Byte Size: The Worst Films I Watched in 2020
So long and good riddance to pandemic cinema.
Here’s a stocking stuffer for you. A little Letterboxd listicle, just in time for this coveted week of end-of-year lists and Year In Review profiles. But see, here’s the thing: 2020 sucked for cinema (much like everything else).
Highly anticipated blockbusters and entire studio release schedules got pushed back, then shuffled to 2021 and 2022 (*cough* Dune *cough*), or shafted into the gaping, all-mighty algorithmic maw of the online streaming Sarlacc Pit. Which meant that when we had intermittent weeks and cumulative months of quarantine and lockdown, with countless hours stranded in front of the television/laptop screen desperately searching for human connection, all we got was dud after spectacular cinematic dud.
Now, don’t get it twisted, I love trash as much as the next guy. So, in the spirit of a truly awful year, here are the worst films I watched in 2020 and my hastily written, stream-of-consciousness hot takes warmed up for your enjoyment. (Or perhaps not, because—as I’ve likely made clear already—they really do suck.)
Synopsis: “A group of contest winners arrive at an island hotel to live out their dreams, only to find themselves trapped in nightmare scenarios.” (Director: Jeff Wadlow)
Synopsis: “Spenser, a former Boston patrolman who just got out from prison, teams up with Hawk, an aspiring fighter, to unravel the truth behind the death of two police officers.” (Director: Peter Berg)
Synopsis: “Successful author Veronica finds herself trapped in a horrifying reality and must uncover the mind-bending mystery before it’s too late.” (Directors: Gerard Bush, Christopher Renz)
Synopsis: “After he and his wife are murdered, marine Ray Garrison is resurrected by a team of scientists. Enhanced with nanotechnology, he becomes a superhuman, biotech killing machine—Bloodshot.” (Director: David S. F. Wilson)
Synopsis: “After failing to make it on Broadway, April returns to her hometown and reluctantly begins training a misfit group of young dancers for a competition.” (Director: Elissa Down)
Synopsis: “Marcus and Mike are forced to confront new threats, career changes, and midlife crises as they join the newly created elite team AMMO of the Miami police department to take down the ruthless Armando Armas, the vicious leader of a Miami drug cartel.” (Directors: Bilall Fallah, Adil El Arbi)
Synopsis: “After the death of her family in an airplane crash on a flight that she was meant to be on, Stephanie Patrick discovers the crash was not an accident. She then seeks to uncover the truth by adapting the identity of an assassin to track down those responsible.” (Director: Reed Morano)
Synopsis: “In late 1967, a young orphaned boy goes to live with his loving grandma in the rural Alabama town of Demopolis. As the boy and his grandmother encounter some deceptively glamorous but thoroughly diabolical witches, she wisely whisks him away to a seaside resort. Regrettably, they arrive at precisely the same time that the world’s Grand High Witch has gathered.” (Directed by Robert Zemeckis)
Synopsis: “John Garrity, his estranged wife and their young son embark on a perilous journey to find sanctuary as a planet-killing comet hurtles toward Earth. Amid terrifying accounts of cities getting levelled, the Garrity’s experience the best and worst in humanity. As the countdown to the global apocalypse approaches zero, their incredible trek culminates in a desperate and last-minute flight to a possible safe haven.” (Director: Ric Roman Waugh)
Synopsis: “Every six years, an ancient order of jiu-jitsu fighters joins forces to battle a vicious race of alien invaders. But when a celebrated war hero goes down in defeat, the fate of the planet and mankind hangs in the balance.” (Director: Dimitri Logothetis)
