Take a look at all of those critics' groups and individual critics' group's lists floating around this month and one thing is clear: 2013 has been an amazing year for movies. Gravity, Inside Llewyn Davis, 12 Years a Slave, Short Term 12—the lineup of the year's best films goes on and on, so much so that the next Academy Awards ceremony, scheduled for March 2, 2014, seems anything but locked up so far. So many worthy Best Picture nominees, and no clear-cut frontrunner. Which, as any self-respecting cinephile will tell you, is exactly how it should be.
While it would be easy, and much more pleasant, to just focus on those aforementioned films and others of their caliber, it's time to bring the mood down a bit here. For every two or three stellar motion pictures released this year, there was one absolute stinker, and by "absolute," think Movie 43-quality terrible. The only awards and honors that will be bestowed upon such soul-crushing films are those dreaded Razzies and, naturally, our annual countdown of the worst movies of the year. As you're about to see, 2013 had no shortage of big-screen direness.
25. Man of Steel
24. Prisoners
23. Diana
22. The Great Gatsby
21. Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters
20. Aftershock
19. The Lone Ranger
18. R.I.P.D.
17. Passion
16. A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III
15. The Hangover Part III
14. Getaway
13. The Host
12. Olympus Has Fallen
11. Scary Movie 5
10. Violet & Daisy
9. The Last Exorcism Part II
8. A Good Day to Die Hard
7. Movie 43
6. InAPPropriate Comedy
5. A Haunted House
4. Gangster Squad
3. Dracula 3D
Director: Dario Argento
Stars: Thomas Kretschmann, Rutger Hauer, Marta Gastini, Asia Argento, Unax Ugalde, Miriam Giovanelli, Giovanni Franzoni
It wouldn't even make sense to rehash that old phrase "Oh, how the mighty have fallen" in the case of Dario Argento—he's been embarrassing himself since 2007, when the enjoyably bad but still, you know, bad Mother of Tears premiered. In 2009, the Italian horror icon descend even further into the land of suck, making his worst movie, at the time, in Giallo, a serial killer dud that star Adrien Brody has since renounced.
Neither of those cinematic turkeys, though, prepared fans of Argento's past horror treasures (e.g., Suspiria, Inferno, Deep Red) for the abomination that is Dracula 3D. A loose, incredibly inept adaptation of Bram Stoker's seminal vampire novel, Argento's darkest hour plays like an unholy combination of awful student film and unintentional Ed Wood parody, with cheesy wah-wah synth music, robotic acting, and laughably terrible CGI. Though, in slight defense of Argento's heinous version of Dracula, there is this:
And that's certainly something special. —Matt Barone