The Worst Films of 2020

The Grudge

What do you get when you remake a remake with absolutely no justification or reason? You get The Grudge, the brainless, haphazard attempt at cashing in on the 2000s franchise that swept the world.

Ju-On was pretty fantastic, but the Sarah Michelle Gellar films were pretty lame. Now we have an update about more spooky houses cursed by strange, creepy girls with no intrigue.

It’s not just stupid, but it’s boring, and the scares are just not on par with the original. It doesn’t gain speed until an hour in, long after it needed a jolt.

Writer-director Nicolas Pesce is just not great at maintaining tension in this retread, and the only good part is Demian Bichir, who doesn’t belong in this lazy flick.

The Stand-In

Proof that 2020 was a rotten year all-round, a film managed to be made where Drew Barrymore plays two characters, and neither is likable.

As an actress who’s sent to rehab and her stand-in wrestling for fame, this life-switch comedy isn’t funny, the charm of Barrymore doesn’t shine through, and the supporting cast is laughable.

Not only is the film crass, offensive and endlessly dumb, but it has the displeasure of T.J. Miller being in the cast, and he’s not chic right now.

It’s mean-spirited, rude, and it absolutely didn’t need to be made. That makes the Stand-In a pretty big shell of what would be a movie.

Like A Boss

Perhaps the best-assembled movie with the worst premise of the year, this rom-com workplace retread is just awful.

It revolves around two best friends who start a beauty company, and when someone tries to buy them out, they try to figure out how to appease each other.

Tiffany Haddish is annoying, not funny, here. Rose Byrne is gasping for air with a script that has nothing to it, and Salma Hayek struts around with absolutely zero purpose.

It’s humourless, boring and absolutely dreadful. What a waste of a cast that’s been so good in other roles. It’s a shame, then, that this flick is so lifeless.

Books of Blood

It pains me to say this, but the Halifax-shot Books of Blood smears the city’s good name as a hub of great film activity.

It’s an adaptation from Hulu of the Clive Barker novel, but it’s less Hellraiser and more a failure to raise the dead than anything.

Told in anthology format with parts tied together with a very, very loose thread, it just doesn’t make any sense.

Britt Robertson is fantastic, but the other stars are mediocre-at-best, and the plot makes little sense.

It’s not scary, there are no great twists, and it’s mostly violence for no reason. This one is a snoozefest.

Stardust

How in the world do you take a movie about the beginnings of David Bowie and make a totally boring film?

That’s what they’ve done here, as this exploration of Bowie’s first visit to the U.S. is an absolute waste of time.

Fantastic actor Johnny Flynn is woefully miscast here, Jena Malone is downright annoying and the only bright spot is the agent played by Marc Maron.

There is no great soundtrack to speak of, no spectacle and it pales in comparison to other recent music biopics.

It sullies David Bowie’s legacy and does a disservice to a pretty incredible man in the process.

Antebellum

A movie can be forgiven if it’s bad but has good intentions. But this horror movie about racial tensions is an absolutely horrifying, disturbing and frankly offensive misfire.

Once again, Jena Malone is absolutely awful in this film about slavery that obeys zero rules about good taste.

Janelle Monae is good in the film, but there’s no substance and the style just shouldn’t be the way it is.

This film is awful and the themes it might be trying to convey just won’t come through. It is a waste of the cast and a huge step back for progressive filmmaking.

Songbird

This tone-deaf film about a pandemic is just not what the world needs right now.

Though K.J. Apa makes a great stride to the big screen here, actors like Craig Robinson and Demi Moore just feel entirely misplaced.

No one wants to watch a film about a pandemic ravaging a city, especially when it seems like it has absolutely no basis in what’s going on right now.

There is simply too much going on, and the action is so blisteringly faced the film never really stops to contemplate big questions. It’s just not worth the investment.

The Jesus Rolls

It irritates me so much to say that this amazing character — originally introduced to us in the classic The Big Lebowski — is done a huge disservice in his solo flick here.

Director-writer-actor John Turturro gives it his all and still comes up short as Jesus here. He’s annoying, strange and his relationship with Audrey Tautou’s character is just strange.

Wonderful actors Bobby Cannavale, Susan Sarandon, Jon Hamm, Christopher Walken and more are all absolutely wasted here.

The plot never comes together and the film tries too hard to get the laughs. It feels like a film that has absolutely no grounding in 2020 culture, and that’s a bad thing.

Artemis Fowl

The biggest budget film on this list is Disney’s huge flop Artemis Fowl, a fantasy film that’s neither fun nor smart.

Director Kenneth Branagh has characters running around like chickens with their heads cut off, and everyone, save for Colin Farrell, is pretty bad.

Young star Ferdia Shaw just can’t carry a movie, and Josh Gad is creepy rather than funny. It’s a film with no clear use or tone.

I couldn’t tell what I was expected to get out of it, and it was a muddled, confusing mess. This is by far one of the worst of the year.