What's remarkable is how absolutely every character in the film is a movie cliche.

A hideously violent shocker about a woman who is repeatedly raped and castrates her victims. [18 July 1980, p.8]

None of it is funny. It’s all pain and no funny.

Good Luck Chuck is this year’s low-ender to beat.

Such a low-class, low-laughs rip-off that it makes "There's Something About Mary" resemble a Noel Coward comedy of manners. [23 April 1999, Friday, p.A]

The point of all this nihilism and grotesqueness? You got me. Perhaps Korine thinks he's getting at some harsh truth in showing troubled youngsters running amok without positive adult role models, but that's malarkey. There's a difference between unblinkingly observing reality and wallowing in degeneracy. [6 March 1998]

So excruciatingly awful, the word "dumb" could sue for slander.

The silliness still outweighs the steaminess. [1 May 1990, p.2]

Like its parade of predecessors, this Halloween is a gory slash-fest. It can't escape its past, and it doesn't want to.

Offers the most onscreen explosions in recent memory. It's almost pornography for arsonists.

As light, fluffy, cockle-warming holiday entertainment, this thing is pretty sweet.

Kinjite is clearly the work of dedicated industry veterans, all of whom decided to go home after lunch. [03 Mar 1989, p.P]

This was a mission that should have been aborted long ago.

The political movie satire from hell.

Put together enough pointless, random details, and you get Gigli, a movie that's less incompetent than bewildering.

I didn't laugh once during the entire film-not at the slapstick, not at the humor, all of which is pitched at the preschool level. [25 March 1988, p.A]

One hopes that this is Hollywood's last go-round with Swept Away. Watching this fiasco, I kept having nightmares about a possible cartoon version, co-starring Cruella de Vil and Shrek.

When Serving Sara reaches beyond its grasp and dreams big, Perry and Hurley float the movie on aplomb and wit. When the film gears down for slower-paced set pieces and disposable villains, its stars find themselves knee-deep in a giant comedy cow pie.

The Devil Inside joins a long, woozy-camera parade of found-footage scare pictures, among them "The Blair Witch Project," the "Paranormal Activity" films and certain wedding videos that won't go away.

Death Wish 3 may be the first movie where the director and both costars have publicly denounced elements of the film. Director Winner has said he doesn't approve of the film's philosophy of taking the law into one's own hands. Bronson has been quoted as saying the film is too violent for his taste.

Technically it does not qualify as one of the worst American-made movies ever. It only feels that way. The movie's offenses are too numerous to catalog.

Another problem is that this "Magoo" can't seem to figure out if it's for kids or adults. The plot's too simple for adults, with hardly an inside joke or double entendre thrown in for good measure, yet it may be too confusing for younger kids. [25 Dec 1997, p.D2]

Strange as it seems, if you choose to set aside the female roles in The Ridiculous 6 reducing women to cleavage or to mute humiliation, the movie is a long, long way from the worst Sandler movie ever made.

A bad script. Bad casting. What`s left? How about the guilty party you can spot within minutes? Add a complete lack of suspense to that list and it ensures that Blue City will be on this critic`s list of the year`s worst movies.

Mother's Day is a total mess, but what's truly offensive is that they didn't even try to make this cynical, post-Sunday brunch cash grab even remotely watchable. Your mom deserves so much better this Mother's Day. Go see "The Meddler" instead.

The performers never find the right spin on the dialogue, and DeSimone never finds the right rhythm in his pacing, to make these deliberate cliches take off into comedy. A stodgy literalness in DeSimone`s approach suffocates the joke.

The preposterous 88 Minutes is a serial killer movie starring Al Pacino's festival of hair.

Boring and banal, overwrought and undercooked, Hudson Hawk is beyond bad. [24 May 1991]

Armed and Dangerous is an extremely violent, often mean-spirited comedy in which most of the gags depend on the absurdly excessive use of force. Jokes like these are designed to appeal to adolescent power fantasies, and while kids may love them, adults are likely to be bored by their repetitiousness and senselessness.

Entertaining, but it doesn't add enough to the genre to make it truly blessed.

There’s nothing wrong with All About Steve that a rewrite couldn’t fix, as long as the rewrite involved a different writer, a different character and a different story.

