Film critics around the world can finally breathe a sigh of relief, not least because they no longer risk having their teeth knocked out. For Uwe Boll, the fiercely combative German film-maker regularly cited as the world’s worst director, has left the building.

Following a career stretching back more than a quarter of a century, taking in more than 30 movies, that famous 2006 incident in which he literally fought his critics, and a unique “worst career achievement award” Razzie in 2009, it all ends here. The Canada-based film-maker, who has long used German tax shelter laws to keep working despite his movies routinely failing to break even at the box office, has announced his retirement in the face of falling home video sales.

“The market is dead. You don’t make any money anymore on movies because the DVD and Blu-ray market worldwide has dropped 80% in the last three years,” the director, who specialised in adapting video games for films that even fans of the games hated, told the Toronto issue of Metro. “That is the real reason; I just cannot afford to make movies.”



But Boll being Boll, he could not quite resist departing the scene without sending one last barb in the direction of his critics. “Now when I don’t make any more movies, maybe they find the time to actually watch the movies, starting with Postal in 2005, the movies of the last 10 years,” he said. “They will see they were a lot of very interesting movies and a lot of movies that I think made sense and said a point about things. They deserve to be discussed bigger than they were.”

So we decided to take up Boll’s challenge and re-examine five of his best known movies from the past decade. Can they really be all that bad?

Postal (2007)

What Uwe Boll thinks this movie is: Dr Strangelove for the Jackass generation, a knockabout satire on political incorrectness, trash culture and post-9/11 angst.

What it really is: A sort-of low-rent Falling Down. American Beauty as scripted by Beavis and Butthead.

Based on the video game Postal 2, which is famed for its ultra-violence and scorn for politically correct mores, Postal stars little-known actor Zack Ward as the volatile, downtrodden Postal Dude, whose day goes from bad to worse after he’s ridiculed at a job interview, cuckolded by his neighbour and thrown out of the local unemployment office. The original game sees the Dude running amok through a small Arizonan town filled with violent, gun-toting citizens, but Boll instead sets up a battle royale between Islamist terrorists (led naturally by a suspiciously American-sounding Osama bin Laden) and scantily clad, buxom cultist nut jobs.

Boll’s favourite trick is to repeatedly show us the Dude’s morbidly obese wife in flagrante with various members of the local populace as her husband looks on in horror from the corner of his trailer. But there’s even worse to come, as the movie progresses from fart gags to rape jokes and finally on to pedophile jokes as its director does his best to offend the sensibilities of anyone with eyes.

Famous for: The terrible opening scene in which two 9/11 hijackers discover they may not get their due as martyrs because bin Laden is running low on virgins.

Career low for: Future Oscar-winner JK Simmons as Candidate Welles, or possibly diminutive Austin Powers star Verne Troyer – who gets violated by 1,000 monkeys.

Verdict: 0/5

In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007)

What Uwe Boll thinks this movie is: Big-budget fantasy for fans of the Lord of the Rings movies

What it really is: A collection of by-the-numbers Tolkien tropes, and about as much fun as a night out in Mordor

If you thought Warcraft was bad, check out Boll’s achingly turgid attempt at swords and sorcery, starring Jason Statham as a lowly peasant fighting to save a medieval kingdom from an invasion of Orc-like creatures with only distinctly anachronistic martial arts moves and a fricking boomerang to help him in his quest. The dialogue is shonky to say the least, the plotting puffy and bloated. Worst of all, Boll assumes that the epic nature of the genre requires him to stretch out the horror to a bum-numbing two and a half hours – though it feels even longer.

Famous for: Carries the dubious distinction of being the only movie in Hollywood history in which Statham turns out to be Burt Reynolds’ son.

Career low for: Lord of the Rings’ John Rhys-Davies, who went from playing the dual roles of Gimli and Treebeard the Ent in Peter Jackson’s Oscar-winning fantasy trilogy to this in just four years.

Verdict: 1/5

Alone in the Dark (2005)

What Uwe Boll thinks this movie is: An all-action blend of sci-fi noir and paranormal thriller – Raymond Chandler meets The X-Files.

What it really is: A collection of Hollywood action cliches packaged as a movie.

Often described as one of the worst films ever made, Alone in the Dark perhaps epitomizes Boll’s ability to produce what can only be described as a sort-of reverse Tarantino effect. Where the Pulp Fiction director reworks cheap B-movie material with diamond-cut dialogue and masterful staging, the German director steals all the best bits from classic Hollywood action adventure and stitches them together to create a horrifyingly ersatz frankenmovie.

Alone in the Dark features an opening segue in the style of James Bond, monsters that resemble Alien’s xenomorphs and one entire scene (and plenty of plot elements) from Indiana Jones. In every dark corner seems to lurk another cliche, from the tense rivalry between Christian Slater’s paranormal investigator Edward Carnby and his replacement at a shadowy government agency, Stephen Dorff’s commander Richard Burke, to the denouement in which one of the main characters

heroically sacrifices himself to save the world from all those hideous monsters from another dimension.

Famous for: The excruciating scene in which genius archeologist Tara Reid sciences up the location of the demon horde using only the power of the stars, an old PC and some ancient Mesoamerican artefacts.

Career low for: Reid, who got a Razzie for worst actress for her performance, though Slater and Dorff can both take their share of the blame.

Verdict: 2/5

Tunnel Rats (2008)

What Uwe Boll thinks this movie is: Heartrending tale of enduring humanity in the face of unspeakable horrors. The new Platoon.

What it really is: Passable, minimalistic Vietnam war drama starring a cast of enthusiastic unknowns.

Tunnel Rats is supposedly Boll’s best work, a war movie about the American soldiers who were sent into the Viet Cong’s sprawling network of underground tunnels during the Vietnam war. But when the director treats us to a gratuitous shot of some actual rats within the first few moments, we are reminded this is a director on whom the concepts of subtlety and symbolism are somewhat lost. Still, Boll regular Michael Paré does a passable imitation of Tom Berenger as a battle-hardened lieutenant, and there’s a pleasing poignancy to the doomed infantrymen’s pre-battle badinage.

Famous for: Boll’s decision to allow the cast to improvise off his original script treatment, which may just explain the superior dialogue when compared to the rest of the German’s oeuvre.

Career low for: No famous faces here, but the controversial actor and director of The Birth of a Nation, Nate Parker, plays Pte Jim Lidford.

Verdict: 3/5

BloodRayne (2005)

What Uwe Boll thinks this movie is: Fast-paced and stylish period horror.

What it really is: Video game-inspired cod-gothic schlock with an obscenely awful script.

Bloodrayne is not completely unwatchable, but the dialogue is typically risible and the plotting seriously clunky. Furthermore, the film-maker cloaks the entire movie in a strange red filter, as if to paper over the cracks. Terminator 3’s Kristanna Loken stars as Rayne, a half-human, half-vampire creature who hunts her bloodsucking brethren (so a bit like Blade then) in a weird version of 18th century Romania where everyone is American or British. Following a conveniently timed encounter with a fortune teller, she sets out on a quest to destroy her creepy father Kagan (Ben Kinsgley), a vampire who raped and then killed her mother. Loken has the most erratic British accent since Keanu Reeves’ mangled vowels in Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula, and Billy Zane wears the worst wig since Colin Farrell in Oliver Stone’s Alexander.

Famous for: Boll’s cost-saving decision to hire actual prostitutes instead of actors for a scene featuring Meat Loaf as a peruke-wearing libertine vampire.

Career low for: Michael Madsen, who later described the film as an “abomination”. And Kingsley, who did his best with an appalling script but still got a Razzie nomination for worst supporting actor.

Verdict: 2/5