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00’s Retrospect: Dead on Arrival — Ten Horror Duds of the Last Decade

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I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: this has been a great decade for horror films. Anyone who doesn’t think so simply hasn’t been paying attention. Of course, those successes likely wouldn’t have felt as sweet had there not been about four or five times as many bad ones, and following from that observation I’ve sifted through the cinematic garbage bin to put together this list of the worst. We’re not talking direct-to-DVD bargain-bin burners here; we normally expect those to be bad. We’re talking studio-released, mostly moderate-to-big-budget disasters with a lot of marketing and moolah behind them. These aren’t the hand grenades; these are the atom bombs whose explosions of craptastic-ness were too big to ignore. They’re listed in order of release rather than badness, since there’s just no way to rank these suckers in any meaningful order. They’re all terrible in their own unique and special way.


Queen of the Damned (Warner Bros.; February 10, 2002)


Poor Aaliyah. Not only did the R&B superstar have to die in a tragic plane crash, but her legacy suffered the final insult of being tarnished by this painful dud that came out the following year (worse yet, they actually dedicated the film to her memory). Hadn’t her family already been through enough? It’s not nice. Anyway, to be fair Queen of the Damned had a tough act to follow. It’s forebear, the beautifully conceived, well-acted, artful Interview with the Vampire, helmed by Crying Game director Neil Jordan, was one of the best horror films of the `90s. So we couldn’t have reasonably expected Damned to be better. Fine. But let’s just tell it like it is: this was a movie so bad that it helped kill both director Michael Rymer and lead actor Stuart Townsend’s film careers. Anne Rice famously reverted back to Christianity in 2004, and I can’t really blame her – if something I’d written was adapted into big-studio diarrhea like this, I’d probably turn to Jesus too.

FeardotCom (Columbia Pictures; August 30, 2002)


You forgot about this lil’ gem from early in the decade, did you? Well, allow me to give you a refresher. Stephen Dorff plays a detective investigating the deaths of several people who all died 48 hours after logging onto a website called…wait for it…FeardotCom!!! Ok, so the actual domain name is FeardotCom.com. I know, it sounds absolutely terrifying right? I’m shaking uncontrollably just thinking about it. What follows this mind-blowing revelation is a treasure trove of bad acting, editing likely to cause seizure, lame scenes of torture, and pathetic attempts at making a website called FeardotCom scary. I say double-bill this bad boy with the heinous American remake of Pulse and call it a night.

Alien vs. Predator (20th Century Fox; August 13, 2004)


Paul W.S. Anderson’s Alien vs. Predator has everything you’d expect in an action/horror film based on those two beloved franchises: Aliens, Predators, slo-mo shots of Sanaa Lathan running from explosions, actors, sets, costumes, props. The list goes on and on, really. Just don’t expect any frills. You know, things like a believable plot, cool action scenes, well-drawn characters, a talented director, narrative coherence, fun. Wait, you actually were expecting all that stuff? Wow, look at Mr. High Maintenance over here. I don’t know what to tell you, diva. Go watch a James Cameron movie or something.

The Ring Two (DreamWorks; March 18, 2005)


Like most everybody else, I really loved The Ring. I thought it was scary, and fresh, and stylishly crafted by director Gore Verbinski. So when The Ring Two was released, I paid $14 opening night to watch it at the Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles. That’s right, $14. Two miserable, sleep-inducing hours and 14 bones down the drain later, I limped from the Dome and suddenly felt a strange, sharp pain in my ass. And that’s when I realized: I’d just been gang-raped by Hideo Nakata and those sick bastards over at Dreamworks.

The Wicker Man (Warner Bros.; September 01, 2006)


Anyone who has seen the Nicolas Cage Wicker Man montage on YouTube (you can also just scroll down) – or worse yet, the film itself – knows that this remake of the `70s horror film is an unmitigated disaster featuring a painfully over-the-top performance by its star. Neil LaBute has made some good films, including the awesome In the Company of Men, but it seems the bigger his budgets have grown the worse the results have been. Of course, perhaps we should be thanking Cage and LaBute for The Wicker Man, as it’s one of the most unintentionally hilarious horror films ever released by a major studio. Nicolas Cage in a bear suit. Nicolas Cage punching and kicking women in said bear suit. Nicolas Cage punching and kicking women in general. Nicolas Cage screaming the following line at the top of his lungs: “Oh no, not the bees!! Not the bees!! AAAHHH!!” If it had all been on purpose, this would have gone down in history as one of the greatest comedies of all time.

