No matter the medium, comedy is one of the hardest genres to get right; but in film especially, it’s particularly hard to please the widest audience possible while still delivering a comedy film that’s unique, well-crafted, and timeless in its sense of humor. As proof that writing comedy cinema is hard, there have been countless flops throughout history that give comedy a bad name.
Calling a joke “unfunny” is, of course, a very subjective thing; but there are certain movies so poorly written, so needlessly crass or dumb,that they’re as close as a film can come to being objectively unfunny. Ranging from classic superhero comedies to stupid 2000s cash-grabs, the worst-written comedies of all time show that, just because your movie’s main purpose is to make people laugh, doesn’t mean you can get away with a lazy screenplay.
10’Howard the Duck' (1986)
Directed by Willard Huyck
Howard the Duckjustscreams'80s comedy. To some, this might sound appealing; but anyone who has ever had the misfortune of laying eyes on this so-bad-it’s-good cult classic will surelyattest to the statement that it’s one of the decade’s most bafflingly awful comedies. It’s about a sarcastic humanoid duck who’s pulled out of his homeworld and into Earth, where he must stop an alien invasion with the help of a couple of idiosyncratic friends.
Oddly sexual, pointlessly plotted, and ubelievably silly from beginning to end,Howardis too vulgar for kids but far too infantile for grown-ups. Its is a confused mess of a screenplay full of half-baked ideas that it never quite figures out how to realize, and as a result, nothing about the movie works. As a superhero action film, it’s remarkably unexciting. As a campy comedy, it’s rarely intentionally funny. Howard is one ofthe worst heroes in movie historyand none of the side characters are interesting, so viewers are left with a nothingburger of a movie that’s genuinely hard to get through.
Howard the Duck
9’From Justin to Kelly' (2003)
Directed by Robert Iscove
Labelled “a notorious stinker” on the Rotten Tomatoes critic consensus,From Justin to Kellyis a musical starringKelly ClarksonandJustin Guarinias a waitress from Texas and a student from Pennsylvania, who meet during spring break in Florida and come together through their shared love of singing. Hangout beach movies can be some of the most delightful times one can have with a film. Not so with this one.
From Justin to Kellyis probably one ofthe worst movies of all time, with some ofthe most atrocious songs, acting, and choreography that cinema has ever been subjected to. It’s not inconceivable to think that these American Idol icons might have delivered a semi-okay product if they had been given some solid material to work with, butFrom Justin to Kelly’s script is a collection of bad dialogue, bad characters, bad songs, and forgettable moments that were simply impossible to turn into a passable film.
From Justin to Kelly
8’Movie 43' (2013)
Directed by Elizabeth Banks, Steven Brill, Steve Carr, Rusty Cundieff, James Duffy, Griffin Dunne, Peter Farrelly, Patrik Forsberg, Will Graham, James Gunn, Brett Ratner, and Jonathan van Tulleken
Movie 43is famous for mainly two things: One is its incredibly stacked cast, and the other is the fact that it’s universally agreed to be one of the worst movies of the 21st century by far. It’s a raunchy anthology movie that collects a series of interconnected short films, under the framing device of a washed-up producer pitching wild stories featuring some of the biggest stars in Hollywood.
Peter FarrellyofGreen Bookfame, one of the movie’s main ideators,spoke to Colliderabout how the main intention withMovie 43was to gather dozens of big names to do raunchy things. For this,they got unknown comedy writers with very little screenwriting experienceto pen most of the shorts. You most definitely can tell. Each sketch inMovie 43is disgustingly crass, lacking in any kind of intelligence, and painfully unfunny.
7’Jack and Jill' (2011)
Directed by Dennis Dugan
Adam Sandleris a phenomenal actor when given the right material and working with the right director, but he’s most definitely also no stranger to making awful films.One that’s particularly tortuous, however, is probably his worst ever:Jack and Jill, where family guy Jack Sadelstein prepares for the annual Thanksgiving visit of his twin sister, the needy Jill, who then refuses to leave.
It’s by far one ofthe worst comedies of the 2010s,Dennis Dugan’s direction andAdam Sandler’s performance (particularly as the grating Jill) being nothing short of an affront to humanity. Childish and gross, the movie’s sense of humor grows old as soon as things kick off; and none of the characters or storylines offer anything of value to anyone with better things to do. Like watching paint dry.
Jack and Jill
6’Son of the Mask' (2005)
Directed by Lawrence Guterman
WhileThe Maskis one of the most beloved movies of the ’90s, one of the films that cementedJim Carreyas one of the decade’s biggest comedic stars, the sequel is… much less good, to put it kindly. With less word-mincing, one can say thatSon of the Maskis an absolute disaster of a movie, following an aspiring cartoonist who finds himself in a predicament when he stumbles upon The Mask of Loki. After he has a baby boy, he discovers just how crazy raising a child can be.
