If you’re a regular reader of my posts, you know that I’m not one to bash a film unless I really, really hated it. Even in films I don’t like, I’ll try to find the positive in them. Hell, I even defend plenty of films that many people don’t think are defendable. All of that being said, there are some films that simply infuriate me. These are films that take an interesting premise (or maybe a twist on a familiar one) and totally botch it. They may not be the worst quality films (though a couple are), but sometimes a disappointing film is worse than just being outright terrible. You probably have a few of these yourself. Here are mine!
It’s the Plants! – The Happening
Remember when the trailer for The Happening was released, and everyone forgot Lady in the Water for a moment? It was fairly great marketing that didn’t reveal too much about the plot, which is a rarity nowadays. Unfortunately, it turned out that 20th Century Fox knew they couldn’t do that because it was so silly. People are killing themselves because of plants! While the suicide scenes are executed well, nothing else about the movie is. From Wahlberg’s laughable performance to the scene where the characters try to outrun the wind, the film is a failure on every level. You can’t say the premise, about a wave of mass suicides taking over the country, isn’t intriguing though!
A Split Personality – High Tension
Alright, maybe this is too obvious of a choice, and I really do like most of High Tension! I just can’t stand that ending. The premise of a woman with dissociative identity disorder killing everyone around the woman she is in love with is compelling. If only Aja hadn’t tried to make it a twist in a film whose plot, as Roger Ebert put it “has a hole that is not only large enough to drive a truck through, but in fact does have a truck driven right through it.” I’m able to suspend quite a bit of disbelief, but High Tension was too much.
No More Found Footage? – [REC] 3: Genesis
Truth be told, I actually don’t hate [REC] 3 as a movie, but I do hate it as a part of the [REC]franchise. After the superb [REC] 2, directors Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza split up to each direct the third and fourth entries in the franchise. Plaza took over for [REC] 3, which tells a story parallel to the timeline of the first film. While the film starts out in the series’ trademark found footage filming style, it quickly abandons it in a sly wink to the audience when a character asks the cameraman why he is still filming during a zombie attack. It’s a nice bit of meta humor in a film and it would have been find had the humor stopped there. Unfortunately [REC] 3 becomes a horror comedy, and barely feels like a part of the series that birthed it.
It Was All In the Mind – The Human Centipede 2
The Human Centipede did little with it’s gross-out premise, and it turned out to be a one-trick pony. The sequel didn’t fare much better, and to add insult to injury it pulls the “it was all a dream” twist on the audience. Again, the meta premise, about a man obsessed with Tom Six’s first film who decides to make his own, is quite intriguing, but it becomes botched in an asinine twist that makes the whole movie feel like a waste of time.
An Innocent Child Molester? – A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
It sounded like a great idea on paper. What if Freddy Krueger was actually innocent? What if his revenge spree started because he was burned alive an innocent man? It’s a fairly interesting, albeit drastically different, take on our favorite nightmare bogeyman. Unfortunately, the film decides to puss out and say “Just kidding!” Turns out there was nothing about this remake sets it apart from the original at all. It is just a hollow imitation of Wes Craven’s masterpiece. There wasn’t even a decent dream sequence (or kill) in the whole movie! Wasted potential, if you ask me.
What are some films that you thought had a lot of potential that disappointed you? Let me know in the comments below or shoot me a Tweet!