All things considered, 2024 has been an exceptional year when it comes to high-quality filmmaking. Both massive blockbuster franchises like Dune: Part Two and Inside Out 2 are doing just as well with critics as they are with audiences, and even smaller, artsy films like I Saw the TV Glow and Kinds of Kindness are seeing widespread acclaim. With even more exciting films yet to be released, including Nosferatu, Anora, and Joker: Folie à Deux, 2024 is all but assured to be a great year for exciting and high-quality filmmaking.
However, for every acclaimed masterpiece and box office success, there has also been a selection of films that accomplished the opposite, be disastrous critical misses whose only notoriety is infamy. Whether it be largely anticipated films that failed to live up to the hype or poorly executed misfires that were always going to flop with audiences, 2024 has already had numerous terrible films, and fans on Letterboxd haven’t been afraid to show their takes on these trainwrecks.
10 ‘Descendants: The Rise of Red’ (2024)
Letterboxd Average Rating: 1.8/5
The Descendants franchise has proven to be one of the most successful and acclaimed Disney Channel franchises of recent memory, taking a unique modern coming-of-age spin on classic Disney characters. However, the latest spin-off film released straight to Disney+, Descendants: The Rise of Red, proved to be a major disappointment in the eyes of fans despite its record-breaking numbers. The film follows the daughters of the Queen of Hearts and Cinderella, Red and Chloe, traveling back in time to undo the events that turned the Queen of Hearts into a villain.
While its concept proved to be exciting for fans, everything surrounding the execution and differences from the main series quickly turned many die-hard Descendants fans away from this spin-off. Each of the films in the main series was largely the vision of director Kenny Ortega and his lack of involvement with the spin-off results in a lack of style and inherent charm. The film’s lack of a true climax or ending, alongside the toned-down undertones and LGBTQ+ themes, made it a wildly divisive and unenjoyable experience for many fans of the franchise.
9 ‘Night Swim’ (2024)
Letterboxd Average Rating: 1.7/5
Horror movies with strange and comedically absurd concepts are far from new; some of the most beloved horror movies of all time derive from seemingly ridiculous concepts. However, sometimes, a premise proves to be so mind-bogglingly idiotic that it completely suspends all notions of reality, taking the film in a downward spiral. One such case is Night Swim, this year’s signature January horror film, which follows the story of a mysterious force that does all of its killing in a backyard swimming pool.
Night Swim lives up to its idiotic premise in the best, so-bad-it’s-good way possible, finding ways to make an already dumb concept even dumber with its arrays of twists and self-serious thematic. Even well after its release, it’s still baffling that a horror movie where the imposing threat is a killer swimming pool not only exists but was given a wide release in theaters and distributed by Blumhouse. It’s certainly worth a watch to see just how chaotic it gets, but Letterboxd users have been quick to point and laugh at just how moronic it all is.
8 ‘Borderlands’ (2024)
Letterboxd Average Rating: 1.7/5
Adapted from the successful videogame franchise, Borderlands attempted to tap into the same levels of chaotic, violent mischief that made the games such a smash hit but couldn’t translate it to the big screen. Loosely based on the story of the first game of the series, the film follows a group of ragtag bandits and misfits as they travel across the destructive wasteland planet Pandora. Between all the psychos and hostile aliens, the planet actually holds a secret vault that is said to have untold riches and secrets of the universe.
Borderlands harkens back to a previous era of videogame movies where studios simply didn’t care about how well they adapted the story or characters of the source material, hoping name recognition would be enough to lead them to success. The ironic part is that, on top of butchering the story of the games and neutering the violence to a PG-13 rating, the film’s humor is mostly in line with the series’ approach, which is largely dated by now; what was funny in 2012 simply doesn’t work 12 years later. Borderlands is a waste of everyone’s time, not even having the type of so-bad-it’s-good value some of the year’s worst releases have.
7 ‘Mother of the Bride’ (2024)
Letterboxd Average Rating: 1.6/5
One of the tried and true types of low-effort cliché filled films that has overwhelmed Netflix over the years is the romantic comedy, with their clear bottom-of-the-barrel film of this year being Mother of the Bride. The film follows what initially seems to be a standard tropical wedding in Thailand before the revelation that the mother of the bride and the father of the groom used to date in the past. As they attempt to avoid each other, they end up unintentionally rekindling their relationship, placing a strain on the standard wedding proceedings.
While on the surface, Mother of the Bride doesn’t seem to do that much differently than other low-effort generic romantic comedies, its execution and premise quickly enter into a realm of discomfort. It doesn’t take a genius to see the film heading towards this older couple getting back together, putting into question the central marriage, considering the couple getting married is about to become step-siblings. It serves to sour what was already a largely underwhelming experience, making Mother of the Bride a noticeable dud compared to Netflix’s other rom-com offerings.
6 ‘Indian 2: Zero Tolerance’ (2024)
Letterboxd Average Rating: 1.6/5
One of the biggest trends that help set Letterboxd apart from other online film sites is its increased focus on films from all cultures, thanks to its global user base and heightened awareness of global filmmaking. While this normally results in getting more eyes placed on exceptional international filmmaking, it can also have the opposite effect, showing off the worst that other cultures have to offer; such is the case for Indian 2: Zero Tolerance.
Indian 2
is the type of cheap, obvious cash grab that is often seen in Hollywood filmmaking instead of the normally rich and exciting world of Indian cinema.