You watch the movie in a dumbfounded stupor. Why on earth was it made? [26 March 1999, Friday, p.A]

The film suggests Lohan probably (allegedly) should've gone after her agent the other night, not the mother of an ex-personal assistant.

So filled with illogical twists and ridiculous turns, that eventually it evokes unintentional laughs.

A pair of decent performances does not a movie make, however, as Mazur and Giovinazzo are surrounded by fourth-tier actors (Ventresca and Steven Bauer) and spotty directing of a mediocre script.

More eloquently than any funeral director could, Weekend at Bernie's II makes the case for quick cremation. [13 July 1993, p.C5]

It's hard not to feel angry that you've spent almost two hours watching this moronic exercise.

As scary and minor-chord heavy as FearDotCom can be, there's no big payoff, no logical resolution.

There is little suspense in the film; the identity of the killer is heavily foreshadowed early on with a baroque music cue and a couple of menacing glances. And the false endings, which have become standard in this genre ever since "Carrie," reach laughable proportions here, because, yes, there will be a sixth film in the series next year. Have a nice day. [25 March 1985, p.C5]

In Harlem Nights, Eddie Murphy continues his one-man war against the female gender. Those women he doesn't kill outright are punched, maimed and slugged with garbage cans. But apparently they deserve it-there isn't a single female character in the film who isn't a prostitute. [17 Nov 1989, p.A]

A shockingly bad film because of its total misuse of two talented performers, Sean Penn and Madonna. [5 Sept 1986, p.A]

The film's crude humor and violence -- cartoonish, but still violent -- should offend parents of younger kids. Yet its ultra-broad, pratfall-filled comedy will satisfy only the most indiscriminate teens.

Just a schlock romance pumped with testosterone.

This is a movie that boggles the mind: a bad-taste comedy that makes the average effort by the Farrelly Brothers (mysteriously thanked in the credits) look like a Merchant-Ivory film.

Resembles an old Nine Inch Nails video. Missing from the mix are any characters with whom you'd want to spend one minute around a campfire.

Shallow and repetitive.

Jaws is looking a bit long in the tooth these days. As the venerable series (b. 1975) sets off on its fourth paddle around the pool, Jaws the Revenge is definitely dragging its tail fins. Give a poor fish a break.

Unimaginatively recycles all the teens-in-the-woods gorefest conventions.

It's hard to create snap-crackling languor or laid-back frenzy. And there's also something condescending in the entire conception of Mixed Nuts. [21 Dec 1994, p.7]

Some movies should never have been made, and high on that list is the addled new remake of Rollerball.

It seems that as long as Jason can keep his costs down-by hiring unknown young actors, desperate for any kind of a break, and hiring directors (Rob Hedden this time) straight out of television or film school-he`ll be with us forever. Conveniently devoid of any personality (a variety of anonymous stunt men have filled the role over the years), he`s as infinitely reproducible as one of Warhol`s soup cans, though considerably less expressive. [31 July 1989, p.C3]

The sad truth is, I can say nothing to recommend this film.

Insipid, ineffective, inept and insulting to our intelligence.

The direction is on auto-drive, the dialogue lacks wit and the story logic is non-existent. [03 Nov 1995]

Bad decision after bad decision occurs over 93 minutes.

Ostensibly a story about first love in college, and I never believed a frame of it.

The result is a weak "Carrie" versus Jason finale after Jason has impaled about eight young people, mostly women. The filmmakers have mastered the blood but not the tedium of all of the predictable killings. Nor have they eliminated the "hate-women" subtext to the entire series of films. [20 May 1988, p.A]

A most unfunny comedy about hijinks on the slopes, featuring a short ski patrol leader, a flatulent dog, assorted cutups and a stereotypical black patrol member who sings and dances a lot more than he skis. [19 Jan 1990, p.A]

It's the sort of film that can only be watched in stunned disbelief, as it lumbers from one misfired, unpleasant sequence to the next. The nicest thing that can be said about Nothing but Trouble is that there is nothing else like it, thank goodness. [19 Feb 1991, p.7C]

A smorgasbord of bad ideas, sumptuously over-realized.

