We’ve all had “that” journey: the one which saw us miss our flight, get snowed in somewhere in Delaware, and which ended up with us being forced to spend the night warming ourselves with a cigarette lighter. But no matter how awful our worst journeys might have been, they just don’t compare with the following eight trips from hell. You may say that missing Christmas with your family “killed you”—but at least that wasn’t literal. The same cannot be said of:

In late 1957, the Soviets needed a snappy follow-up to Sputnik. Given thirty days by the Kremlin to come up with something impressive, or else to get packing for Siberia, Russian scientists decided to do the only logical thing: send a stray dog into space.

On October 31 that year, “Laika” was placed into a narrow rocket and left on a frozen launching pad for three days. In all likelihood, this was the highlight of her trip; the actual lift-off subjected her to enough G-Force to push her heart rate into the ‘danger’ area. At the same time, a malfunction caused the rocket’s thermal control system to shut down, essentially turning the cabin into the space-borne equivalent of a sealed car in a sun-baked parking lot. Within five hours, Laika had become both the first creature to reach orbit, and the first creature to die in orbit: a bitter consolation prize rendered even worse by her patent inability to understand it.

During the Winter of 1719, Swedish Lieutenant-General Carl Gustaf Armfeldt was stuck in Norway with 6,000 battle-weary soldiers. In a desperate attempt to make it home, Armfeldt ordered his men back across the Tydal Mountain range—a useful shortcut into Sweden, provided it isn’t midwinter and your troops aren’t carrying summer equipment.

What followed was one of the biggest logistical screw-ups in military history: the first leg of the journey saw two hundred men die of exposure as the army scrambled for shelter in a tiny village. Rather than be put off by the screaming agony all around him, Armfeldt decided that the best course was to carry on—right into the heart of a blizzard.

In the horror that followed, frostbite set in, horses perished, equipment was burnt for warmth, and wolves descended on hapless victims. By the time the remnants of the army had finally reached Sweden on January 15, nearly four thousand men were dead, with another six hundred maimed for life. Because life laughs in the face of justice, Armfeldt was “punished” for his incompetence with a massive promotion.
   

Burke and Wills were the Laurel and Hardy of exploration. Tasked in 1860 with finding a land route from Melbourne to Australia’s north coast, the duo set out with such ‘essential’ supplies as 1,500 pounds (680kg) of sugar, a filing cabinet, a heavy wooden table and matching chairs, and a giant gong. In normal circumstances, you’d like to think that God would have taken pity on their amusing incompetence. But Victorian Australia was not “normal circumstances.”

Having timed their trip to coincide with a blisteringly hot summer, the two quickly ran out of supplies, temper, and luck. The original party splintered, with mass-desertions leading to Burke and Wills running for the coast almost entirely by themselves. When they finally got there, their goal was obscured by miles of mangrove swamps – meaning they technically failed, as well as dying in the process. A year or so after setting out, the two explorers expired over ninety miles (145km) from safety, having accomplished nothing and wasted £60,000 of public money in their very successful suicide attempt.

Any trip that ends with you eating a significant proportion of your loved ones is never going to wind up on a list of “10 Loveliest Journeys.” But did you know the Donner trip was awful even before the cannibalism began?

It’s true: the party had every sign of being totally doomed from the start. For one thing, the guy they were meant to be following across the brand new trail turned out to be a fruitcake. Rather than guide them through the mountains, he left letters tacked to trees and generally led them into areas so dangerous you’d swear it was an assassination attempt. This included the Great Salt Lake Desert—an area of the world so inhospitable that even the Elder Gods fear it. Unsurprisingly, this slowed them down.

Secondly, local native tribes decided to start killing their animals like crazy—an inconvenience made worse by the simmering tensions within the group. This leads nicely to number three: they all hated each other. No kidding: two members of the group even had a whip/knife duel at one point. With that sort of animosity, the cannibalism was probably something of a relief.

We all know the phrase “Doctor Livingstone, I presume?” But what you probably didn’t know was the full extent of misery Livingstone had undergone before he heard it.

