There is nothing like Autumn. It is sweatshirt weather in the morning and evening, the trees give us their best colors, pumpkin everything is literally everywhere, and our favorite shows return from hiatus. It is also time for the most creative holiday of them all; Halloween. Even though the candy has been sitting in stores nationwide since August, October is the real deal. While tricks and/or treats is where the real money is made, my favorite reason for the season is horror films. I consider myself a bit of a horror buff and love the classics from The Exorcist, Psycho, Carrie, Nightmare on Elm Street, and many more (Check out my top five). But for every spooktacular film, there are the inevitable bomb. Let me share with you my top; or bottom more accurately, worst horror films. To clarify, these are A list films, I consider B list cheese factory horror flicks gold, as does my esteemed colleague Doug .

5. The Lazarus Effect

It is an age old question: What happens when the dead are brought back to life? A team of young, ambitious scientists attempt to discover the mysteries of the beyond, but of course, their experiments go horribly wrong. The plot itself is interesting and had potential. Not to mention one of the hottest young actresses going for it in Olivia Wilde. But the result is a rushed, jumbled mess of confusing subplots, unclear intentions, and muddied motives. Was Wilde’s character Zoe evil before death? Did she come back without a soul? Honestly, it has been done before and with far more entertaining results.

4. Freddy vs Jason

You would think that a film that contains the Dream Murder machine and the Camp ground ghoul would be a horror classic! You thought wrong! Individually, Freddy and Jason dominated the soft core teenage sex-fest horror genre for years. They alone caused generations of hormone driven teens to think twice about getting down at the newly renovated summer camp or the vacationing neighbors pool house. Regardless if you preferred the strong, silent Voorhees or the wise-cracking child killer Krueger, you knew that you were in for campy fun. Fun is exactly what Freddy vs Jason lacked. It has been a decade since Freddy had the strength to kill slumbering teens, he is an out of sight, out of mind type villain. In an attempt to resurrect his career, he brings Jason back from the grave to drum up the fear factor on good old Elm Street. While his plan is successful in the short term, he now finds himself faced with the dilemma of sharing the killing fields with Jason. Epic battles ensue that inspire you to never watch this thing again. In what could have been a film for the ages, all it did was kill my horny teen self for good.

3. The Others

Nicole Kidman leads the cast as Grace, a woman on the edge of sanity. She is awaiting the return of her soldier husband who is fighting in World War II and caring for their two sick children solo. The kids can’t go out in daylight due to hypersensitivity to the sun, so they all live as shut ins within their mansion. Even the servants have had enough and have bailed on the family until one day, three new housekeepers show up looking for work. And that’s when the haunting begins….or does it? Look, the plot is a cool Sixth Sense play on a period piece chocked full of angst, creepy kids, and one damned crazy mom. The problem is it is an absolute bore and because it is, you can see the big reveal coming a mile away. If the film was more lively, or if the characters were simply more likable, the ending could have popped. Instead, it fizzled like a flat soda.

2. Book of Shadows: Blair Witch II

Where do I begin? To start, I didn’t care all that much for the original. A ton of shaky camera work coupled with the whiniest documentary film making trio in history might have been innovative for it’s time, but there zero scares to be found. I will also blame the original for paving the way for this retched piece of sequel garbage. Long story short, Maryland native Jeff runs tours in the same woods that our originals went into and never came back from. From there, the cliche machine really cranks into gear. He leads a pregnant couple, a Wiccan, and a Goth psychic on the expedition to find answers, but what they get is some sort of false memory, spellbound, dreaming…..who cares!! Once Jeff’s recordings of the tour are played backwards, it is revealed that they all had an orgy, followed by this one killing that one and….once again, who cares!!!

1. Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Michael Myers is one of the most iconic horror bad guys in cinema history. A tortured childhood, mental illness, and psychosis were behind his murderous rampage. Good times. Then came along this piece of used tissues. Halloween III starts behind the eight ball right from the start because: NO Mike Myers! Instead, the screenwriters chose to go with a convoluted tale of a murder investigation that leads to a Halloween mask company that leads to subliminal messages created by a microchip in said masks which leads to killer androids which leads to the worst horror movie of all time!

There you have it folks, my top 5 awful not scary movies of all time. As these lists are the definition of subjective reasoning, tell us your top 5. PCU wishes you a horrifyingly wicked 10/31/16!