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As difficult as it is to believe, the turning over of the new year means that 10 years have passed since the splendor of 2015, a year which, in film at least, was defined by soaring successes and enduring hits. Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens was the highest-grossing movie of the year with a box office intake of $2 billion. Spotlight went on to win Best Picture, while such hits as Mad Max: Fury Road, Whiplash, Sicario, and Inside Out have come to be the revered gems of the year.
However, for all this acclaim and success, the year had some massive misfires as well. From abysmal adaptations to shocking sequels, horrendous horrors, and even some monumental missteps from some of the most decorated filmmakers the industry has ever seen, cinema’s low points of 2015 are as memorable as they are catastrophic.
10 'Jupiter Ascending' (2015)
Directed by the Wachowskis
Image via Warner Bros. Pictures
A rare mishit from the Wachowskis, Jupiter Ascending was an ill-fated attempt from the directing duo to kick-start a larger trilogy. Unfortunately, it underperformed at the box office and was met with derision from fans and critics alike, ensuring any prospects of further installments would remain unfulfilled. The space opera follows a maid on Earth whose life is drastically changed when she learns she is descended from a line of galactic warriors and pulled into a desperate struggle to protect humanity from a looming powerful force.
Despite an impressive visual display, Jupiter Ascending capitulates as a story so eager to engage with its grandiose scale that it never gives itself a chance to set a platform that audiences can invest in and care about. Couple such an unfulfilling narrative with uncertain plotting, puzzling performances, and even an underwhelming depiction of the sci-fi action sequences, and Jupiter Ascending dwindles as a deeply flawed attempt at epic grandeur that is entirely misguided and not even remotely accessible.
Jupiter Ascending
Release Date February 6, 2015
Runtime 127 Minutes
9 'Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension' (2015)
Directed by Gregory Plotkin
Image via Paramount Pictures
A clever mixture of low-budget genius and mounting tension, the Paranormal Activity franchise is a defining highlight of 21st century horror. However, it still has its damning lulls with 2015’s Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension by far the weakest entry in the series. The sixth film in the saga, it is closely tied to the prequel Paranormal Activity 3 as it follows a young couple moving into a new house who discover a series of disturbing tapes and realize they are in the midst of a supernatural nightmare.
While there is some intrigue to be found in how it connects to other movies in the franchise, Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension is incapable of generating new thrills, disappointing horror fans and critics alike with its unexciting execution and its shambles of a story. It lacks the patience to build any suspense and under-delivers when it comes to the frights, making for an underwhelming movie that saps the franchise of much of its initial brilliance and stands as one of the more monotonous movies of 2015.
Release Date October 23, 2015
Cast Brit Shaw , Chloe Csengery , Chris J. Murray , Michael Krawic , Dan Gill , Olivia Taylor Dudley , Ivy George , Jessica Tyler Brown
Runtime 88 Minutes
8 'The Boy Next Door' (2015)
Directed by Rob Cohen
Image via Blumhouse Productions
A poor attempt at an erotic thriller that lacks the insight or maturity to address the underlying issues of its narrative, The Boy Next Door is a film that disturbs in all the wrong ways. Jennifer Lopez stars as Claire, a recently divorced teacher who teases a steamy, flirtatious relationship with her new neighbor, a 19-year-old boy who goes to the school she teaches at. While she tries to keep the playful teasing innocent, she eventually succumbs to the youth’s advances and finds herself stuck in a violent and volatile situation when she tries to end things.
Perhaps an even greater offense than its ignorance of its problematic central relationship is its complete inability to generate any meaningful tension or intrigue with its stalker suspense. Lopez does what she can to imbue it with some semblance of energy and spark, but the film around her is simply a lazy realization of a half-baked story that doesn’t even have the presence or impact to become a so-bad-it’s-good cult classic.
Release Date January 23, 2015
Runtime 91 Minutes
7 'Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2' (2015)
Directed by Andy Fickman
Image via Sony Pictures Releasing
Few films have cried out for a sequel less than 2009’s goofy comedy action film Paul Blart: Mall Cop. However, given its impressive box office performance, there is perhaps little surprise it received a follow-up in the form of 2015’s Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2. Becoming an even more derided film than its critically lambasted predecessor, it sees Paul Blart (Kevin James) earn an invitation to a security convention in Las Vegas where he learns of a planned heist at his hotel and sets out to prevent it.
Even more heavy-handed on the fat jokes and the slapstick segway gags, all while losing any semblance of heart and charm its predecessor had, Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 is the encapsulation of a derivative and unwanted sequel that hopes only to replicate prior success. It lacks anything in the way of redemptive moments or comedic highlights, dwindling as a calamitous misfire that, while still turning a profit, was berated by critics and moviegoers alike.
Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2
Release Date April 16, 2015
Runtime 94 Minutes
6 'The Gallows' (2015)
Directed by Travis Cluff & Chris Lofing
Image via Warner Bros. Pictures
Despite being made on a measly budget, The Gallows went on to become something of an indie hit with its impressive box office gross of $42.9 million. Unfortunately, this financial success didn’t mean the film was particularly strong. In 1993, a high school stage production is met with tragedy when one of the students is killed when a prop malfunctions during the performance. 20 years later, the school tries to put on a new performance of the same play, only to realize that they may be putting their own lives in danger in the process.