In 1866, Livingstone became determined to find the source of the Nile. How determined? Well, he leapt in a boat for Africa, leaving everything he loved behind, and vanished for six years—eventually resurfacing up as the comical “pet” of a local tribe. And he really was something like their pet: despite the fact that he was riddled with dysentery, suffering from malaria, and bleeding internally, the tribe who found him would only offer him food on the condition that he eat it in full view, for their amusement. They were certainly amused, falling over themselves with hilarity while watching this stuffy white man scrabble for survival—much as we now watch Bear Grylls sleep inside a camel for cheap kicks.

Those six years didn’t exactly end well, either; shortly after the famous words above were spoken, Livingstone plunged back into the jungle and promptly died—seven years after setting out, and no closer to discovering the source of the Nile.

You know those days when nothing goes your way, and life feels hopeless? Well, Robert Falcon Scott had roughly sixty of those—consecutively. They also culminated in his death, which is something we can’t often say about our own bad days.

The year was 1911. No one had yet reached the South Pole, and the race was on to claim it in the name of one or another superpower. In the British corner was Scott: a Navy officer and scientist with some decidedly odd ideas about Antarctic travel. In the Norwegian corner was Amundsen: an expert in cold weather exploration, and one of the greatest explorers of his day.

Despite being clearly fated to lose, Scott made a game effort for the pole: by which I mean he wasted days collecting rock samples, and arrived five weeks late. The return journey was even worse: the weather reached previously-unrecorded savageness; temperatures dropped so low that the snow became like sand; and an unprecedented super-storm pinned down and killed the team just a few miles from safety. In the end, Scott’s pole attempt achieved nothing, killed everyone involved, and made the British look like fools.

Mungo Park was one of the first Europeans to properly explore central Africa. In the process, he managed to set a standard for awful journeys, against which all future disasters could be measured.

Planning to sail down the Niger River and into the Congo (thought at the time to be joined), Park’s expedition was crippled by dysentery even before it reached the river proper. What followed was an exercise in how not to navigate through nineteenth century Africa. Park’s river boat cruised into various territories where it really wasn’t wanted, often resulting in ferocious attacks. Luckily, the Europeans had enough firepower to save their skins—at least until the boat got snagged on a rock.

Thousands of miles from safety, outgunned and outnumbered, Park’s crew were massacre by arrows, leaving Park no choice but to jump into the rushing river. Unsurprisingly, this resulted in his immediate death by drowning—a fact which sadly escaped his son, who died on an expedition to rescue his father some eleven years later.

This is it: the granddaddy of all nightmare journeys. In 1914, Ernest Shackleton set off for Antarctica. Before long, his ship became trapped in pack ice, which forced the crew to make a perilous journey across the ice to the only solid ground for miles: a desolate lump of rock called Elephant Island. And that’s when shit got real.

With no other options, Shackleton organized a desperate expedition to the island of South Georgia: eight hundred miles north, across storm-lashed seas. Not your ordinary storm-lashed seas, either: Shackleton reported waves bigger than any he’d seen in two decades of sailing. Ice gripped the boat and sea-spray drenched the occupants, and sleep was impossible. It took fourteen days to reach their destination—and the journey wasn’t over yet.

Thanks to the unfavorable ocean currents, the team was forced to land on the wrong side. Since it was impossible to sail round to safety, they were forced to cross the harsh interior on foot, without maps, more or less navigating through guesswork. After fighting their way for three days through thick fog over mountains, they finally reached humanity—at which point Shackleton very nearly slipped and fell to his death. But he didn’t, and here we come to the uplifting bit: everyone survived. In the face of the harshest conditions on Earth, Shackleton managed to keep every single one of his men alive and to bring them home. So remember that next time you’re having the “journey from hell.”

Part 1 of Wicked has finally been released, and the public is loving it. From going viral on TikTok to being featured on every late-night talk show, this is truly the era of Wicked.

Jon M. Chu did what was considered impossible: He created a movie musical that was both a faithful adaption of the original source material AND a box office hit!

However, not all directors have been as lucky as Chu in trying to bring the stage to the screen. Here are 10 musicals that have terrible movie adaptions.

Related: Top 10 Historical Musicals That Aren’t “Hamilton”

10 Rock of Ages

It’s never good when a newspaper’s review of your movie starts with, “I just lost two hours of my life, and I want them back.” Unfortunately, that was the general consensus with 2012’s Rock of Ages.

