by Abb Jones
The Reelness

Horror, sci-fi, comedy, and disaster movies dominate this year’s list of the 10 worst movies. To no one’s surprise, three of the movies on our list are sequels. Here is The Reelness’ 10 Worst Movies of 2023. Click on the movie titles for our full reviews.

#10: Magic Mike’s Last Dance: D+

Channing Tatum returns to the Magic Mike franchise in this (hopefully) third and final entry and the second, after 2015’s atrocious Magic Mike XXL, to make our annual 10 worst list. Everything about the cute, clever first 2012 film is again missing in this montage-heavy, story-free mess. Salma Hayek, as the wealthy socialite/theater owner, and Tatum have zero onscreen chemistry.

#9: Supercell: D

Look! A tornado movie… without tornadoes! This lame brained disaster drama features the late Anne Heche (in one of her final film roles), Skeet Ulrich, and Alec Baldwin – as the villainous owner of a storm chasing tourist trap – all staring at the skies… a lot. The first hour is tornado free. Let’s hope next year’s Twisters is better.

#8: 65: D

Adam Driver stars in this feeble, futuristic sci-fi drama about a space traveler who lands on a prehistoric Earth of 65 million years ago. He and his spacecraft’s other crash survivor must dodge a hodgepodge of dinosaurs, some serviceable and others incredibly fake looking, to get to their escape pod before the big extinction event meteor hits, destroying life on Earth. Interesting premise, terrible execution. You’ll be rooting for the meteor.

#7: Rebel Moon: Part One – A Child of Fire: D

11 years after he tried (and failed) to sell this screenplay as a Star Wars film, co-writer/director Zack Snyder’s blatant Star Wars ripoff (rebels fighting an oppressive tyrannical government) is a dishwater dull mashup of nearly every other, better sci-fi movie ever made. Netflix plans to torture us with a sequel next April.

#6: What Happens Later: D

Meg Ryan directs, co-wrote and stars in this rotted romcom about two ex-lovers who bump into one another while stranded at an airport during a snowstorm. It is a mitigated disaster – easily one of the worst romcoms ever made. The dialogue is ridiculously bad as these two exceptionally annoying and unlikeable characters stumble through one preposterous scenario after another. Please Meg, go back to acting in films you don’t direct or write.

#5: Children of the Corn: D-

Billed as a prequel to Stephen King’s 1977 horror novel and the 1984 film adaptation that starred Linda Hamilton and Peter Horton, this nonsensical tale of children killing the town’s adults over genetically-modified corn (yes, you got that right) is little more than gross-out torture porn with a cornstalk monster that looks like The Guardians of the Galaxy’s Groot on meth.

#4: Down Low: D-

In what was intended to be a screwball LGBTQ+ comedy, Zachary Quinto stars as a newly-divorced, closeted gay man with an inoperable brain tumor trying to come to terms with his sexuality, with help from a massage therapist, played by The White Lotus‘ Lukas Gage, who also co-wrote the screenplay. Sounds hilarious, right? No. It is tasteless and humor-free all throughout, right up to its even more tasteless conclusion.

#3: Meg 2: The Trench: F

This sequel to 2018’s 10 worst The Meg is another hot stinking mess. After an hour and 20 minutes with no sharks, this PG-13 creature feature does a complete 180 and turns into a Sharknado-styled killing orgy, with a very fake-looking megalodon gobbling up Chinese beachgoers. (What?!) The point-of-view camerawork from inside the shark’s throat as it noshes on swimmers sums this film up nicely – lame.

#2: The Black Demon: F

Hey Meg 2, hold my beer! Here is a shark movie that is even worse than you – possibly even the worst shark movie ever made. The CGI shark gets a total of about 60 seconds of screentime, with Josh Lucas playing a super obnoxious oil company executive who drags his family to the California Baja coast for a vacation as he checks on an abandoned oil rig.

#1: Skinamarink: F

With zero story, nearly zero dialogue and zero action, this bizarre, feeble attempt at eerie performance art can barely be called a movie. It’s supposed to be about a couple of kids who awake to find their father missing and all the doors and windows gone. But it’s an hour and 40 minutes of tedium.

Dishonorable Mentions:

Knock at the Cabin
Inside
In From the Side
It Lives Inside
Strays
Operation Napoleon
Shotgun Wedding