Worst January Movie Releases of All Time

As any true film-lover knows, January is the month where studios purge themselves of movies that are too terrible to release during Oscar season, the summer blockbuster months, the holidays, or even just plain old springtime. You can imagine how thrilling this must be for someone born in the month of January. Needless to say, my birthday parties have been kept out of theaters.

Epic Movie (2007)
Epic Movie was an epic fail. This film has already gotten a shout-out in my trailer review of A Haunted House as being a prime example of parody films that are uninventive, unoriginal, and painfully unfunny. It’s no wonder that many spoof films retire and wait for death in the month of January.

Ben & Arthur (2003)
The tagline for this film is “Only the power of love can defeat a holy soldier on a mission”. Once you find out that the “holy soldier” is a crazed God-fanatic who’s “on a mission” to kill his gay brother and partner, it becomes clear why no one’s heard of this movie.

Zaat (1971)
Zaat is about a crazy scientist who believes he can turn human beings into fish. He turns himself into a killer man-fish and uses a spray bottle to pollute the universe with radioactive chemicals. The earth becomes overrun with walking catfish. Cue shots of catfish flopping around on various front yards.

Miss Castaway and the Island Girls (2008)
The best part of this movie is Michael Jackson as “Agent M.J.”. So there you have it.

Meet the Spartans (2008)
Apparently, the pitiful reception of Epic Movie was not enough to discourage the studios from releasing yet another spoof film the following year, Meet the Spartans. This film sucks for the very same reasons the above film does.

Keloglan vs. the Black Prince (2006)
I tried to include some foreign films on this list to emphasize the fact that it isn’t only America that produces crap films. This Turkish comedy proves that spoof films don’t work in other countries either.

Car 54, Where Are You? (1994)
Based on a short-lived sitcom from the 60′s, this cop comedy tries to thrive on overdone slapstick shenanigans, dopey car chase scenes, and booger jokes. David Johansen (AKA Buster Poindexter) and future Scrubs star, John C. McGinley star as the lead cop

Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace (1996)
Who is Jobe? “He was a lawnmower man. Until my next door neighbor did some experiments with him and turned him into a genius.” I have no idea how there could possibly be a prequel to this film, but apparently numero dos is only slightly less forgettable.

Alone in the Dark (2005)
This film’s director, Uwe Boll, has been hailed as the modern-day Ed Wood. Although he’s made almost 40 full-length feature films, none of them have been commercial successes. Loosely based on the video game of the same name, Alone in the Dark stars Tara Reid as a scientist and includes equally laughable dialogue and action.

Addiction (2004)
Straight from the annals of Finland comes this filmic gem, Addiction. Jonna is a woman with a husband and children who is hopelessly addicted to casual sex. She starts seeing a yummy piece of hot dog called Aleksi and everything in her life begins to fall apart. Thank goodness her artist sister helps her come up with alibis and she’s getting help from a TV therapist.

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