Though much of the original plot and songs were kept in, the campiness and silliness of the show simply didn’t translate to the big screen. Even a truly stacked cast, including Tom Cruise, Bryan Cranston, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Alec Baldwin, couldn’t save this jukebox musical from being ripped apart by critics. The movie lacks lust, juice, heat, bad behavior, and other things we’ve come to associate with rock bands like the ones featured in the show.

As the New York Times put it, “There isn’t any grit to these people or their art, not a speck of dirt anywhere. It looks like Disneyland and sounds, well, like a bad Broadway musical.”^[1]

9 The King and I

Not to be confused with the beloved 1956 movie The King and I, this 1999 cartoon aimed to be a more kid-friendly version of the story of a British teacher and her romance with the King of Siam.

Unlike many movies aimed at children, this one was not enjoyable for adults as well. Critics panned the way the film simplified the plot, cut Rogers and Hammersteins’ songs, and essentially created a water-down version of the (already pretty family-friendly) story.

Upon its release, the Washington Post wrote that it was a “wretched, lurid, absurd concoction which seems to have been conceived to annoy adults and bore children.”^[2]

8 Nine

Based on the Italian movie 8 ½, Nine the musical follows a womanizing Italian film director (played by Daniel Day-Lewis) as he goes through a midlife crisis. Nine important women in his life seem to speak to him as voices in his head. From his mother to his mistress to the prostitute he slept with as a child, Day-Lewis has conversations with each one that lead him to realize that he should have appreciated and acknowledged the women in his life before it was too late.

At its core, the show is about the importance of seeing women as more than just sex objects or people to be conquered, as their perspectives and realities can lead to new outlooks on life. While the performances in the 2009 film adaptation were generally praised, director Rob Marshall was criticized for his tendency to cast the female characters in scantily clad outfits and catering to the male gaze rather than taking the moral of the show to heart.^[3]

7 Les Miserables

To be fair, it’s difficult to adapt a 1,400-page book into a three-hour musical. And it’s even more difficult to take a three-hour musical about French history and actually have it be interesting.

But Les Miserables was a hit when it opened on the West End in 1980, despite the myriad of plots and characters. The mix of romance and hatred, grief and love, made the musical beloved by millions.

Surprisingly, not much was changed for the 2012 movie, which starred Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman. So why is it seen as an example of what not to do when making a movie musical? Director Tom Hooper made a bold choice to cast Russell Crowe opposite a slew of seasoned Broadway and West End singers, and unfortunately, the movie star couldn’t live up to them. His vocals were described as grating, and his mediocre singing voice took away from the melodrama and fear his role required. When asked about this decision, Hooper frankly claimed, “To find brilliant film actors who are brilliant singers… there are so few choices.”^[4]

6 Phantom of the Opera

Even ignoring the fact that romantic lead Emmy Rossum was only 17 years old, playing opposite a 33-year-old Gerard Butler, the Phantom of the Opera movie was a flop.

Watching the chandelier fall from the ceiling and the phantom’s gondola glide through the fog of a stage doesn’t quite hit the same when it’s on a screen. The inherent theatricality of the musical did not lend itself to the 2004 movie, and the more problematic plot points of the original were only highlighted by the young age of its lead. Not to mention, poor Gerard Butler certainly looked the part of the mysterious phantom but couldn’t quite hit the right notes.

Ultimately, the spectacle and music saved this from being a complete failure, but most reviewers agreed that the movie was “histrionic, boring, and lacking in romance and danger.”^[5]

5 Dear Evan Hansen

Even before the 2021 movie version of Dear Evan Hansen was released, there was controversy regarding the plot of the original Broadway show.

Teenager Evan Hansen is lying about being friends with a classmate who committed suicide in order to make friends and become closer with the classmate’s sister, who he has a crush on. If this makes you kind of hate Evan, you’re not alone. The show tries to paint Evan in a sympathetic light, highlighting his intense self-hatred and mental illness, but many still find the show to be letting him off the hook too easily.

To remedy this, the movie tried to make it clear that Evan didn’t want to keep lying but felt he had to continue due to outside pressures. Rather than making Evan more easy to pity, though, it made him seem weak and uninteresting. He continues the lie for no discernable reason, and all is forgiven in the end.