Son of the Maskdoesn’t just suffer from lacking Carrey’s presence:It also lacks creativity, passion, artistic merit, and humor. It’s a loud, obnoxious, cheap cash-grab that doesn’t even benefit from the usually-hilariousAlan Cumming. It’s amodern embarrassment to fantasy movies, where most jokes and plot points are wildly child-inappropriate but way too stupid for adults to enjoy them. It’s a movie for no one, and most of its problems stem from its script.
Son of the Mask
Watch on Plex
5’The Hottie & the Nottie' (2008)
Directed by Tom Putnam
Paris Hiltonwas (inexplicably) pretty big in the 2000s, but when she was making movies as atrocious asThe Hottie & the Nottie, it’s anyone’s guess as to how she got to that point. It’s one ofthe worst-written romance movies ever, about a woman who agrees to go on a date with a man as long as he finds a suitor for her unattractive best friend.
Everything about the movie is terrible, from the makeup work to Paris Hilton’s performance, but the screenplay is the worst offender.
The premise alone should be a pretty clear indication of how misogynistic, superficial, and tragically unfunnyThe Hottie & the Nottieis. Everything about the movie is terrible, from the makeup work to Paris Hilton’s performance, but the screenplay is the worst offender. Crass, clichéd,and dumb to the point that it flies right over “fun camp” territory, it’s a cinematic abomination through and through.
The Hottie & the Nottie
4’Gigli' (2003)
Directed by Martin Brest
Gigliis so horrible and was so poorly received in 2003 that,for a brief period, it put stars Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez’s film careers on life support. It’s the story of Larry Gigli, who’s assigned by a crime boss to kidnap the brother of a prominent district attorney. A beautiful woman named Ricki is sent to stay with him to make sure he doesn’t mess up the job.
Saying thatGigliis one ofthe worst comedies of the 2000sis a bit of a truism. It might just be the very bottom of the barrel. It’s strange and very poorly plotted, and the dialogue is so cringe-worthy that it almost causes actual physical pain. Unbearably corny and horribly raunchy, it’s an absolute failure of a crime comedy that almost must be seen to be believed. Only almost, thankfully.
3’Disaster Movie' (2008)
Directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer
Though its name might indicate otherwise, make no mistake:Disaster Movieisthe worst disaster movie ever made. Of the endless wave of abysmal parody movies of the 2000s, whereEpic MovieandMeet the Spartansalso stand out as some of the worst, this is far and away the most inexplicably awful. Set over the course of one evening, it’s about an unsuspecting group of young people who find themselves bombarded by a series of natural disasters and catastrophic events.
AlthoughJason FriedbergandAaron Seltzer’s evil scheme to completely obliterate Western society by attacking its culture with their horrible parodies didn’t succeed, never did it come closer than when they releasedDisaster Movie. Lazy movie references, offensive racial stereotypes, and humor so infantile that it would feel too childish at a kindergarten playground are the sorts of things that viewers can expect from this cinematic abomination’s script.
Disaster Movie
2’It’s Pat' (1994)
Directed by Adam Bernstein
Saturday Night Livehas been the source of several spin-off films. Some, likeWayne’s World, occasionally turn out well.Others, though, end up being some of the most abysmal comedies ever made.It’s Patcertainly falls into this category. It’s about the titular obnoxious busybody of indeterminate sex falling in love with a sensitive, caring person also of indeterminate sex.
It’s Patis easily one ofthe worst comedy movies of the 1990s. Its whole schtick of “Oh my God! Is Pat a boy or a girl?” grows awfully old awfully quickly, and everything that follows is a terribly one-note experience that never goes anywhere and has nothing of real value to say. Mean-spirited and inept in every way, the film’s script is proof that not every sketch, no matter how funny it is, has the capacity to provide a full feature’s worth of laughs.
1’Foodfight!' (2012)
Directed by Lawrence Kasanoff
It’s okay to talk about the awfulness of movies likeIt’s PatandDisaster Movie; but there’s one terrible film that’s almost taboo. Speaking its name is awaking an evil spirit from the depths of Hell, and even thinking about it is said to be able to kill up to half of a person’s brain cells. It is, of course,Foodfight!, which some might even call the worst movie ever made. It’s about a supermarket that becomes a city after closing time. When the evil Brand X enters the scene, it’s up to Dex Dogtective to stop things from taking a turn for the worst.
Although some might call thisso-bad-it’s-good movie rewatchable,others might argue that it’s literal torture to get through. The animation is pure nightmare fuel, the story makes absolutely no sense, and the endless product placement soon stops being funny and becomes annoying. Even with all the awful visuals and the atrocious directing, though,Foodfight!might have been slightly more tolerable if it had had a strong screenplay to build upon. It does not. Absolutely everything, from the plot to the characters to the humor, feels like it was written by an alien who has never watched human behavior in the field. The experience of watching this trainwreck is, at the very least, impossible to forget.
