CNAMB's Worst Films of 2010

Unless there were to be some miraculous act of *choose your own religious icon*, with any best of the year film list, unfortunately, comes a worst of the year list. Last year I had but two films to name (thankfully), and technically that would be the same with this year, too. Nevertheless, there were also a few movies that stood out for, well, not standing out at all. Those movies that weren't horrendous or worst of the year worthy, but failed to deliver anything but a one time watch and shrug-filled forget. I'll get those out of the way first.

The Most Mediocre of 2010  

(from *cough-cough* best to worst )

The Book of Eli

Some interesting ideas flooded a film that was frankly, not all that interesting. A few cool action set pieces, some decent acting but, in the end, I just didn't care much about anything that was going on. And as much as I enjoy seeing Mila Kunis on screen, I find it hard to believe that in a land where everyone has jacked-up teeth, that she, who was born well after the apocalypse happened, had them shits looking like a white strip commercial. Her stylish post-apocalyptic inspired get-up wasn't any easier to chew on, either.  

The Crazies

With what started out as a strong kind of sort of infection film, The Crazies quickly went from interesting and tension filled, to clichéd and quite boring by the second half. There were a few great moments, but overall it wreaked of familiarity and apparently wasn't worth my memory's time as - outside of a few scenes and the always enjoyable Timothy Olyphant - I can remember very little about the film. Lots of promise and it came close to being decent but, ultimately, the ball was dropped somewhere along the line.

The Wolfman

Loved the atmosphere. Loved the way that the titular beast looked. Loved the classic gothic setting. Loved the gory bits. So what the hell happened with The Wolfman? Well, let's start with it being far too long and far too uninteresting. The unnecessarily complicated plot seemed to be going by way of the kitchen sink theory, and the pacing was so out of whack that I had no idea where I even was in the story. To make things worse, the dialogue was utterly laughable. I can see where this one had so many pre-release issues, and it shows in the final product. A series of cool scenes filled in with way too many boring ones, driven by the biggest casting mistake a studio could have ever made, does not result in a good film.

Legion

Sure, it's not a very good film in the least, and I do have it on my most mediocre list, but I actually didn't mind watching Legion too much. I had shit expectations and it only slightly surpassed them by at least having a few cool angel fight scenes towards the film's end (but there really should have been more of that). Still, I cannot believe that a movie can be - in this day in age with critics abound – as fucking clichéd as Legion was. The characters were as awful as it gets, ranging from a rich snotty women, a slutty chick, a doubting hero, and right on down to the fucking black guy that listens to loud rap, smokes weed and carries a gun. Whatever.

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Okay, now that the whatever films of 2010 are out of the way, let's move on to the meat and taters of this here post: The worst films of 2010. As with last year, I only have two films, thankfully, and while this list is littered with two films that made me groan, they are a slight improvement over the films that made my two-film list last year. Alright, let's get on with it, shall we?   

The Worst Films of 2010

(once again, from *cough-cough* best to worst)

The Road

I just don't know what it is about The Road that peeved me off so much, well I do, but I am not sure why my unimpressed feeling slowly became a complete feeling of despise for the film over time. It looked great, it captured an apocalyptic setting that needed to be captured, Aragorn was solid, as always, and this generation's Lance Henriksen, Garret Dillahunt, even makes an appearance. What's not to like? Well, let's start with Kodi Smit-McPhee, who's character, Boy, was quite awful and just plain annoying from start to finish. His dialogue constantly drove me up the wall, and how could any kid grow up in the apocalypse and not begin to form some sense of balls? I know he's a kid, but this is a survival situation that would sort of force anyone to learn to instinctively toughen up, and quickly, too.

That little jerk-off aside, what really chapped my ass the most about The Road was the complete lack of emotion that was to be found. This is a movie where everything is based on emotion, but there is none built at all. It's as if the filmmakers were simply expecting people to fall for it because it was such a sappy situation. Father, son, the apocalypse, WAHH! Sorry, bro. You have to earn my emotions, not instantly receive them with cheap ploys and crying men who couldn't even keep their clothes on half the time. See, now I'm just getting more pissed even thinking about this fucking movie. Skip The Road and watch Winter's Bone instead. It does everything that The Road couldn't, and Dillahunt's in that too.    

The Road Review

 

  Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever

Nothing quite says disappointing like having your first 2010 film, which also just so happened to be a birthday gift that I had on my wish list, be a complete pile of overhyped shit. Not that Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever – the sequel to one of my favorite horror films of the last decade – received this insane praise all around, but the reception was certainly warmer than anyone expected and enough to give me fair hope for a fun time. All the elements were there: Good special effects, decent art design and a certain sense of 80's familiarity that is always welcome in a film of its type, when done right, of course. 

So what makes Spring Fever make me wish I had yellow fever? First of all, it's not at all funny. The humor falls completely flat and a part of that has to do with the lack of properly conveyed quirkiness, something that attributed greatly to the success of Roth's original film. Even with the moments that are there to solely gross out in a humorous, over-the-top fashion, never did so in a way that garnered any sort of reaction out of me. But where Spring Fever pooped the hardest is it was not at all entertaining. In fact, I would go as far as to call it boring. And boring is something that is unforgivable. Mix that in with obnoxiously poor sound design and that way shoehorned in ending, and you have my least favorite movie of the year.

Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever Review

Now, while I am starting to feel a little bad about calling some kid a jerk-off that probably doesn't deserve it (why do I have to have a conscience?), you can clearly see that some films can truly bring out quite a stir of emotions for films fans. Just writing about movies like this gets me all riled-up and now I want to hear what films snapped your banana off at the wrong spot in 2010?

Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever

Word on the street has been surprisingly positive for this sequel to Eli Roth's highly misunderstood 2002 film debut. Considering its storied and well-known traumatic history, and the fact that it was a DTV sequel is something that doesn't bode well for any horror movie, but I started to actually want to give this sequel a shot and check it out for myself. Now, I'm not one to let my expectations get the best of me, so I know that is not the problem here, but what anyone sees in this movie is well beyond me.

Picking up almost immediately after the events in the first Cabin Fever, Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever never actually picks up anywhere. Instead, you are just plopped into the lives of impossibly stereotypical characters, living mundane and even more typical lives. I mean, the main character is a super smart (but not ugly, of course) nerd, who has been in love with his female best friend since they were kids. Only problem is, she is dating the resident dick face, and is blind to the love that said smart and compassionate best friend has for her. Crazy, right?! Now get this, the resident dick face hates the sweet and well-meaning nerd and kicks his ass warning him to stay the fuck away from his girl, but that doesn't stop nerd boy, oh no siree.

Is any of this starting to sound familiar at all? It should, it's the plot to 209,635 other movies, many of which are much better than Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever.

It's so cliché and pointless, in fact, this film is the definition of pointless as even the weak and simple plot has no sort of direction whatsoever. Nothing fits right, scenes are so random, aimless, and serve no purpose at all. For example, there is a scene with two "random" characters, one is a cool guy jock, and the other is a loser obese girl. For whatever reason (as in there isn't one), they have a sex scene in a pool and it would seem the only point of this scene is for something gross to happen to them. What happens is she loses a few teeth, the guy overreacts, swims away and she drowns. That's all. No fucking point. Even serving as a catalyst for the gruesome events to come, the scene fails on all points, though, there is not point for it to fail on I guess.

One of the only cool things in Spring Fever was the return of Giuseppe Andrews, but even his character of Winston really has no objective in the film. However, his role in Cabin Fever was somewhat pointless, but it was at least fun, quirky, and worked within the type of film that Cabin Fever was. Here, it feels like it was just forced and shoehorned…trying to capture something that could only be captured once. Still, at least with Winston came the cameo of Mark Borchardt, who surprisingly was much better acting wise than much of the film's cast, all of whom were far from good. Actually, Noah Segan wasn't too bad when he wasn't yelling, but that's really it.

Spring Fever is not funny enough (or at all), it's not gross enough, but it tries so hard to be both of these things. All of the humor falls flat and even though there are a few very gross scenes, there is nothing to be moved by with this one. I was really expecting this movie to be disgusting, and granted there is some nasty shit, there was not really enough to impress me. Seeing as it takes place at a high school and during prom, one would expect a major prom blowout, but instead, all there was was a bunch of hose styled projectile puke blood, then dead. That's it. It should have been the big set piece to display some nasty stuff, but instead they displayed how not to make someone puke. Unless they were trying to be funny, that is. In that case, it wasn't funny at all.

The entire film feels very incomplete and scatterbrained and that carries into some of the technical pieces with its lack of flow and weak editing. Even worse is I do not think I have ever heard a film with worse sound editing than with Cabin Fever 2. There is a scene when two characters are walking down the street having a conversation, but you can barely make out what they're saying. Why? Because the song playing was WAY TOO LOUD, and even worse was the sound of wind flowing through the trees and leaves. I was flabbergasted by just how intrusive the sound of the leaves blowing was and I couldn't wait for the scene to end it was so awful and nerve wracking.

With that said, there area few things that are positive about Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever, but not many. I like the way the movie looks with some of the set design and how a few scenes are shot (especially the prom stuff). It definitely has a certain look that could be appealing if put together in a cohesive and competent way. Some of the make-up and gag FX are quite well done and look super impressive. Even though the film lacked in the gross department, there were a handful of awesome little moments, but the two standouts were the head bashing via fire extinguisher and band saw hand removal scene. Actually, the hand removal scene was going pretty damned well, until something so completely ridiculous happened just in time to ruin one of the few good moments in this otherwise shit piss of a film.

There was a golden opportunity to have a fun little body horror film with Cabin Fever 2 – there is the hint of something good buried somewhere in the film, but it's just so disjointed and sloppy. I hardly even tapped into the vastness of what's wrong with this movie (the ending?!! UGHH!), but I'm just tired of even thinking about it anymore. I just really disliked this one and as most of you know, it is a rare thing for me to hate a movie with as much passion as I hate Cabin Fever 2 right now. While so many sling shit at something like Book of Shadows, Spring Fever makes that film look like the fucking Empire Strikes Back. One things for sure, Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever is the worst film I have seen in 2010 thus far, which is incredibly disappointing considering how many people have seemed to enjoy it.