Scary movies are meant to thrill and horrify viewers, hopefully eliciting nightmares or at least goose bumps from the scare. But what happens when a horror movie goes horribly wrong? It doesn’t take much for a potentially successful plot to become a badly made horror movie. Anything from the dialog, makeup, special effects, or acting can ruin a horror movie. Sometimes all it takes to make a bad scary movie is to be a remake or sequel. Often, there’s vehement disagreement about which horror movies should be considered the worst, but a few seem to wind up on every list of the worst scary movies ever made.
Remakes and sequels of any movie often fall into the bad movie category. When a scary movie tries to continue the story of a creepy character repeatedly, it often ends up in disaster. Remakes that didn’t prove up to snuff include “Psycho” (1998) and “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” (1996) two movies that didn’t come anywhere near the iconic originals. It’s almost impossible to reinvent a classic horror flick that everyone knows and loves. They’re almost doomed from the start to end up as a poorly restructured classic. The “Return of the Living Dead” (1985) series falls into both bad remakes and sequels for the worst scary movies. While the original “Night of the Living Dead” (1968) is a horror movie classic, the sequels don’t fare as well. Examples of the worst sequels are “Jason X” (2002) and “Troll 2.” (1990) Jason has been scaring moviegoers for almost as long as some of them have been alive. Each time he returns, the worst the movies become-especially the ones set in space.
Scary movies set in outer space seem to get a bad rap from horror movie lovers. There’s a fine line between horror in space and science fiction, and often the line blurs when the movie is bad. Killer Klowns from Outer Space” (1988) and “Plan 9 in Outer Space” (1959) round out the worst scary movies in the outer space genre. “Plan 9 in Outer Space” is most often called the worst scary movie ever made due to the terrible acting and ridiculously poor special effects, including space ships flying from visible strings. The “Leprechaun” (1993) franchise made a sequel set in outer space with “Leprechaun 4” (1997), earning its slot in the worst scary movie roundup. “Dracula 3000” (2004) and “Vampire Wars: Battle for the Universe” (2005) both fall into more than one horror movie class – vampires and outer space – making these movies twice as awful for the viewer.
Vampire movies seem as though they should be straightforward as far as scaring moviegoers. Unfortunately, Dracula quickly goes from vampy to campy with very little effort. Biting human necks takes skill to obtain the perfect balance between horrible and enticing. Too much of either one and the movie is ruined. A good example of this is “Vampire in Brooklyn” (1995), which contains too much overacting to be scary. Sadly, this is one of a scant few of any African-American horror movies made. While many may disagree, the popular “Twilight” (2008) series falls into the worst scary movie category with its glittery vampires that walk in the daytime. Of the “Twilight” vampires, only the Volturi are scary, and unfortunately they are seen very little throughout the movies.
Last but not least, there are some older scary movies that are just plain bad. Movies like “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!,” (1978) “The Killer Shrews,” (1959) and anything with giant insects shot in black and white easily become terrible scary movies. While the special effects may have been at the pinnacle of the time, when seen today they are laughable. For some movies this works, but in most cases, such as in “The Deadly Mantis” (1957) or “Attack of the Giant Leeches,” (1959) the movies become fodder for critics. The 1950s saw an influx of movies with giant terrors or attacks by creatures of amazing proportions. Not all horror movies from the 1950s were able to live up to iconic horror films like “The Blob” (1958) or the original “The War of the Worlds” (1953), which are classics that show horror films done right.
In every genre of scary movies, there will always be new films created that are poorly written, directed, or acted and take the top spots on every worst-scary-movie-ever-made list. When it comes to horror, everyone has a favorite movie to hate-especially when so many have been made so poorly. This makes choosing just one for the title of worst almost impossible.
