The 5 Worst Horror Movies of 2024 Ranked
With 2024 winding down, I’m finalizing my annual “top ten best horror movies of the year” list. This year had many strong horror films. Of course, it also had some that failed miserably. Here are my five worst horror movies of 2024.
They are ranked from the least offensive to the most putrid. A couple are technically 2023 movies, but I didn’t see them until this year, so I’m including them. I have already written full reviews for each, but I summarize my thoughts on each below.
All of these films had genuine potential. Whether it was because of lousy dialogue, poor directing, unconvincing acting, or ridiculous plot twists (or some combination of these elements), each failed to live up to their initial promise.
5. The Watchers
The Watchers is undone by a muddled plot (especially toward the end) and a lack of compelling characters. This movie tries too hard. It takes elements from various prior films, including The Blair Witch Project and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and mixes them together. The incoherent and convoluted result left me unsatisfied.
4. Night Shift
Night Shift thinks that it’s smarter than it actually is. It’s filled with nonsensical plot developments. Like The Watchers, it suffers from a genre identity crisis. It tries and fails to be both a ghost movie and a slasher. This isn’t a motel you’ll want to check into.
3. Tarot
Tarot is a forgettable ripoff of the Final Destination movies. A few creative deaths aside (the movie reaches it peak when a character is impaled by a pull-down attic ladder), there isn’t much that makes Tarot worth watching. The half-baked script is a few cards short of a full deck.
2. The Jester
This amateur effort is a blatant Terrifier ripoff. Who is The Jester? Well, he’s basically Art the Clown, if Art was a bland, lobotomized carnival barker. The storyline of two estranged sisters being forced to unite to face evil could have worked, but the acting and dialogue are too subpar for me to buy into their relationship.
1. Time Cut
Time Cut is a mess. The faux attempts to imitate the early 2000s (I’m old enough to remember this era well, and it looked and felt nothing like what is depicted in this film), massive plot holes, laughable ending, and uncreative villain put it at the top of my list. This movie is easily among the worst horror movies I’ve seen in recent years. Time Cut is absolutely pathetic and that’s the nicest thing I can say about it.
Making A Movie Is Tough, Especially With A novice Director
I discovered something interesting when I was researching these movies: all of them were made by inexperienced directors. Colin Krawchuck (The Jester) had directed shorts, but never a full-length movie. Hannah MacPherson (Time Cut) had a couple of directorial credits, but her prior films are so obscure that they don’t have a single review on Rotten Tomatoes. The other three movies were directed by complete newbies.
Moviemaking is a challenging process that involve the coordination of numerous people – usually hundreds for major films. Directing a movie is a complicated and arduous task. That doesn’t mean that critics have to go easy on first-time filmmakers, but it’s worth noting that inexperience undoubtedly played a role in these movies’ flaws. These directors might go on to do great things. Remember, James Cameron started with Piranha II: The Spawning.
