CinemaScore is a Las Vegas-based market research firm that polls audience members of the most recent theatrical releases and then shares that data alongside the weekend’s box office receipts. Is it kind of goofy and stupid? Yes. But it goes a long way in showing how the box office is connected with the everyday sentiments of American moviegoers and how large the gulf can sometimes be between the critical consensus and the commercial masses. Only 21 films have ever gotten an “F” CinemaScore rating, which is a testament to how forgiving these audiences are (it’s like they didn’t even watchMen in Black International), and how polarizing the films that received these grades could be. It’s with this in mind that we look back at the bottom of the CinemaScore barrel, to the 21 films that ever received that scarlet letter.
Alone in the Dark (2005)
It’s sort of surprising that only one movie made byUwe Boll, that charmless schlock-master who makesEd Woodlook likeOrson Welles, is on this list. But then again most of his movies are direct-to-video abominations that skip a theatrical release altogether. HowAlone in the Darkwas released publicly (by the fairly reputable Lionsgate, no less) remains a genuine mystery more gripping than anything presented in the actual film. Based, like many of Boll’s films, on a popular videogame, it features a pre-Mr. RobotChristian Slateras a hardboiled gumshoe (are there any other kinds?) investigating some occult weirdness. (A mid-meltdownTara Reidand surprisingly engagedStephen Dorffco-star, both clearly happy for the work.) All the hallmarks of a Boll blunder are present and accounted for: blurry visual effects, muddy camerawork, confusingly staged action than major Hollywood film.Alone in the Darkis one of the films that definitely deserves to be here. Also, bonus trivia: it inspired a sequel that didn’t bring back Boll or any of the cast. Seek it out … if you dare.
The Box (2009)
Many of the films on this list are purposeful provocations; they dare you to like them.The Boxis one of those movies. And, full transparency, I love this movie. Writer-directorRichard Kelly(Donnie Darko) adapted aRichard Mathesonstory from 1970 that was previously adapted into aTwilight Zoneepisode in the 1980s about a mysterious box that offers you $1 million if you push the button inside but the catch is … somebody dies. Spooky enough, right? The original story (and to an extent the episode) worked well due to its chilling simplicity, something that Kelly flagrantly disregards, in favor of a plot stuffed with a potential alien invasion, a NASA conspiracy and a disfiguredFrank Langellawho came back to life after being struck by lightning (don’t ask) and a subplot aboutCameron Diaz’s missing toe, all set to an unrelentingArcade Firescore. The joy inThe Boxis watching all the points where Kelly could have given in and created something entertaining and instead veered in the opposite direction towards something more interesting and, to most moviegoers, aggravating.
Bug (2006)
Bugis another purposefully provocative oddball, based on a searing, decade-old play byTracy Lettsand directed, with optimum seediness, byThe ExorcistfilmmakerWilliam Friedkin, who has basically made a career out of being purposefully provocative. Almost the entire movie is set in a rundown motel room where a couple of lowlifes (Ashley JuddandMichael Shannonin fearless performances) do drugs and eventually become convinced that bugs are in their room and eventually their bodies. This is a movie designed to make you squirm, so it’s not exactly a mainstream marvel. Also, it was marketed, at the height ofHostel, as some kind of torture porn romp. Instead, it’s probably closer to the body horror ofDavid Cronenberg– and even that is a stretch. When a movie makes you want to take a shower immediately afterwards, it’s going to be hard to clear that “F” rating.
Darkness (2004)
It’s easy to understand the commercial indifference towardsDarknesswhen you look at the film’s rocky path to theaters. Originally released in Spain in 2002, it finally debuted in American multiplexes more than two years later, by which time it had been heavily edited and reconfigured by the Weinstein Company. So whether or not the movie made more sense (and had more pep) when it was originally released remains to be seen; as it was released,Darknesswas sluggish and unengaging, wasting a killer premise (a family moves into a house where, decades before, a horrifying occult ritual had been conducted) and a great cast (Anna PaquinandLena Olinare amongst the performers). Maybe this one would have been better off getting lost on the way to its domestic release.
The Devil Inside (2012)
What was originally configured as a more straightforward horror film was, afterParanormal Activitybecame a blockbuster, re-engineered as a found footage chiller. It’s unclear if it would have been a better film as it was initially envisioned, because the resulting movie is pretty lousy and scare-free, so you’re able to see why audiences would agree. Also, the movie ends with a title card directing people to go to a website for the full ending. Oddly enough, directorWilliam Brent Bellwould go on to make a sleeper hit in STX’sThe Boy, a dumb movie that was at least popular. (He’s got a sequel coming out this December.) You’d probably have to be possessed to get a kick out ofThe Devil Inside.