The Number 23 (New Line Cinema; February 23, 2007)


Jim Carrey was awesome in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. That film, directed by Michel Gondry from a script by Charlie Kaufman, was a sublime meditation on the nature of love and memory. Carrey, in rare form, was subtle and moving in his portrayal of a man broken by the loss of his girlfriend, played excellently by Kate Winslet. In a word, the movie was incredible. If for whatever reason you haven’t seen it, watch it. Oh yeah, Carrey was in another movie a couple years later called The Number 23, directed by professional hack Joel Schumacher. It tried to make numerology scary. It failed, big time. To be fair, the movie was up against a doozy of an obstacle from the start: IT TRIED TO MAKE NUMEROLOGY SCARY. Sorry, but the scariest thing here is Virginia Madsen’s visible addiction to Botox.

The Reaping (Warner Bros.; April 05, 2007)


Boy, director Stephen Hopkins sure has had a lot of second chances. His first mainstream feature was the lackluster fifth movie in the Elm Street franchise, The Dream Child. Strike one. Next up: Predator 2. Ouch. Strike two. Ok, well at least his next film was the fondly-remembered classic Judgment Night starring Emilio Estevez. No? Strike three. He’s out, right? Back to the dugout? Um, not exactly. He was subsequently hired to direct Blown Away (flop), The Ghost and the Darkness (flop), and Lost in Space (flop). Ok, I don’t mean to be crass, but who the hell is this guy banging that allowed him to direct another big-budget, major studio movie, this time the Hilary Swank CGI suckfest also known as The Reaping? The movie is so bad, that bitch should be required to give up at least one of her Oscars. Preferably the one for Million Dollar Baby.

Halloween (Dimension Films; August 31, 2007)


I know this movie has its fans, to which all I can say is: are you fucking kidding me? I loved The Devil’s Rejects just as much as the next horror freak, but this updating of the 1978 John Carpenter classic is balls. Sure, I was excited, really excited to see what Rob Zombie would do with the franchise, and I certainly give him points for ambition. But by giving Michael Myers a clichéd redneck-upbringing back-story he succeeded in milking all the suspense and mystery out of the thing. Aw see, he just had a bad family life! It’s not his fault! Give me a fucking break. It doesn’t help that the script is crap, the actors are lackluster (Scout Taylor-Compton is no Jamie Lee) and that the kills lack any buildup whatsoever. What a shame.

Prom Night (Sony Screen Gems; April 11, 2008)


In the odious PG-13 “horror” movie Prom Night, Lauren Conrad – oh I’m sorry, Brittany Snow – plays Donna, a blonde, vaguely human organism being stalked at her senior prom by some dude wearing a baseball cap who looks like he just stepped off an episode of To Catch a Predator. For some reason he’s obsessed with Donna even though she doesn’t seem to possess a modicum of either sex appeal or personality, and to take out his frustrations he starts killing a bunch of folks. Of course, if I were one of the cops on the scene I’d be less worried about the stalker than the fact that the victims don’t appear to have an ounce of blood in their bodies. This isn’t a horror film; it’s a 1

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Editorials

‘Leprechaun Returns’ – The Charm of the Franchise’s Legacy Sequel

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The erratic Leprechaun franchise is not known for sticking with a single concept for too long. The namesake (originally played by Warwick Davis) has gone to L.A., Las Vegas, space, and the ‘hood (not once but twice). And after an eleven-year holiday since the Davis era ended, the character received a drastic makeover in a now-unmentionable reboot. The critical failure of said film would have implied it was time to pack away the green top hat and shillelagh, and say goodbye to the nefarious imp. Instead, the Leprechaun series tried its luck again.

The general consensus for the Leprechaun films was never positive, and the darker yet blander Leprechaun: Origins certainly did not sway opinions. Just because the 2014 installment took itself seriously did not mean viewers would. After all, creator Mark Jones conceived a gruesome horror-comedy back in the early nineties, and that format is what was expected of any future ventures. So as horror legacy sequels (“legacyquels”) became more common in the 2010s, Leprechaun Returns followed suit while also going back to what made the ‘93 film work. This eighth entry echoed Halloween (2018) by ignoring all the previous sequels as well as being a direct continuation of the original. Even ardent fans can surely understand the decision to wipe the slate clean, so to speak.

