The 9 Worst Movies of 2023

Normally, I do a 10 Worst Movies of the Year post, but I actually only saw 9 movies that I would consider bad enough to make this list.  So we'll do a 9 Worst Movies instead.  From Best to Worst, here is my list!

#9. The Nun II

I haven't liked any of The Conjuring spin-off movies and The Nun II is no exception.  This one has its moments with some good acting, fun kills, and an over-the-top 3rd act, but it doesn't save the movie from being mostly boring.  The story isn't very interesting, the characters are mostly thin, and the movie is overly reliant on jump scares.  It's not terrible, but mostly generic.

#8. The Boogeyman

Oh, look!  Another generic and unmemorable horror movie.  Again, the actors do a good job, I really like the opening sequence, and the cinematography and lighting are excellent.  The story this time is less boring and more hackneyed.  Just about everything in this movie I've seen before and seen it done better.  It's not a great adaptation of the short story either.  Instead of being about a man dealing with the death of his children, it's a family story about trauma and lack of communication.  Yawn.  Plus the pacing is bad.  It's only 100 minutes, but it felt longer than Oppenheimer.

#7. Insidious: The Red Door

Now we're getting into the really bad.  Look, I love horror movies and I love Patrick Wilson, but this movie doesn't work and I really wanted it to.  Patrick Wilson does a good job acting, as per usual, but on the directing side, not so much.  A few of the character moments work, but this movie is mostly a boring retread of the first two films.  We even literally revisit moments from those movies.  It relies too much on previous installment and never becomes it's own thing.

#6. Five Nights at Freddy's

I promise it won't just be horror movies on here, but yeah, it'll mostly be horror.  Josh Hutcherson does a good job and I like the design of the animatronics, but this movie focused on the wrong things.  I've only played a little bit of the first two games, but from what I remember, they aren't exactly focused on character development.  The focus of this movie is on Josh Hutcherson's character and that's fine, but that leaves less time for what we all wanted to see, people trying to survive in a spooky Chuck E. Cheese.  I would have loved a more survival-focused movie.  A horror Die Hard would have been awesome.  This just wasn't a fun movie to watch and I don't think that's what anybody wanted.

#5. Meg 2: The Trench

This is my most disappointing movie of the year.  I enjoyed the first Meg and I was really looking forward to this one.  The trailer really sold me with a T. Rex getting eaten by a Meg and Jason Statham charging a shark on a jet ski while holding a spear.  What else do you need in a movie?  There are a few fun moments and interesting ideas, plus Statham gives it his all, as he always does.  However, like Five Nights at Freddy's this movie just isn't fun to watch.  Monster movies like this need to be fun.  The story is a slog and isn't interesting in the slightest, the characters mostly suck, the acting is bad, the film is unfocused with too many locations, it's way too long, and it looks very ugly.  The movie should have been set at just one location and then more of the budget could have gone to making a good looking and interesting movie.  This was spread too thin.

#4. Children of the Corn

Now we're into the truly awful films.  Now, I had a great time at this 11th Children of the Corn film.  My buddy and I had the whole theater to ourselves and we spent the entire screening yelling at the characters for being stupid.  It was a blast.  The movie still sucks.  It looks good with some nice shots of the cornfield, but that's really the only compliment I can give this movie.  The acting is almost entirely terrible, there is some embarrassing CGI, the movie doesn't make a ton of sense and does a poor job of explaining itself, and the movie feels like a major missed opportunity.  In this entire series, we've never focused on the true rise of this cult of children.  Technically that's what this movie is about, but we skim over it and missed what could have been an interesting story.

#3. The Exorcist: Believer

Going into this movie, I had heard it wasn't good, but I was confident that it couldn't be worse than the 2nd film in the series.  I was right, but it was way too close for comfort.  The actors are all trying their best and it isn't their fault this movie blows.  Leslie Odom Jr. is genuinely good as the protagonist, plus the movie has a couple of neat ideas, but it fails to properly expand on any of them.  I spent most of this movie either bored or annoyed.  I just couldn't get invested.  I was busy thinking about easy fixes to make the movie watchable.  There are too many undeveloped characters, most of whom are annoying and Chris MacNeil returns for no good reason for about 10 minutes of screen-time before getting taken out of the movie.  It all feels like a waste.  Hopefully this kills the series.  We don't need any more of these.

#2. Expend4bles

The one and only non-horror movie on this list!  This movie has a couple of fun action beats, but not nearly as many as you would expect, and Jacob Scipio does a good job and feels like the only person who wanted to be in this movie.  There are only four returning characters and one of them, Stallone, doesn't have much screen-time.  And they don't really bring in many new and interesting actors to replace them.  Megan Fox and Andy Garcia are both terrible, the action is generic and boring, the CGI is terrible, and the one interesting idea in the movie the filmmakers ended up chickening out on.

Finally, the worst movie of 2023!

#1. Pet Sematary: Bloodlines 

This is a prequel that no one asked for that doesn't do anything interesting.  David Duchovny tries, but that's the only nice thing I can say about this movie.  It's boring and stupid.  It's just a whole bunch of nothing that's edited together terribly.  It may not have the lowest lows of the year, but the highs are nonexistent and that's why it's my least favorite movie of the year.

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