Ben Platt originated the role of Evan Hansen on Broadway at the age of 22. By the time the movie was being made in 2021, Platt was 27 and could no longer pass for a high school junior. Because the film was produced by Platt’s father, he, of course, landed the role. No amount of makeup or “youthful” haircuts could make this man seem younger, leading to an uncanny valley leading man and less than stellar reviews.^[6]

4 Hair

Hair took the world by storm when it debuted Off-Broadway in 1967. The same cannot be said for the movie adaptation. Though it didn’t exactly flop, even going on to be nominated for a Golden Globe, it doesn’t quite live up to the musical version: At least, not according to its fans.

The musical was written during the hippie movement, while the film was made in 1979 after it had ended. It makes sense that these two different pieces of media have different outlooks on the hippie tribe, which is the central focus of the story. The musical explores racism, pacifism, war, sex, drugs, and religion. The movie is more focused on the hippies as people, not so much on their beliefs and morals.

The biggest diversion from the original plot comes at the end. In the stage version, the main character, Claude, a member of the hippie tribe, receives his draft card and is killed in Vietnam. In the movie, Claude’s friend Berger switches places with Claude to give his friend one last night of freedom. The soldiers are deployed that night, and Berger is killed in Vietnam while posing as Claude. Both endings are sad, but the original captures the simple hopelessness of the Vietnam Era and the simple sacrifices people made during it.^[7]

3 A Chorus Line

As the seventh-longest-running musical in Broadway history, A Chorus Line holds a special place in the hearts of many theater fans. When it debuted in 1975, audiences were taken with each of the seventeen characters, all actors auditioning for spots on, you guessed it, a chorus line.

Rather than focus on plot or development, each character gets a few moments to explain who they are, why they’re there, and why they love to dance. The experimental nature of the show was revolutionary for the time and led to numerous accolades.

After having difficulty getting off the ground due to hesitancy from directors, in 1985, a movie adaption of A Chorus Line was released and met with universally terrible reviews. Many felt that the focus on a romance between one of the chorus line girls and the director, which is included in the original show but made the main plot in the adaption, completely went against the moral of the story.

In a show that’s meant to be about everyone, Hollywood tried to make it about romance, and this fundamental misunderstanding of the source material unfortunately meant the magic of the show could not be replicated.^[8]

2 Into the Woods

Into the woods and out of the movie theater.

In 2014, Disney released a movie adaption of Stephen Sondheim’s 1985 musical Into the Woods starring Meryl Streep, Anna Kendrick, Emily Blunt, Chris Pine, and more A-list celebs. With a cast like that, it seemed like a surefire hit. And while it did end up doing well at the box office, Broadway fans were not impressed.

In the stage version of the show, the interwoven stories seamlessly flow in and out of each other as characters make their way deeper into the woods. The movie was unable to replicate this, leaving the plot muddled and beloved songs such as “Ever After” and “No More” on the cutting room floor.

Though the cut songs and slowed tempos were annoying, what truly diverted the film was the absence of the narrator. The show starts with him telling the audience “Once upon a time” and guiding us through the stories, which helped keep the plots separate and added an extra storybook-like quality.

One of the most pivotal moments of the show is when the characters suddenly break the fourth wall and decide to sacrifice the narrator despite his protests. This marks the point when the show begins to get darker, as Prince Charming cheats on Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother is brutally killed. Without the narrator, there’s no clear reason for things to go downhill so quickly, leading to a more ambiguous and less impactful moral.^[9]

1 Cats

Ask anyone who’s seen Cats (either the musical or the movie) about what the show’s plot is, and there’s a good chance they won’t be able to tell you anything. Except, of course, that there are cats in it.

The Broadway show was a smash hit in the ’80s and is still the fifth longest-running show in Broadway history. It’s mostly a story of individual cats explaining to the audience who they are and how their world works, with a second plot revolving around which cat deserves to be reborn in their version of the afterlife.

Part of the reason the stage show was so successful despite its oddities was the immersive experience and impressive dancing, both of which did not translate to the screen. Instead of wild makeup and ’80 bodysuits, audiences watched CGI James Corden and Taylor Swift roll around a set for two and a half hours.

