While some genres age like fine wine, comedy is notoriously a little less evergreen. But every so often, a comedy arrives that doesn’t even get the chance to age poorly, because it was dead on arrival.
When thousands of IMDb ratings collectively land on scores hovering near the bottom of the scale, it usually means something went very wrong. Whether they relied too heavily on parody, leaned into bizarre creative choices, offended viewers, or simply misunderstood what makes people laugh, these movies have earned their place among the lowest-rated comedies audiences have ever endured.
Disaster Movie (2008); image credit: Lionsgate
Here are the ten absolute worst offenders, according to IMDb users, ranked from bad to even worse.
10. The Emoji Movie (2017)
The Emoji Movie drops us into a phone, where emojis go about their days, waiting to be used in a text. Even though each emoji is supposed to have only one emotion, one of them discovers he can make multiple faces, setting him on a journey to fix himself before he gets deleted.
It’s the kind of concept that might work as a quick animated short, but stretching it into a full-length feature requires a level of wit and imagination the film never quite finds. Instead, the jokes mostly orbit around tired, digital-age gags and references to internet culture.
Add to its bland writing the fact that it mostly felt like a big corporate ad with a bland plot wrapped around it to justify making it eighty-six minutes, and you can definitely see why viewers hated it.
IMDb rating: 3.5/10
Watch the trailer here.
9. Jack and Jill (2011)
At its core, this movie is about a high-strung advertising executive named Jack, whose perfect, wealthy Los Angeles life is completely upended when his loud, obnoxious twin sister, Jill, visits for Thanksgiving and refuses to leave. The joke is that the sister is just Adam Sandler in a wig, shouting.
While some filmmakers like Tyler Perry have managed to build an entire comedy empire on the “one actor plays multiple characters, sometimes in drag” premise, Sandler hasn’t seemed able to make it work. Additionally, watching celebrated Hollywood actor Al Pacino try to romance girl-Adam Sandler was more cringy than entertaining.
Sadly, the gimmick is exhausting almost from the start. While some reviewers felt that there were occasional moments that got some laughs, in general, they were overshadowed by the many, many gags that didn’t land.
IMDb Rating: 3.3/10
Watch the trailer here.
8. Date Movie (2006)
For some reason, the late 2000s were desperate to make spoof movies popular again. However, rather than actually writing jokes, the producers seemed to think they could make us laugh by just pointing the camera at a recognizable pop culture reference. To be fair, parody films are tricky, and only a few have really found much success. When they do work, though, they capture the spirit of the genres they’re mocking while twisting familiar tropes into something ridiculous and fun.
This one follows a woman desperate to find love who eventually meets a seemingly perfect guy. As she prepares to head to the altar, the film throws every possible romantic comedy trope at the wall, resulting in a barely-there plot that mostly exists to showcase dozens of rapid-fire spoofs of romantic clichés. The problem was that the movie didn’t actually try to satirize or commentate on the romance genre, netting it a 2.8 with IMDB users.
IMDb Rating: 2.8/10
Watch the trailer here.
7. Cats (2019)
Is it a comedy? A musical? A psychological endurance test? Audiences certainly laughed at Cats, though absolutely not for the reasons the studio intended. This film is just plain cursed to look at. The “digital fur technology” that was hyped up before release didn’t do much to help the seriously disturbing visual aesthetic of the cats, which went way too far into uncanny valley.
While the musical isn’t really known for its groundbreaking story, the general gist of the plot follows a tribe of cats gathering for an annual ceremony in which one lucky feline is chosen to ascend to a better life. Most of the film unfolds through musical introductions, as each character steps forward to show off their personality. So, you are basically watching a revolving door of A-list celebrities wearing terrifying CGI cat-human hybrid skin, singing at you in varying scales of size, all competing for the right to be ritually sacrificed. The bizarrely sensual milk-slurping, the tap-dancing cockroaches, the poor attempts at comedic levity, and the fever-dream feel of it all made it one of the most talked-about films of 2019, but for all the wrong reasons.
IMDb Rating: 2.8/10
Watch the trailer here.
6. Meet the Spartans (2008)
The studios must have thought Date Movie was a fluke because just two years later, they released yet another spoof movie flop, Meet the Spartans. Coming off the heels of the wildly popular 300, the movie loosely follows a group of warriors preparing to defend their homeland from an invading army, but the battle itself quickly becomes a backdrop for endless gags and celebrity impressions.