The film’s admirable efforts to generate atmospheric tension falter beneath a glaringly formulaic and derivative script, a weak and unconvincing screenplay, and a host of main characters that are entirely inaccessible. Couple these weaknesses with an absurd plot twist ending that only strives to be surprising and, in turn, works to the film’s detriment, and The Gallows is an unbecoming misfire that serves as a definitive low point of found-footage horror.
The Gallows
Release Date July 10, 2015
Cast Cassidy Gifford , Ryan Shoos , Pfeifer Brown , Travis Cluff , Reese Mishler
Runtime 81 minutes
5 'Accidental Love' (2015)
Directed by David O. Russell
While the mixed reception to David O. Russell’s 2015 drama Joy was underwhelming to say the least, it still far surpassed the director’s disowned release of Accidental Love that same year. The story of the picture’s production is a nightmare in itself, with shooting transpiring in 2008 before multiple issues with funding delayed the finalization of the production and even led to O. Russell departing. When it was finally released in 2015, O. Russell had his name removed from the credits with the pseudonymous Stephen Greene listed as the director.
Alice Eckle (Jessica Biel) is a smalltown waitress whose life is impacted by a nail entrenched in her head. Her efforts to gain compensation see the clueless Congressman Howard Birdwell (Jake Gyllenhaal) agree to aid her cause, only for the unlikely duo to find themselves falling in love. Neither its soggy romance nor its half-hearted satire of the American healthcare system finds any spark, leaving Accidental Love as a star-studded mishit of squandered potential that is a colossal disaster.
Accidental Love
Release Date February 10, 2015
Runtime 100 minutes
4 'The Ridiculous 6' (2015)
Directed by Frank Coraci
Image via Netflix
It is quite the statement that Adam Sandler starred in Pixels in 2015 and that still wasn’t the worst picture he was attached to in the year. That honor goes to The Ridiculous 6, a Netflix original that follows White Knife (Sandler), an orphan raised by American Indians who learns that he and five other notorious outlaws are all half-brothers and sets out to unite them all on a quest to locate their father.
The Ridiculous 6 is simultaneously too lazy as a spoof to appease lovers of goofy comedy, too grating and juvenile to imbue its racially insensitive undertones with any amusement or grace, and too familiar—even for diehard Sandler fans—to be anything other than stale and dull. One suspects it may have inspired mass outrage and offense if it had the depth or ingenuity to evoke anything of an emotional response. It is one of the few films to hold a 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Release Date December 11, 2015
Runtime 120 Minutes
3 'Fantastic Four' (2015)
Directed by Josh Trank
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Image via 20th Century Fox
While the superhero genre has soared through the 21st century, it has still been prone to the occasional disasterpiece. Perhaps no film has embodied this unfortunate notion quite like 2015’s Fantastic Four. The woeful comic book adaptation follows four young geniuses who teleport to an alternate universe and gain unique powers in the process. As they try to learn how to utilize their new abilities, they find themselves having to unite to stand against a former ally turned existential evil.
Stripping the story of much of the comics’ vibrancy and color, while failing to implement anything new in terms of riveting spectacle or action extravagance, Fantastic Four is an abysmal misfire that failed in its attempts to leech off the success of the genre. Nothing short of an abomination, it is the worst major release in superhero film history, an action-adventure spectacle so dour and downtrodden that it never even threatens to present anything in the way of fun or excitement.
Fantastic Four
Release Date August 4, 2015
Runtime 100 Minutes
2 'Fifty Shades of Grey' (2015)
Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson
Image via Universal Studios
Among the most infamous films of the past decade, the adaptation of E. L. James’ smutty sensation is as tasteless and gratuitous as the shambolic source material it was based on. It follows Ana (Dakota Johnson), a young college graduate whose life changes forever when she begins an intense, sadomasochistic relationship with Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan), a billionaire entrepreneur with a tortured past.
Technically, it is the ninth highest-grossing romance film ever. Realistically, it is an insult to romantic cinema to describe it as such. The film is a shallow and unsophisticated romp that coasts on surface-level scandal and sex appeal to make a splash. The fact that such an approach worked to the tune of $569.7 million at the box office is an indictment on modern movie-going audiences. Woefully scripted, deplorably executed, and meekly meandering from one sex scene to the next with even less passion than the characters muster in their most intimate moments, Fifty Shades of Grey is a steamy soap opera of melodramatic malaise that spends the majority of its screen time actively insulting the viewers.
Release Date February 13, 2015
Runtime 125 Minutes
1 'The Human Centipede III (Final Sequence)' (2015)
Directed by Tom Six
Image via IFC Midnight
The climax of a horror trilogy defined by grotesque visuals and little else, The Human Centipede III (Final Sequence) is yet another shocking yet shallow entry in Tom Six’s meaningless body horror saga. It sees prison warden Bill Boss (Dieter Laser) and his admiring copycat Martin Lomax (Laurence R. Harvey) join forces as they develop a sadistic scheme to suture 500 inmates together.
Six brings his depravity and senselessness to the screen in a fashion which is demeaning and disappointing even by his usual low standards, with The Human Centipede III (Final Sequence) nothing more than a twisted and borderline celebratory presentation of sadistic sexual violence and gratuitous torture porn. Tasteless and without purpose, the film is not only the worst picture of 2015, but a disgraceful embarrassment of juvenile depravity that succeeds only in cheapening the art form of horror film-making.
The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence)
Release Date May 22, 2015
Runtime 103 minutes
English (US) ·