Five years after its release, it is widely hailed as being one of the worst movies of all time. As Rotten Tomatoes so eloquently put it, “Despite its fur-midable cast, this Cats adaptation is a clawful mistake that will leave most viewers begging to be put out of their mew-sery.”^[10]

Being a celebrity is not necessarily a lucrative position. To make money you must either work away at your talent (difficult) or shamelessly trade on your fame to sell things to the little people (easy). Brands know how much a celebrity endorsement can be worth to them and so the money on offer can be almost too much to refuse.

Unfortunately there are cases where the celebrity should have said no. Here are ten of the worst adverts famous people have ever starred in.

See Also: 10 Bizarre Celebrity Conspiracy Theories

10 Bob Dylan’s Lingerie

Bob Dylan was the voice of a generation and a lyrical genius of the 1960s’ counterculture. The future Nobel Laureate had once said he would only sell out for “ladies’ garments.” In 2004 he did exactly that for Victoria’s Secret. ‘Angels in Venice’ sees the ageing singer peering enigmatically towards lingerie models dressed just in their underwear and angel wings as his craggy voice rumbles in the background.

Left to the viewer’s imagination is exactly what is going on in the advert. Is Dylan the model’s lover, father, or Peeping Tom neighbour? We will never know. Since Dylan sold out to Victoria’s Secret he has starred in ads for cars, Apple, and Pepsi. Some fans have claimed that his featuring in these ads for American companies is really part of an art project exploring what it means to be American. The money must have been nice too.

9 Jessie J’s Chocolate Songs

Jessie J is an English pop star who has found international success with catchy songs like “Price Tag” and “Domino.” Sometimes though musical success is just not enough. While acting as a judge on the talent show “The Voice” in Australia Jessie J was chosen to be the brand ambassador for Cadbury’s chocolate. In a series of adverts she sits at the piano and riffs on the different varieties of chocolate on offer. The singer comes up with lines like “When I’m feeling mellow, I want the caramello.” Perhaps the peak of lyrical achievement is “Snack! A little bit of this. A little bit of that.”

Jessie J has form in this department having dressed up in a bizarrely colourful advert to dance and sing about the joys of TUC biscuits in a UK advert. She also rode around on an open-top bus in London to promote McDonalds.

8 Jennifer Aniston’s Dancing Babies

How do you turn an advert into a viral hit? If advertisers knew this then they would all be unbelievably rich. So when Jennifer Aniston said in a Smartwater ad that she “Had to make a video that is also a virus,” she was hoping it was a joke that would push up the view counter. It sort of just made people sick with embarrassment – but in the end whether you go viral for the right or wrong reasons you still get the hits.

The advert sees Aniston talking to a cute lip-syncing child, cuddling puppies, and watching creepy animated babies dance. When the babies begin to do “dirty dancing” things go a little off track. She then kicks a man in the balls and dribbles fluid down her chin. Hey, times must be tough when you only have $20 million in royalties from Friends coming in every year.

7 Mariah Carey “eats” a Crisp

Crisps, or chips to give them their American name, are big business in the United Kingdom. Flavours ranging from Salt and Vinegar to Prawn Cocktail sell in bags by the million. So when one of the big crisp brands, Walkers, wanted to make a splash with their Christmas ad campaign they turned to a singer who literally screams Christmas – Mariah Carey. Her ‘All I want for Christmas’ is a perennial festive jingle. The advert that resulted sees the star tussling with an elf to get control of the last bag of crisps.

Unfortunately Carey wins the battle and so has to eat her prize. From the way she nibbles tentatively at the edge of the crisp it seems as if Carey has never actually encountered a crisp before. Or perhaps by the 19th take she had already eaten her fill.

6Tom Hiddleston’s Pills

Many people must have dreamed of waking up to Tom Hiddleston. But in one advert designed to sell vitamin pills in the Chinese market this dream becomes a nightmare. From the point of view of a woman waking up and walking down the stairs we discover Hiddleston in the middle of our kitchen making a garishly coloured breakfast. Apparently too terrified to say anything to the intruding actor we are forced to take a seat as he explains why he is unexpectedly there. He positions pills in front of us with menacing firmness.

Before he abandons us he tells us he might not see us for a few weeks. Are locked in the house until then? Will Hiddleston ever free us from our mute internment? All we know is that he thinks we look good and we should keep taking the pills.

