Yes, it’s that time again: before we dive into our favourites of the year to get 2026 kicked off on a positive note, we must first go back and exorcise the movie-demons of the year just past. By which I mean, gripe and groan about the films that failed to meet expectations or just all-round sucked in 2025. As always, we’ll be picking from the movies we’ve seen this year, which means that our list might not cover your personal worst-ofs, but feel free to drop them in the comments below. Without further ado, let’s get to it!
4. Presence
Now, I actually appreciate Presence on some level – Steven Soderbergh’s take on the classic ghost story, told from the point of view of the ghost haunting a family home, is downright compelling, at least on paper. But I couldn’t let this worst-of list pass without talking about David Koepp’s gobsmackingly bad script – I’m still kind of in shock that nobody on this production seemed to notice that he’d written a dreadful, borderline-parodic PSA about teenage relationships and managed to pass it off as a profound meditation on grief and loss. If there was a single worst aspect to a film this year, this script would have taken the cake and then some.
3. Fear Street: Prom Queen
The first batch of Fear Street movies were, for me, one of the highlights of the glut of throwback horror cinema we’ve had in the last few years. But Prom Queen? Prom Queen throws all of that out of the window for a foot-dragging, uninspired, and utterly boring slapping-together of tropes hidden beneath teased eighties hair in the hopes that you don’t notice just how dull it is. And don’t get me started on the particularly egregious wasting of Katherine Waterston as a villain. Predictable and bland, it’s a complete let-down to the rest of the very fun franchise, and perhaps a sign that we’re ready to move on from these throwback horrors if they’re going to serve up such slop.
2. Shelby Oaks
Now, there is nothing worse to me than a film that flubs potential, and Shelby Oaks? There was no worse flubbing of potential this year than in Chris Stuckmann’s debut feature. Produced by Mike Flanagan, Shelby Oaks is an almost comically tropey trudge through every beat you’ve already seen in a dozen horror films, only executed with marginally less skill and a po-faced seriousness that strips whatever sense of fun there might have been here to begin with. Throw in some grimly exploitative reproductive horror, dreadful monster design, and dodgy performances, and it’s a total flop that’s not only dull but actively unpleasant. I’m a found footage lover and this should have been a slam-dunk for me, but instead it’s a reminder that, for all the genre has the reputation as an easy one, it takes real skill to keep it from sinking into outright dreck.
- The Conjuring: Last Rites
We are lovers of the Conjuring franchise on this blog, but even we couldn’t find it in our hearts to ignore just how fucking awful this final part of the main series turned out to be. Last Rites is a film I find truly baffling when you put it in the context of the rest of the Conjuring films – it’s like everyone involved just forgot what made the first three entertaining, and instead spent twenty minutes hanging out in Ed’s garage to watch him playing ping-pong. It’s too long, feels consistently unfocused, and worst of all, there isn’t a scare to be seen in the bloated runtime. If you’re really keen to find out what Lorraine Warren orders for dinner, this could be the movie for you, I guess? But for the rest of us, it’s an ignominious end to the story of the on-screen Warrens. Lock them in the basement with Annabel and let’s be done with it – if this was the best they could do, it’s where they belong.
As always, we’d love to hear about your cinematic gripes – exorcise your movie-demons below and rant about the very worst of the year in the comments! If you enjoyed this article and want to see more stuff like it, please consider supporting us on Ko-Fi. You can check out more of my work on my personal blog, The Cutprice Guignol!
By Lou MacGregor
(header image via The Wrap)
No But Listen 