The Worst Films of 2007
by Brian Tallerico

5. Epic Movie
The Scary Movie franchise had its problems but those movies look like the collected works of Mel Brooks or Woody Allen compared to the bottom of the barrel humor in Epic Movie. The amazing thing about Epic Movie is that it doesn't even try. The writers pull out a reference to a recent hit and then repeat it a few times, never even bothering to write a real joke except for the occasional stab at physical humor. Epic Movie is so lazy that it mistakes reference and repetition for actual humor, as if just reminding you that you saw Chronicles of Narnia and Pirates of the Caribbean is funny. It's not.

4. Dead Silence
I was never as bored in a theater this year as I was during Dead Silence (but it wasn't as offensive as the top three on this list, which is the only thing that merits it the fourth spot instead of the top). If I didn't have to review it, I would have walked out (something I've never done in my life) because there are literally countless better ways to spend your life than to sit through this supposed horror movie that features not one legitimate scare. To be honest, just writing about it now is putting me to sleep. Let's move on...

3. The Hills Have Eyes II
If the only reason you go to a horror movie is to feel your stomach churn, The Hills Have Eyes II might work for you. The opening scene features a bruised and battered woman giving birth to a mutant in graphic detail and then we get to watch the new mother get brutally killed. It only gets worse. The mutant rape scene was easily the most offensively useless thing I saw all year and that alone would earn this cinematic disaster a spot on the list. The most depressing thing is that there were actually two movies worse than this incredible waste of time.

2. Captivity
It's only the audience trapped in this nightmare of a movie, one that feels so ineptly made and constructed that you have to wonder if someone isn't keeping family members of the cast and crew in their basement and forcing them to shoot the film. Captivity is like spending an entire film with just one of the victims of one of the traps from one of the Saw movies and not even one of the interesting puzzles. It's dull. It's unbelievable. It's awful.

1. Saw IV
As far as straight-up filmmaking goes, Saw IV may not be worse than the films that just follow it on this list, but I'm not sure I've ever seen a lazier movie when it comes to being so clearly designed just to make a buck. There's zero artistic intent here. The first three films, whatever their flaws, were at least conceived as a trilogy and their lead character was killed at the end. Worse than bringing Jason back from the dead after Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, the creators of Saw IV don't even bother to make an attempt at writing any logical screenplay that would support a fourth film. There are movies on this list that were poorly conceived, but Saw IV was barely conceived as anything at all except a way to rob fans of the franchise of their hard-earned dollar. Even Jigsaw's traps were boring in this one, as if the filmmakers knew that just the title would make them back their money. Make them try harder next time around.

For the other side of the cinematic coin in 2007, lock down the latest with The Best Films of 2007.