5 Kevin Bacon and Britney Spear’s Wardrobe Malfunction

It is not just to the far east that celebrities go to make embarrassing adverts. Sometimes they only have to go to Britain. There was a time that only the jet-set would see an actor in a bad commercial abroad but now with the internet there is no escape from them. In the EE phone network decided it needed the star power of Kevin Bacon to spread the good news about its services, including its offer of free music from Apple Music. To get the musical aspect in they dragged in Britney Spears to appear alongside him.

In an awkward meet up Bacon is revealed to be wearing a tight red plastic jump suit as he dances to one of Spears’ more popular numbers. To get her full value from the advert a somewhat bemused looking Britney encourages him to listen to a more recent “hit.” When it comes to marketing she’s not that innocent.

4 Nick Cage Serenades Us

Pachinko is a Japanese gaming obsession worth billions of dollars per year. Perchinko arcade machines allow users to gamble using ball bearings a bit like slot machines. Because gambling for money is illegal those who win ball bearings from Perchinko machines cannot trade them directly for money but must exchange them for a token that can be taken to another shop – that token can then be exchanged for cash.

Pachinko machines are usually bright and noisy things so who better to advertise Pachinko than the never-knowingly-subtle Nick Cage. In a series of ads for Pachinko Cage can be seen singing at a piano about a few of his favourite things such as “a cup of tea and a good book,” and “a dance with a reindeer.” Possibly he says “a dance in the rain, dear,” but frankly either interpretation or any other is not unlikely. Perhaps the most exciting advert sees a cowboy Cage facing aliens (?) in the middle of the road in a dance-off.

3 Brad Pitt’s Poetry

Chanel No. 5 is probably the most famous fragrance in the world. How better to advertise it then than to get one of the most famous actors in the world. Brad Pitt’s 2012 advert saw him shot in black and white looking somewhat shaggy while solemnly intoning… something. Is it poetry? A hostage film? A threatening message? “It’s not a journey. Every journey ends, but we go on. The world turns and we turn with it. Plans disappear, dreams take over. But wherever I go, there you are. My luck, my fate, my fortune. Chanel No5. Inevitable.” As Thanos found out, not everything that is inevitable lasts forever.

Johnny Depp’s adverts for Dior’s Sauvage were equally pretentious and annoying. In the UK the print posters for that campaign saw vandals subtly changing the name of the perfume to a more Brit-friendly ‘Sausage.’

2 Ashton Kutcher Browns Up for Popchips

As if to prove that not all publicity is good publicity Popchips once decided that the right way to market their products was to get Ashton Kutcher to pretend to be an Indian man – complete with brown make-up and hilarious accent. Somehow people thought that the character of Raj was an offensive stereotype in some way.

One of the keys to good advertising is to get your name in as often as possible so as to stick in viewers’ minds but luckily for Popchips Kutcher doesn’t mention them once in the ad. With mounting pressure from people who thought that idea of blackface (or perhaps brownface) was a little dated in 2012 Popchips quickly apologized and pulled the adverts featuring Raj, while the other characters in Kutcher’s repertoire remained available.

1 Kendall Jenner and Pepsi End Strife

How do you solve the social issues facing a world riven by poverty, racism, and unrest? With the refreshing taste of Pepsi, of course! In 2017 the United States was experiencing a sudden focus on allegations of inequality, brutality, and murder that racial minorities were suffering at the hands of police officers. The Black Lives Matter movement was provoking debate across the nation and the world. These were complex issues that needed care to navigate. Into the fray strode Kendall Jenner.

In a Pepsi ad that sees people an orderly protest of all races coming together to show their dissent about . . . something. The ad does not make it clear. But they soon come up against a quasi-police force. Seeing the protesters Jenner abandons a photoshoot to join them and diffuses the tension between police and protesters when she offers one man in uniform a Pepsi. Apparently pleased with the flavour all of America’s social issues are solved!

Some found the ad tone deaf while others found it downright offensive that Pepsi would seek to capitalise on the serious problems facing the nation. The advert was pulled from screens but not before being widely pilloried. The daughter of Martin Luther King tweeted a picture of her father being arrested with the tag “If only Daddy would have known about the power of #Pepsi.” Indeed.

We write history as a battle between heroes and monsters. But even the darkest shade of black retains a glimmer of light. Although the people on this list deserve their labels as history’s worst monsters, every one of them has done some good—and many in ways that still affect our lives today.

