Like a rubbish sequel to an already miserable original, 2021 was not a great year. More of the same time-haze where every day just seemed to blur into each other from the isolation, only it seemed to hit me harder the second time around because I wound up with a bad case of quarantine brain. I spent a fair amount of the year in creative burnout, meaning that I wound up seeing significantly fewer films than usual. And yet, because running on half power (or no power, as was the case for a few days in December) still isn’t enough to stop me, I still managed to see enough films to fill out my usual end-of-year list.
Sure, making such a list is just pointing at unpleasant things from the past just to point out how unpleasant they are, and it’s not as if the world is deprived of things to feel bad about these days. But quite frankly, making fun of bad movies with this annual list is pretty much the only joy I get out of still remembering that these features happened at all. One of the side effects of writing about every new film I see is that my memory of them is tied to something tangible, and they tend to be easier to recall as a result. And since forgetting about wrong things is a pretty sure-fire way to ensure that they keep happening, I reckon it’s worth taking some time to reflect on what I can only hope will be mistakes that are learnt from rather than repeated. As such, let’s take a look at my picks for the Worst Films of 2021.