Leprechaun Returns “continued the [franchise’s] trend of not being consistent by deciding to be consistent.” The retconning of Steven Kostanski and Suzanne Keilly’s film was met with little to no pushback from the fandom, who had already become accustomed to seeing something new and different with every chapter. Only now the “new and different” was familiar. With the severe route of Origins a mere speck in the rearview mirror, director Kotanski implemented a “back to basics” approach that garnered better reception than Zach Lipovsky’s own undertaking. The one-two punch of preposterous humor and grisly horror was in full force again.

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Pictured: Linden Porco as The Leprechaun in Leprechaun Returns.

With Warwick Davis sitting this film out — his own choice — there was the foremost challenge of finding his replacement. Returns found Davis’ successor in Linden Porco, who admirably filled those blood-stained, buckled shoes. And what would a legacy sequel be without a returning character? Jennifer Aniston obviously did not reprise her final girl role of Tory Redding. So, the film did the next best thing and fetched another of Lubdan’s past victims: Ozzie, the likable oaf played by Mark Holton. Returns also created an extension of Tory’s character by giving her a teenage daughter, Lila (Taylor Spreitler).

It has been twenty-five years since the events of the ‘93 film. The incident is unknown to all but its survivors. Interested in her late mother’s history there in Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, Lila transferred to the local university and pledged a sorority — really the only one on campus — whose few members now reside in Tory Redding’s old home. The farmhouse-turned-sorority-house is still a work in progress; Lila’s fellow Alpha Epsilon sisters were in the midst of renovating the place when a ghost of the past found its way into the present.

The Psycho Goreman and The Void director’s penchant for visceral special effects is noted early on as the Leprechaun tears not only into the modern age, but also through poor Ozzie’s abdomen. The portal from 1993 to 2018 is soaked with blood and guts as the Leprechaun forces his way into the story. Davis’ iconic depiction of the wee antagonist is missed, however, Linden Porco is not simply keeping the seat warm in case his predecessor ever resumes the part. His enthusiastic performance is accentuated by a rotten-looking mug that adds to his innate menace.

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Pictured: Taylor Spreitler, Pepi Sonuga, and Sai Bennett as Lila, Katie and Rose in Leprechaun Returns.

The obligatory fodder is mostly young this time around. Apart from one luckless postman and Ozzie — the premature passing of the latter character removed the chance of caring about anyone in the film — the Leprechaun’s potential prey are all college aged. Lila is this story’s token trauma kid with caregiver baggage; her mother thought “monsters were always trying to get her.” Lila’s habit of mentioning Tory’s mental health problem does not make a good first impression with the resident mean girl and apparent alcoholic of the sorority, Meredith (Emily Reid). Then there are the nicer but no less cursorily written of the Alpha Epsilon gals: eco-conscious and ex-obsessive Katie (Pepi Sonuga), and uptight overachiever Rose (Sai Bennett). Rounding out the main cast are a pair of destined-to-die bros (Oliver Llewellyn Jenkins, Ben McGregor). Lila and her peers range from disposable to plain irritating, so rooting for any one of them is next to impossible. Even so, their overstated personalities make their inevitable fates more satisfying.

Where Returns excels is its death sequences. Unlike Jones’ film, this one is not afraid of killing off members of the main cast. Lila, admittedly, wears too much plot armor, yet with her mother’s spirit looming over her and the whole story — comedian Heather McDonald put her bang-on Aniston impersonation to good use as well as provided a surprisingly emotional moment in the film — her immunity can be overlooked. Still, the other characters’ brutal demises make up for Lila’s imperviousness. The Leprechaun’s killer set-pieces also happen to demonstrate the time period, seeing as he uses solar panels and a drone in several supporting characters’ executions. A premortem selfie and the antagonist’s snarky mention of global warming additionally add to this film’s particular timestamp.

Critics were quick to say Leprechaun Returns did not break new ground. Sure, there is no one jetting off to space, or the wacky notion of Lubdan becoming a record producer. This reset, however, is still quite charming and entertaining despite its lack of risk-taking. And with yet another reboot in the works, who knows where the most wicked Leprechaun ever to exist will end up next.


Horror contemplates in great detail how young people handle inordinate situations and all of life’s unexpected challenges. While the genre forces characters of every age to face their fears, it is especially interested in how youths might fare in life-or-death scenarios.

The column Young Blood is dedicated to horror stories for and about teenagers, as well as other young folks on the brink of terror.

Leprechaun Returns movie

Pictured: Linden Porco as The Leprechaun in Leprechaun Returns.

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