10 Joseph Stalin Doubled Russia’s Life Expectancy

Joseph Stalin ruled with an iron fist that terrorized Russia. He is responsible for the wholesale slaughter of 20 million of his own people. Life under Stalin, the statistics suggest, must have been brutish and short.

In reality, though, it was the exact opposite. During Stalin’s reign, the average Russian life span more than doubled from 32 to 68 years.

Before the communist revolution, Russia’s people lived horrid, peasant lifestyles. Stalin played a major role in getting them out of that. He introduced a series of five-year plans that worked wonders.

Under Stalin, employment doubled, industrial output increased by 40 percent, and the country experienced an annual growth rate of 18 percent. Free health care and education was granted to everyone, and diseases dropped to record lows.

9 Genghis Khan Had Surprisingly Progressive Policies

Genghis Khan and his army swept through Asia, ruthlessly murdering, raping, and pillaging in any city whose population refused to kneel. By the end of his reign, he had wiped out nearly one-fifth of the world’s population and conquered almost a quarter of its land.

Life was horrible for his enemies. But for the people living in Genghis Khan’s empire, things were actually pretty good. The Mongolian Khans ensured complete religious freedom for all of their people and let Buddhist and Muslim leaders rise to the highest levels of Mongolian government.

Genghis Khan also started one of the first international postal services. His network sent mail from Russia to China and was so massive that it established 1,400 postal stations in China alone.

The countries he conquered flourished economically because of the new opportunities Mongolia afforded them. Since these countries were allowed religious and cultural liberties, their cultures flourished, too.

8 The Nazis Were Trailblazers In Animal Rights

The Nazis were surprisingly benevolent when it came to animals. You may have heard that Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian. As it turns out, Joseph Goebbels shared Hitler’s sympathy for animal suffering and introduced surprisingly humane policies that still affect the way we treat animals today.

The Nazis passed a number of laws to make animal deaths as painless as possible. They dictated specific ways to prepare lobsters and crabs to reduce their suffering and set up a whole series of rules on how livestock could be butchered.

They were also the first government to ban vivisection, the practice of dissecting live animals for research. Today, that practice is strictly controlled in most developed countries—a social change we owe to the Nazis.

Unfortunately, the Nazis didn’t show the same sympathies for human beings as for animals.

7 Pope Alexander VI Saved Thousands Of Jews

Pope Alexander VI has been immortalized as the evil pope. He was the patriarch of the House of Borgia, the infamous family known for their hedonistic orgies, violent cruelty, and abuse of Alexander VI’s papal power.

To Jewish refugees, though, Alexander VI was a hero. In 1492, when Jews were expelled from Spain, 9,000 starving and exiled people made their way to the Papal States. Although others had turned the Jews away and abused them, Alexander VI invited them in and granted them protection and freedom of religion.

Other forces tried everything they could to change his mind. Still, Alexander VI kept the Jews safe under his care. There’s reason to believe that Alexander VI only did this to make Spain mad. Whatever his motives, a lot of people owe their lives to the head of the Borgias.

6 Aaron Burr Was A Champion For Women And The Poor

Today, Aaron Burr is best known as the vice president who killed founding father Alexander Hamilton in a duel. The story seems especially bizarre because it’s hard to understand how Burr got his position in the first place.

As it turns out, Burr was insanely popular before he shot Hamilton. In fact, so many people wanted him to be president that he almost accidentally stole the election from Thomas Jefferson.

The people loved Burr because he fought for their rights. In those days, only landowners could vote, but Burr helped enfranchise the poor through a loophole. He set up land co-ops where poor people could register as property owners and vote.

He was a champion of women’s rights, too. His daughter, Theodosia, was famous for being incredibly well-educated, and Burr was an ardent supporter of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.

5 Mao Tse-tung Brought Peace To China

Mao Tse-tung killed more of his own people than any other leader in history. During the Great Leap Forward, his policies brought about the deaths of over 45 million people in four years.

Other than the starvations and imprisonments, though, life under Mao was actually more peaceful than it had been in a long time. Before Mao, Chinese history was filled with violence and brutality. Shortly after the dawn of the 20th century, the country fell into its infamous Warlord Era. Nearly as soon as the country started to calm down, the Japanese invaded, and that war was followed by yet another civil war.