Tom Cruise does with bartending pretty much what he did with a pool cue in "The Color of Money." In other words, he shows skill at a con game while being less successful with the woman in his life. [29 Jul 1988, p.A]

Cage is going for manly, if conflicted, family-guy confidence in this role, but somehow it comes off as nuttier than the events surrounding him.

The Emoji Movie could not be more meh.

Not only is Slackers painfully bad, but it's also about as morally unpleasant as a teen sex comedy can be.

A disjointed film that, but for brief flashes of comedic verve, should skip theatrical release and go straight to video.

Most of the humor is aimed at 14-year-olds.

A decent idea that never goes deep enough for genuine satisfaction.

DeLuca is not a director. And he isn`t much of a solo writer either. Maybe 1 percent of his gags work.

Buried somewhere in the screenplay are some Robert Altman-esque satirical intentions, in which the wildly corrupt college football recruitment process is offered as a panoramic image of frenzied American venality. But Bud Smith's broad, colorless direction removes whatever sting the material may once have had, edging the action instead toward sub-"Police Academy" slapstick-flying pizzas, exploding fire extinguishers, mass fist- fights that break out for no discernible reason. [25 March 1988, p.D]

The film has none of the charm of the series.

Scientology or not, the movie is a battlefield bummer that makes you want to revolt.

That this bit of pustulence is based on a video game of the same name is no surprise. It explains the thin plot, characters and abundant gunplay.

Given the grosses of the original, a sequel to Teen Wolf was inevitable-and it was inevitable, too, that the sequel would lose the quality of innocence and unconscious artfulness that made the first film work. The material has been broken down, analyzed and reassembled with scientific precision; what was instinctive in the original has become self-conscious and calculated in the followup, and the spirit is gone.

It’s a pity Grizzly II: Revenge isn’t giddy-bad, the way Tommy Wiseau’s “The Room” delights so many. But it’s here, it’s seriously disoriented and disorienting.

It's just a matter of holding your nose until the whole thing is over.

Verdict: not so hot

It`s shoddy, lazy and numbingly stupid.

For the most part, The Gold Diggers is not even chuckle-producing. At best, it might warm a cockle or two or provoke a bit of a smile.

With not a single original idea in its makeup, Certain Fury has to rely on something else to give it a kick. This it finds in foul language and heavy violence.

Most disappointing are the seven 'Kids' themselves, played by midgets wearing elaborate headpieces. Their behavior is every bit as gross as their reputations: Valerie Vomit uses her digestive instability to win a fistfight; Windy Winston's chief weapon is flatulance; Nat Nerd graphically wets his pants. [24 Aug 1987, p.5]

A loathsome shocker... Watching it almost turned my stomach.

When the final twist has been turned and the last corpse has hit the ground, it is a film that could have been twice as good if it had been half as complicated.

Lacks both mystery and urgency.

Though the movie is pretty stereotypical and sometimes crude, it also has a sweet laid-back temper. It has amusing moments.

Has one point to make: Islam is a bad, baaaaaaaaad religion, and it's a miracle you're even alive and reading this, so intent most Muslims are on your destruction.

It is Templeton's doubts that stir Graham's crisis of faith in 1949 before his first crusade in Los Angeles. And it is that compelling story line that is the movie's saving grace.

With most stories, even most documentaries, survival is the happy ending — the reward for one's luck, or skill, or exceptional circumstances. Sole Survivor, Ky Dickens' nonfiction account of four sole survivors of commercial plane crashes, turns that notion on its head, exploring the depths of survivor guilt and the post-accident lives of these living exceptions to a terrible, fatal rule.

Like the great, bittersweet Thomas Dyja account of Chicago's 20th century, "The Third Coast," Hogtown is hip to both the glories and the disgraces any great city can claim.

Crummy video-store flick. [28 Dec 1990, p.S2]

It’s a choppy, frustrating affair, periodically bailed out by some very good actors.

The stage version, the one recorded for posterity here, succeeds primarily as a performance showcase for Waller-Bridge. She’s a fabulous actor and a true stage animal, with a wonderfully expressive voice.

A bimbo-rama of the type you'd see on USA Network's "Up All Night." [24 Jan 1992]

If all this sounds difficult to track, well, sort of. But not really. It’s a flow, not a plod, and Stratman isn’t after conventional linear storytelling.