A sequel to the acclaimed action thriller from 1996, Indian 2 is the type of cheap, obvious cash grab that is often seen in Hollywood filmmaking instead of the normally rich and exciting world of Indian cinema. On top of the obvious attempts to garner goodwill from past projects, Indian 2 was rife with controversy, from outdated politics to an accident causing multiple deaths on set. To many audiences, Letterboxd users included, Indian 2 simply came across as not only unnecessary but actively going against what made the original film so great.
5 ‘Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie’ (2024)
Letterboxd Average Rating: 1.6/5
Image via Netflix
SpongeBob SquarePants as a franchise has had massive fluctuations of quality in recent memory, with the main series remaining enjoyable but spin-off shows like The Patrick Star Show and Kamp Koral being hated by fans. Easily the most widely maligned and hated piece of SpongeBob media lately has been the spin-off movie, Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie, which by all accounts was a massive downgrade from the previous SpongeBob films. The film sees Sandy and SpongeBob traveling to Texas to save Bikini Bottom from a dastardly new villain who stole the entire town from the ocean floor.
SpongeBob has been a series that is largely defined by its humor and characters, making it all the more awful that The Sandy Cheeks Movie is some of the unfunniest that the franchise has ever been. While it attempts to breathe new life and depth into Sandy, it does so only by introducing annoying new side characters and creating an unnecessary origin that goes against classic episodes of the series. The film was also in dicey waters after it was leaked in its entirety at the beginning of the year, disappointing fans from the get-go before not changing a thing when it was officially released 8 months later.
4 ‘The Tearsmith’ (2024)
Letterboxd Average Rating: 1.5/5
The last thing romance movies are usually trying to accomplish is to unnerve and gross out their audience, but Netflix’s The Tearsmith utterly fails at that. The Italian romantic drama follows the blossoming romance between Nica and Rigel, two young adults who were adopted together after spending a painful childhood together in an orphanage. Despite their familial ties to one another, the duo simply cannot help but instigate and explore the emotional feelings they have toward one another.
“Step-sibling romance” is the type of premise that sounds less like an actual romantic drama and more like a joke that would be made on a sketch comedy series. Still, The Tearsmith goes all in on its borderline incestuous romance, making the brother/sister dynamic between the two all the more apparent as it guides and shapes the narrative of the film. Instead of coming across as a sensual forbidden romance, the film comes across as gross and uncomfortable, cementing it as one of the lowest-rated Netflix original movies on Letterboxd.
3 ‘Madame Web’ (2024)
Letterboxd Average Rating: 1.5/5
Superhero movies have had a rocky and chaotic reception throughout the 2020s, with a mixed bag of high highs like The Batman and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, as well as low lows like Morbius and The New Mutants. Madame Web joins the ranks as one of the worst entries the genre has seen, with a chaotic and muddled production creating a goldmine of so bad it’s good pandemonium. The film follows paramedic Cassandra Webb, who, after obtaining the power to see into the future, sees herself protecting a trio of young women from a mysterious villain set on killing them.
Madame Web feels like the full culmination of every issue and downside plaguing modern would-be franchises in the wake of the success of the MCU, failing to scratch the surface of understanding what made it work so well. There are certainly attempts to tell an exciting chapter to flesh out Sony’s Spider-Man universe, but the stilted performances, baffling editing decisions, and regurgitated references make it a comically bad misfire. Madame Web will only continue to grow in infamy as time goes on, much like Morbius before it.
2 ‘The Mouse Trap’ (2024)
Letterboxd Average Rating: 1.5/5
One of the strangest and most unexpected horror trends of the 2020s has been the usage of newly available public domain characters as the killers in cheap, bottom-of-the-barrel slashers, popularized by Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. The Mouse Trap, previously titled Mickey’s Mouse Trap, is the latest of this trend, seeing the classic Steamboat Willie version of Mickey Mouse as a deranged killer.
Blood and Honey was already at the bottom of the barrel in terms of these cheap public domain cash grabs, yet The Mouse Trap managed to one-up that film in its dull, uninspired attempts to make money off of a recognizable name. It does the absolute bare minimum in terms of character motivation, scares, or even just basic pacing, going beyond what could be a fun, so-bad-it’s-good experience and just becoming a boring, underwhelming slog to get through. One would hope that this would mean the end of this subgenre of public-domain horror, but with many more on the way, this dire trend is sadly only just beginning.
Rent on Amazon
1 ‘Megamind vs. the Doom Syndicate’ (2024)
Letterboxd Average Rating: 1.2/5
There is no greater way to completely rile up and enrage a group of film fans than for a long-awaited sequel to not just disappoint but completely ignore and spit in the face of everything a classic stood for. This shocking juxtaposition is what quickly shot Megamind vs. The Doom Syndicate into being one of the lowest-rated movies on Letterboxd, tarnishing the legacy of its predecessor, one of the most rewatchable animated movies of the 2010s. Coming out 14 years after the original film, this sequel’s low budget made it dead on arrival and an embarrassment on all fronts.
Clearly, Megamind vs. The Doom Syndicate wasn’t created because there was an inspired, new story to tell with these characters. Instead, executives noticed that there was a rise in popularity for the original Megamind that could be siphoned for profits for Universal’s streaming service, Peacock, and rushed out a TV budget movie to capitalize. Even aside from the budgetary issues, the story and character dynamics go against everything that the original film was about, feeling less like a long-awaited next chapter and instead a slap across the face.