Disaster Movie (2008)
Some of the movies on this list you have to ask yourself,Well, what were they thinking?Disaster Movie, one of a string of lowest-common-denominator spoof movies by the writing/directing team of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, is one of those movies. Ostensibly a lampoon of disaster movies, which weren’t even particularly en vogue at the time, it begins with an opening sequence that contains a gag mocking10,000 B.C.(a movie nobody even saw in the first place), a reference toIndiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulland a boozy caricature ofAmy Winehouse(in the years since it’s gone from being dumb to being in astoundingly bad taste). From there it gets even worse. Slapdash and truly unfunny, you sort of have to blame the people who bought a ticket for this one. It’s as if they were mad about how the movie turned out, knowing full well what they were getting into.
Doctor T and the Women (2000)
Listen,Robert Altmanmade alotof movies and not all of them were modern masterpieces.Doctor T and the Women, starringRichard Gereas a posh Texas gynecologist, was marketing as a fun and frothy comedy, but the resulting movie was sillier and way more chaste that you could have ever imagined. (This is the same guy who madeShort Cuts?) It’s unclear what rubbed audiences the wrong way about the movie, but the movie, despite its ridiculously starry cast (Helen Hunt, Farah Fawcett, Laura Dern, Shelley Long, Tara Reid, Liv TylerandKate Hudsonare the titular women), is lame and feels hopeless out-of-date. Thankfully, the legendary filmmaker would rebound big time the following year with the Oscar-nominatedGosford Park, seen by many as a late-career triumph, so it all worked out.
Eye of the Beholder (1999)
Emotion definitely comes into play when assigning a movie an “F” Cinemascore. Anger, frustration, sadness, disappointment; these are the emotions that undoubtedly govern such a grade. But when it comes toEye of Beholder, that emotion was surely befuddlement. A rococo thriller byStephan Elliottthe flamboyant director ofThe Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,Eye of the Beholderwas sold as a straightforward thriller but what audiences got was way, way weirder.Ewan McGregorplays a spy who becomes obsessed with a comely serial killer (Ashley Judd, making her second appearance on this list) to the point where he keeps saving her and allowing her tokill more people. This is a movie where “magical realist” flourishes (like McGregor having imaginary conversations with his estranged daughter) are piled on top of sequences of grimy unpleasantness (Jason Priestleyplays a scummy bleach-blonde drifter who injects Judd with heroin and causes her to miscarry). The movie has a dreamy internal logic, which makes it acceptable for, say,k.d. Langto show up for some reason or forGeneviève Bujoldto be slathered in old-lady make-up as a weird psychologist. Admirable for its ambition if not its execution,Eye of the Beholderis also notable for being the very first film to garner an “F” Cinemascore.
Fear Dot Com (2002)
The internet! Isn’t it scary? This was basically the conceit behind the braindeadFear Dot Com, a movie that tried to turn millennial angst into actual horror but wound up just being terrible. Directed byWilliam Malone, a schlocky filmmaker who a couple of years earlier had helmed the somewhat enjoyableThe House on Haunted Hillremake, it was likely an attempt to not only cash in on the Internet crazy but to also fashion a movie like Japan’sThe Ring, in which technology is given a supernatural power and the ability to drive people insane. Instead of a cursed videotape, though, it’s a haunted website, which we later learn is connected to a serial killer being hunted byStephen Dorff’s dogged NYPD detective. (And, yes, this is also Dorff’s second appearance on this list.) At once too phantasmagorical and too grounded,Fear Dot Comattempted to capture the zeitgeist but, judging by that grade, ended up alienating audiences instead.
I Know Who Killed Me (2007)
Largely considered one of the worst movies ever made,I Know Who Killed Mewas a film that proudly earned its “F” Cinemascore. In fact, it’s inconceivable how anyone would give it a rating of anything more than “F,” it’s so insipid and unnecessarily violent and poorly made. If you haven’t seenI Know Who Killed Mewhich is a distinct possibility because we’re more than ten years removed from it and it has thus lost its “OMG you have to see how bad this thing is” power, it stars a mid-meltdownLindsay Lohan, who plays two characters, one is a pianist and the other is, of course, a stripper (she wiggles around a lot but never actually strips). How they’re connected to a rampaging serial killer is both too convoluted and too stupid to explain, but the movie absolutely sucks. Winner of eight (!) Golden Raspberry awards, it’s a movie of flabbergasting ineptitude.
