Terrible movies are bad enough, but there's something so disappointing about a film that tricks you into thinking it might be good.
You might get a decent opening scene, or even a full half-hour. Then the flying fish-monsters attack and it's too late to escape.
1. Suicide Squad
We had such high hopes that this movie would turn DC's critical fortunes around. After all, the trailers were pretty neat.
And things kick off well, with a snappy introduction for all the characters (apart from poor Slipknot who – surprise, surprise – is quickly killed off). But as soon as they get together for their nonsensical mission it all goes to hell like Amanda Waller's weird plan.
DC had to wait another year for Wonder Woman to prove that they had at least one decent film in them.
2. Watchmen
Who watches the Watchmen? Many of us unfortunately, and that's 160 minutes of our lives we're never getting back.
Zack Snyder's adaptation of the gamechanging, 'impossible to adapt' comic dazzles with its visuals and impressive recreation of Dave Gibbons's original art. The 'Times They Are A Changin'' opening and the Comedian's murder are gorgeous, but it doesn't take long to realise that Snyder created a hollow film that fundamentally misunderstands its source material – best represented by its appalling sexy-sex scene to the tortured strains of Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah'.
3. Prometheus
Mankind has weird, bald creators who made us out of black goo and left signposts that would one day guide us to a mysterious alien world. What could their intentions possibly be? It's a thrilling, lyrical, enticing opening.
But it turns out they just want to exterminate us for reasons. We're not entirely sure why, but if they took the numbskulls crewing the Prometheus as a representative sample, they may have concluded that mankind was too dumb to live.
The movie degenerates into a painfully inconsistent and incomprehensible narrative before collapsing into a twitching pile of half-baked Alien fan service. And no deleted scenes or elaborate theories will convince us otherwise.
4. mother!
Darren Aronofsky's controversial horror begins as a tense, claustrophobic home-invasion horror where Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem are visited by Ed Harris and his wife Michelle Pfeiffer, who just won't leave. It's gorgeous to look at and excruciating to watch in the best possible way as young J-Law's safe space is slowly eroded by the unwelcome guests.
And then in the final act you find out what's actually going on and realise you've been watching a A-level theatre studies-style allegory based on the Bible and the movie becomes excruciating in a different way.
5. Jeepers Creepers
The criminal record of its controversial director notwithstanding, Jeepers Creepers' first act is a chilling tale of a sister and brother who meddle where they shouldn't, leading to an unforgettable scene in which Justin Long finds a wall covered with bodies in the basement of an abandoned church.
Alas, the perpetrator is revealed as a stupid fish-like creature with wings that turns out to be indestructible – and therefore unstoppable – leaving our heroes to run around hopeless until the inevitable grisly end. Yawn.
6. The Happening
M Night Shyamalan's environmental horror gets a terrible ride – often listed in those round-ups of worst movies ever. The surprising thing here, then, is not that the ending is terrible – and god, the ending is terrible – but that the beginning actually isn't.
Opening shots of spontaneous mass suicides are harrowing, and the concept that an epidemic of despair has swept the country is an unnerving one. The scenes of the main characters who have all suddenly become refugees, many of whom don't know if their loved ones are alive or dead are affecting.
And then Mark Wahlberg talks to a plant and they run away from the wind. The End.
7. I Am Legend
We are at a loss as to why no one has managed a truly brilliant adaptation of Richard Matheson's cautionary tale. The Omega Man and The Last Man on Earth had a pretty good pop, but Will Smith I Am Legend fell very wide of the mark.
Will Smith is the solitary human survivor of a massive epidemic which has turned most of the population into CGI zombies. He spends his days hanging out with his dog and talking to shop mannequins, and at night hiding from the monsters who were once the human race.
So-far-so-perfectly-alright until other humans Alice Braga and her kid turn up talking of some survivors' camp and Will Smith manages to find the cure to CGI zombie disease turning him into a legend and completely and utterly misunderstanding the whole point of the story.