Once again, there is no actual satire happening here. The humor relies entirely on name-dropping reality TV stars and pop singers who were in the public consciousness in the late 2000s. Because of this fatal structural flaw, the movie effectively expired before it even hit DVD shelves. Watching it now is like excavating a digital graveyard of ancient pop culture references, and the Britney Spears gag, so prominently featured in all the commercials at the time, somehow makes the movie seem even more in poor taste ten-plus years later.
IMDb Rating: 2.8/10
Watch the trailer here.
5. Gigli (2003)
Gigli had a lot going for it in the early 2000s, but there were just too many things getting in the way of it being a fun, if forgettable, popcorn flick. Now it’s remembered for being positively terrible.
The plot kicks off when a painfully inept, low-ranking mobster named Larry Gigli is ordered to kidnap the mentally disabled brother of a powerful federal prosecutor. Because his bosses don’t trust him to handle the job, they send in a tough female enforcer named Ricki to babysit him, leading to a sprawling, messy road trip. It was marketed as a romantic crime caper that somehow managed to be devoid of romance and crime. The sheer lack of chemistry between the two leads baffled viewers, considering J-Lo and Ben Affleck were a highly publicized, real-life power couple at the time.
To add to the mess, studio interference and production delays left the film with a meandering, tonally confused plot that goes absolutely nowhere.
IMDb Rating: 2.7/10
Watch the trailer here.
4. Laxmii (2020)
A man who fundamentally refuses to believe in the supernatural suddenly finds his body possessed by the vengeful spirit of a transgender woman who was brutally wronged in life and is out for blood. On paper, the premise could be compelling if handled with care and thoughtfulness, but sadly, in execution, it is a catastrophic disaster.
Mixing horror with comedy is a tricky needle to thread, and when done right, can be an absolute blast, but Laxmii just couldn’t do it. The film tries to juggle serious, heavy societal issues regarding gender and prejudice with chaotic, cartoon-like slapstick, and really just ends up landing in offensive territory instead.
IMDb Rating: 2.6/10
Watch the trailer here.
3. Epic Movie (2007)
The movie gathers four misfit heroes who stumble into a magical world and embark on a quest to stop an evil ruler. As its title implies, the film was trying to be a spoof of all the big fantasy adventure films making big bucks at the time, like The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Pirates of the Caribbean. Unlike all those movies, though, this parody didn’t live up to its name at all.
Like the other two parody films on the list, this movie assumed that making pop culture references would elicit laughs and didn’t even try to craft a cohesive story from all the different blockbusters it referenced.
IMDb Rating: 2.5/10
Watch the trailer here.
2. Son of the Mask (2005)
1994’s The Mask, starring Jim Carrey, is a masterclass in absurdism and slapstick that has become a beloved classic. Son of the Mask is a chaotic, green CGI nightmare that missed the point of the original entirely.
The story centers on a mild-mannered cartoonist whose dog stumbles upon a mysterious, magical mask. When his newborn child suddenly gets ahold of it, he turns their lives into cartoony, chaotic mayhem. In theory, that setup should open the door to strong comedic potential, but the movie leans heavily on noisy visual effects that really suffer without the comedic timing and star power of its predecessor.
IMDb Rating: 2.3/10
Watch the trailer here.
1. Disaster Movie (2008)
If you thought the spoof genre had reached the absolute bottom of the barrel, Disaster Movie is here to prove you wrong. Somehow managing to earn an impressive 1.9 stars out of 10 on IMDb, Disaster Movie is exactly what its title promises, just not in the way the directors intended.
Released about eight months after the mess that was Meet the Spartans, this film may have finally been the referential pop-culture garbage dump that killed off the spoof genre entirely.
The plot revolves around everyman Will, who gets a premonition that the end of the world is coming. What follows is a ridiculous series of catastrophes and, yet again, endless celebrity and pop culture jokes. Once again, the plot is barely there, the story doesn’t matter, and the jokes are completely devoid of setup or punchline, which is precisely how this film ultimately earned its place at the bottom of the IMDb rankings.
IMDb Rating: 1.9/10
Watch the trailer here.
If you enjoy lists like this one, we have plenty more for you to explore. Here at PixlParade, we live for diving into the absolute best and the catastrophic worst of pop culture. Stick around for more audience rankings, user polls, and all the movie and TV news you can handle.
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Source: IMDb
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