and some of the acting is outright bad.

#4. Morbius

Now we're into the awful movies.  The best parts about Morbius are the memes and the fact that everyone tricked Sony into releasing this movie again.  Matt Smith is the only thing that makes this watchable with his insane, but fun performance.  And I actually had a good time watching this movie because it was so bad.  It's a very funny movie, but the problem is...it's not a comedy.  It only gets 4th place because I wasn't miserable watching it, unlike the other 3 movies on this list.  With all the reshoots, you'd think they could have put together a film that made some sort of sense.  I had no idea what any character was doing or why.  That's one of the biggest problems a film can have in my opinion.  It felt like scenes were missing, the characters are dull, the post-credit sequence is stupid, and the horrible CGI made me nauseous.

#3. Jurassic World: Dominion

Somehow, they made a worse movie than Fallen Kingdom.  That's actually impressive.  Jeff Goldblum does what he can and there are a few moments where people, especially kids, are attacked by creatures where I laughed, but I don't think I was supposed to.  I spent most of this movie miserable and embarrassed.  Everything involving the clone character, Maisie, was awful and she's the main character of the movie.  Her story was the worst part about Fallen Kingdom, so of course this movie focuses more on her.  For some reason, this movie is about locusts instead of dinosaurs being off the island.  Why?!  The O.G. characters get very little to do and I was actually mad they were dragged into this mess.  It's poorly directed and unmemorable at its best, while being insufferable at its worst. 

#2. Tankhouse

Simply put, this is a painfully unfunny comedy with characters that are beyond unlikable.  The animation at the beginning is solid, but there isn't much worse than a bad comedy.  One thing is though...

Finally, the worst movie of 2022!

#1. Terrifier 2

I know a lot of people really liked this movie, so I sometimes wonder if I saw a different movie from them because this was unbearable.  The first movie was okay because Art the Clown is a terrific villain thanks to the performance of David Howard Thornton and there was some legitimately good gore.  It had some pacing issue and felt long at 86 minutes.  The sequel is over 2 and a half hours long!  No slasher needs to be this long.  There is a good hour that could have been cut from this movie.  Cut the nightmare sequence, the creepy clown girl, and trim down the 3rd act.  It does nothing special that should warrant the extended runtime.  They don't even resolve everything in those 2 and a half hours!  Just like with Clerks III, this movie was directed, written, and edited by one person and it's obvious.  He needed someone to tell him no.  He wasn't willing to cut his favorite stuff and made a worse movie in the process.  This was brutal and miserable to sit through.

So, what do you think?  Did I miss anything?  What's your least favorite movie of the year?  Let me know!