For those who saw the first two Massacres, this will seem pretty much deja-boo! All too much of III is rehashed horror. The first installment was genuinely shocking, unrelenting, visceral terror. II was camp terror, a gothic detour that cast Dennis Hopper as a good guy (albeit nuts). III envisions itself as a return to I, but director Jeff Burr is no Tobe Hopper (director of the first installment), and even the special effects seem bloodless imitations.

Sure, there may be a nugget or two of gold in “Lost City.” But it mostly stays lost, in this convoluted drag of a script. “Dora” should have picked a path and stayed on it. Instead, it’s a movie that is muy aburrido — boring.

The story is as stale as prison air and so is the star. [25 Mar 1983, p.18]

Zapped is a C-grade movie all the way. [28 Aug 1982, p.C5]

The lowest common denominator of smutty amusement [03 Aug 1983, p.B2]

Broadly acted and badly directed, the cast never clicks and the gags fall flat. (Or, they stoop to dog flatulence.) This is a movie made for one-stop shoppers.

There are movies that make you want to mince words, and then there's Poltergeist II: The Other Side, a movie so ineffably bad, you can't even find the words to mince. [23 May 1986, p.D2]

Everything is utterly unbelievable; it's Blackboard Jungle without a moral intelligence, Rock and Roll High School without a soundtrack. Sitting through it is like paying for detention on a sunny day. [14 Oct 1982, p.D15]

It doesn't take extra-sensory perspiration, as Ernest would say, to realize this undertaking is dumber than jaywalking at the Indy 500.

Those immortals keep noting that there can be only one. Perhaps they mean there should have been only one.

Hot to Trot is an unbridled disaster, a screwball horseplay so lame you want to put it out of its misery.

Once upon a time [Brooks] was hilarious. And can still be, in interview, which is his true art form. But for some time now, his movies have not even cruised near the neighborhood of funny. And this one is the bottom of the barrel.

Greta might pretend to turn the tables by presenting the sexualized predation of a young woman at the hands of a female malefactor instead of a male one. But the fetishistic leer is just as troubling and offensive. Disturbance eventually gives way to derangement in a story that grows exponentially more irritating the more preposterous it gets. As Morton might say: When it rains, it pours.

From the outset, The Possession is calculated to make an alternately ludicrous and sadistic spectacle of the family's victimization.

Child's Play 3 is further proof of the principle of diminishing sequels: The original was actually quite good, the follow-up was lame and now what is hopefully the capper is DOA.

The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas isn't a movie about human nature at odds with itself, but a witless and unwitting mirror for Hollywood's worst instincts and onanistic conceits. [23 July 1982, p.11]

The Villain is the sort of dumb comedy that never smartens up. [23 July 1979, p.B11]

It's a comedy to be laughed at rather than with, largely because the producers decided to dub Arnold's Teutonic voice with that of another actor, one who sounds like he's giving bus departure announcements at the Port Authority Terminal. [30 Jan 1992, p.C7]

Some films aspire to B status; some achieve it accidentally. Return of the Swamp Thing does neither. It isn't shocking or entertaining. At best, it is a catalogue of bad acting unredeemed by humor, and it will quickly settle back into the swamp of anonymity accorded most minor comic book heroes. [26 June 1989, p.B8]

In short, it's about as charming as a gob of spit.

The movie is so flimsy that people might wonder how it could possibly have been made.

Charmless, stupid and badly made, No Holds Barred makes Rocky look like Citizen Pain.

A soppy songfest about a tubercular pea picker who drives to Nashville, where he hemorrhages and dies. It's unfit for human consumption. [17 Dec 1982, p.20]

Flowers in the Attic is slow, stiff, stupid and senseless, a film utterly lacking in motivation, development and nuance, and further marred by embarrassingly flat acting and directing.

There’s nothing wrong with a good cry at the movies. But a bad cry is emotionally manipulative and, well, just mean. A Dog’s Journey is the latter.

Everything about The Heavenly Kid is ripped off, from a sprig of music that apes the Beverly Hills Cop theme to Gedrick, who was obviously cast because he looks like Tom Cruise, but cheaper. [26 July 1985, p.D2]

Possibly . . . no, probably . . . no, definitely . . . the worst rock film of all time. [24 Nov 1980, p.B11]

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom feels like the friend at a middle school sleepover whose mom forgot to pick them up the next morning. You know, they know, everybody knows: The friend has overstayed their welcome, but you’re still trying to make things fun.