What’s that smell? That, friends of the podcast, is the stench of the worst horror movies of 2019! It’s a smell that lingers and we’d like to move past, but we have to acknowledge the stinkers of last year.
Mike makes a good point in this podcast. We at The Scariest Things, as a general rule, are pretty generous with our film reviews. As horror movie fans, we are more forgiving for disturbing tropes and familiar themes. And we will more often get heat for liking movies that other people really despise. Speaking for myself, If a movie just looks straight-to-streaming bad, or a “Mockbuster” I will tend to avoid subjecting myself to something that shows little to no merit. There’s only so much time in my day, you know? Also, we see a lot of our movies thanks to festivals and festival screeners, and for the most part these films are quite good.
But we also recognize that you are wanting to get input on movies that you are likely to check out, so we will go out and see the big releases of the year to give you our thoughts on the studio productions. Those films are what will be available for most of you on the big screen, and before you spend your hard-earned buckaroos on the next installment of Pumpkinhead, you just gotta know. Sadly, they also are often fairly “Meh” films. Child’s Play, The Curse of La Llorona, Annabelle Comes Home, Happy Death Day 2, Pet Sematary. and Escape Room were all studio films that played it fairly safe and ended up ranging from mediocre to alright. Not good enough to ascend to our best-of lists, but they were capable enough to avoid showing up in this week’s podcast, though I suggest that a couple of them came pretty close. I’m looking at you, La Llorona!
But let’s face it. You love a well written bad review. There is some deep-seated joy in bagging on bad movies. Am I right? If you too have had to suffer through the trauma of watching really bad horror movies, you want to validate those feelings. YEAH, THAT MOVIE SUCKED! Now, didn’t that feel better? For your sake, we hope you didn’t have to sit through these movies.
We do have a couple of hot-take outliers, though. A few of these movies we list here are quite popular, and well-received by others. You will note that one of these films was also on several of our best of the year lists, so clearly, there are some divisive movies. (No, The Last Skywalker was not the movie.) Some of these hot takes I’m sure some of you will go “YES! Finally, somebody agrees with me!” So always remember, your mileage may vary, and art is a subjective thing. Except for 3 From Hell. That movie objectively is awful. If you want to see Eric’s full list of every 2019 horror film he watched, and how they ranked along with the best films of the year, you can check that thread out HERE.
So, listen to us throw plenty of shade in this episode, as the gloves come off! The Scariest Things is now getting… critical.
Summary by Eric Li
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed