The Lowest-Rated Film on IMDb
Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer’s 2008 spoof “Disaster Movie” scrapes the bottom of the barrel.
For over 15 years, one film has held onto the #1 spot on IMDb’s Bottom 100 list, and that film is Disaster Movie. The film has sat upon that mighty throne atop the list, only being unseated on occasion by a few recent releases which were subject to online downvoting campaigns, and soon enough, Disaster Movie always comes out on top.
The film was made in 2008, as part of a wave (one might say a scourge) of spoof films in the 2000s written and directed by the dynamic duo of Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer. The pair made a name for themselves as 2 of the 6 writers of Scary Movie, and that's how they would be billed in advertising for their films.
The two would make their directorial debut in 2006 with a spoof of romantic comedies called Date Movie, and from there they would crank out three more of these suckers in the span of just two years, with each film diminishing in production value and box office returns, until they hit rock bottom with Disaster Movie.
Their previous three spoof films were released by Twentieth Century Fox, the same studio that thought Dragonball Evolution was good enough to release, and I guess even they got to a point where they said, "Yeah, we've had enough of you two." So, Friedberg & Seltzer moved over to one of Hollywood's "major minor" studios, Lionsgate, to continue their reign of terror.
The pair had started writing a script for a spoof of Superbad. Yes, a parody of an over-the-top comedy, that’s not redundant at all. As they were writing the script, they kept incorporating more and more spoofs of characters from popular movies, until it morphed into the Frankenstein’s monster that is Disaster Movie. The two then flew down to Louisiana to shoot the film, and they were outta there in 8 days.
The plot (if you'd like to call it that) concerns a Super Duper Sweet 16 party being held for a 25-year-old man, which is populated by cast members from MADtv playing characters from popular films, like Superbad, Juno, and No Country for Old Men. Also joining in on the festivities is GQ's 2023 Man of the Year… Kim Kardashian. The actual Kim Kardashian, not a woman playing dress-up.
Former Baywatch star Carmen Electra also appears. She was a regular player in these spoof films. She was asked in an interview about the character she plays in the film, and this was her response…
"I'm actually spoofing the movie Wanted, so I get to have tattoos and guns, that's always fun… and also spoofing the WWE…"
Electra's "character" is credited as "Beautiful Assassin". Friedberg & Seltzer have apparently redefined what a "character" is. Perhaps they were far ahead of their time.
The Super Duper Sweet 16 party is interrupted when the city of Shreveport is plagued by tornadoes and meteors, and our group of friends run around the city, encountering cosplayers dressed as Iron Man, The Hulk, and Kung Fu Panda, as well as these freakish puppets of Alvin and the Chipmunks. I mean, look at these things…
Ike Barinholtz portrays seven characters, including Batman, Hellboy, Beowulf, Anton Chigurh, Prince Caspian, a police officer, and an American Gladiator.
Friedberg & Seltzer never watched most of the films they were spoofing, and just threw all of these characters into the script after watching the coming attractions trailers. There's no real satire here, just guys playing dress-up before being crushed by a plastic cow. When they run out of films to spoof, they start mimicking commercials for AT&T and Head-On ("Apply directly to the forehead"). Mel Brooks they ain't.
When I was a kid, I loved spoof films. I watched Airplane! and most of Mel Brooks' films multiple times. I even loved High Anxiety and Silent Movie. I also enjoyed such classics as Spy Hard and Meet the Spartans, two other satirical masterworks from Friedberg & Seltzer. My 7-year-old brain couldn't distinguish between the great spoof films and their cheap imitators.
Disaster Movie is scraping the bottom of the spoof movie barrel. It is humor for the lowest common denominator, and it reeks of laziness. It may not be the worst film ever made, but it’s certainly down there. As far as mainstream Hollywood films released in over 2,000 theaters across the United States are concerned, this may just be rock bottom. There’s certainly plenty of worse films out there released straight to video or in a limited theatrical run, including worse spoof films. However, there are few films out there that have had as much reach as this film that turned out this bad.
This film isn’t as annoying or frustrating as many others, but it’s a depressing sit-through. It’s a bummer to think there was, and still is, an audience that enjoys this sort of thing. I just hope most of these fans were dumb 7-year-olds like me when they saw it. I won’t shame anyone for enjoying these lazy spoof films, I’m happy for anyone who’s able to get something more out of them than most other people. I would only suggest that they seek out some more sharply written films for further viewing. Perhaps even a black-and-white film, if that’s not too much to ask.
