What are your nominees for the worst-titled movies?
Asked by
Jeruba (
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December 4th, 2009
I’d suggest two definitions of “worst”: (1) that it tells nothing about the movie, or misleads about the movie, and, even worse, (2) that it’s simply an awful title.
Uses either definition or both—or some other that you prefer.
Here are three of my nominations, complete with IMDb links. Please include links with yours.
Hideous Kinky
Sexy Beast
What’s Eating Gilbert Grape
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32 Answers
I like simply awful…
Blacula and/or I Dismembered Mama
I thought I was the only one to see Blacula!! Didn’t his mother eat at Gilbert Grape? I saw that one a few times. Open Water should have maybe been called Stupid Boat People and Boring People in the Water. I don’t know how to link.
Krakatoa, EAST of Java…
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Constant Gardener
Die Hard
Quantum of Solace
2 Fast 2 Furious
Se7en (basically it’s stupid to replace words/letters with numbers ._.)
Up
Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2
The Unbearable Lightness of Being-that really filled the seats!
Is it a Man? Is it a Monster? The Manster
for real, I own this movie!
grrrr…damn black-out while I was typing :(
Most titles make sense in terms of the movie they are representing (eg “Clockwork Orange” mentioned above, which is about an absurd film with no real plot). I found “Gothic” quite misleading for a psychological thriller, whereas it would have been great for a horror movie with ghosts and haunted castles and so on. And I think “The Cube” never expressed the desperation and agony of the movie, but made it sound more like sci-fi. There have been many unsuccessful and misleading titles like that over the years.
A title I didn’t like and which confused me was “Oh Brother Where Art Thou?”
A title I loved because it was as absurd as the movie it described was “Brazil”. Apparently, when asked why he chose that title for his movie, Terry Gilliam answered “because Paraguay would have sounded stupid, don’t you think?”.
Other titles considered by Universal were:
If Osmosis, Who Are You?
Some Day Soon
Vortex Day
Dreams and Night Tripper
What a Future!
Litterbugs The Works
Skylight City
You Show Me Your Dream…
Access
Arresting Developments
Nude Descending Bathroom Scale
Lords of the Files
Dreamscape
The Staplegunners
Progress Forever More
The Right to Bear Arms
Explanada Fortunata Is Not My Real Name
All Too Soon
Chaos
Where Were We?
Disconnected Parties
Blank/Blank Erotic Shadow
Time Maelstrom
Forces of Darkness
The Man in the Custom Tailored T-shirt
Fold, Spindle, Mutilate
Can’t Anybody Here Play the Cymbals?
Sign on High
The Ball Bearing Electro Memory Circuit Buster
This Escalator Doesn’t Stop At Your Station
Gnu Yak, Gnu Yak, and Other Bestial Places.
Anything with the number “2” in the title!
The Passion of the Christ would be more aptly titled Beating the Bejesus out of Jesus.
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Malcom X.
I mean, what happened to Malcom I thru IX?
@Dog lol (lurve over-load!)
Did anyone mention “attack of the killer tomatoes?”
@Dog, you think that’s a bad title? It describes the movie perfectly and is every bit as serious as the movie is. I wouldn’t dream of challenging you in a question of taste, but I’m guessing you haven’t seen the movie.
@Jeruba The reason I posted it is because of the common street slang in our area for needing to relieve ones bladder. ;)
“Gotta take a wiz”
Sorry, I was unclear. I got that one. I meant Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.
Goldilocks and the three bares
groan
@Jeruba Ha! Sorry about the misunderstanding. In retrospect I think that the title “Attack of the killer tomatoes” was fine but that the entire plot and movie was campy and silly.
So in reality I should withdraw that quip since it was an adequate title for the movie. :)
I loved the movie! It was every bit as ridiculous as it should have been. Don’t you think it would have been fun to have the job of deciding what kind of noise tomatoes make as they attack?
Sometimes, when our summer vegetable garden goes wild, I imagine I hear that noise….
@Jeruba True! I laughed at the thought of your vegetable garden… :)
Personally, I love titles like “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” and “Snakes on a Plane” and what-have-you. You know exactly what you’re getting.
Ah, the High Concept picture. Another is a good suggestion for this question.
Bubba Ho-tep
Motorhome Chainsaw Massacre, which stands to prove, as far as slasher films go, chainsaws are for nothing but public attraction, with the evident exception, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre…
They show a picture of a motorhome, and an upclose hand holding a chainsaw. Yet, the movie features absolutely no chainsaw whatsoever. In fact the movie was barely a horror movie, aside that the whole Freudian concept which often constructs the usual slasher premise, was instead replaced by frustration spawned of repressed lesbianism.
Oh I have nothing against lesbians, cheesy stupid horror scenes or too much talking…I love it all. However, you don’t put the word chainsaw in a title of a horror movie if there’s no actual chainsaw in the entire film. What a load of ass.
Such as Stoner’s Pothouse which just sells cooking implements, it’s false advertising!
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