When Mao came to power, though, the wars finally stopped—and China hasn’t endured a full-scale war since. They have sent soldiers off to support other countries and to quell rebellious states, but the rise of the People’s Republic brought a long-awaited era of peace to China.

4 Saddam Hussein Guaranteed Education And Medical Care To All

At the turn of the 21st century, Saddam Hussein was one of America’s greatest enemies. A powerful, dangerous man who had committed unbelievable atrocities, Hussein would have done much worse if he could’ve gotten his hands on the right weapons.

However, he also invested in some major developments that massively improved daily life in Iraq. Under Saddam, Iraq developed some of the best universities and hospitals in the Arab world—and every one of them was free. Literacy rates skyrocketed under Hussein—from 52 percent to 80 percent in just 10 years.

Of course, all the imprisonment and torture left enough of a sour taste in his people’s mouths for them to tear down his statues and celebrate his death. But many Iraqis reading about his fall in the newspaper could understand what they were reading because of Saddam Hussein.

3 Pol Pot Is Loved By Cambodian Farmers

During his reign in the 20th century, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge wiped out more than three million people, nearly half of Cambodia’s population. Although most people hated Pol Pot, some reports say that the farmers loved him.

Before Pol Pot, the country was led by a man named Lon Nol, who was infamous for his corruption. When the Khmer Rouge overthrew Lon Nol, the United States took his side and bombarded the Cambodian countryside with bombing raids.

When Pol Pot took over, he gave some of the poor rural people a lot more power. Farms that had belonged to private landowners were broken up and given to families, giving the poor a lot of control and new opportunities.

Although his account is controversial, writer Israel Shamir claims that he has spoken to Cambodian farmers and they view Pol Pot as a hero who gave them land.

2 Women’s Rights Advanced By Leaps And Bounds Under Gadhafi

Colonel Muammar Gadhafi was a monster. When the people of Libya finally rose up against him, he showered his own subjects with bombings, opened fire on protestors, and violated every law of war in his violent onslaught against those who stood against him.

Before all that, though, he actually had some incredible social policies. Gadhafi was a major proponent of social equality. He brought free, compulsory education for both men and women to Libya, along with free medical care for all. He even tried to set up free housing for everyone, although he wasn’t able to achieve that dream.

Women, in particular, blossomed under Gadhafi. They gained new opportunities in every industry, and several high-powered women made their way into Gadhafi’s government, military, and “Amazons,” his elite group of female bodyguards.

1 Ivan The Terrible Opened Up Trade Routes That Revitalized Russia

Ivan the Terrible massacred his own people in bouts of paranoia and even killed his own son. Ivan believed that everyone was conspiring to get rid of him, and he exacted revenge in horrible ways on the people he feared.

Perhaps we’re lucky, though, that nobody actually got rid of him because Ivan the Terrible did some great things for Russia. He opened up an early constitutional monarchy, letting the provinces elect their own officials to office.

He also opened up trade routes with England and Holland that improved life for a lot of people. Peasants could use the routes to move to better lands, and the economy significantly improved with increased trade.

Peter the Great would later use Ivan’s trade routes to turn Russia into a major power. Ivan’s developments let Peter bring about reforms that completely changed Russian life. So perhaps the secret behind every Great’s success is the hard work of the Terrible.

Most of the treatments on this list are prescribed by proponents of so-called “natural medicine.” However, more often than not, they are simply quacks, a term derived from the Dutch word quacksalver, which means “hawker of salves.” Tim Minchin, an Australian comedian and musician, summed it up best: “Do you know what they call alternative medicine that’s been proved to work? Medicine.” That’s not to say that research into alternative medicine shouldn’t be done; rather, once a form of alternative medicine has been proven ineffective, it should be discarded as a viable treatment.

10Laetrile

A chemical sibling of amygdalin, a substance commonly found in the pits of apricots and other fruits, as well as almonds, Laetrile is often purported to greatly assist in the treatment of cancer. First created in the middle of the 20th century (the exact origins are unknown), it was allegedly synthesized by a man named Dr. Ernst T. Krebs Jr. However, at least a dozen separate experiments have been done on the substance, with no anti-tumor evidence produced.

The most common rationale for the reason for Laetrile’s “effectiveness” is that cancer cells have a certain enzyme which is not as present in regular, healthy cells. Therefore, the medication, which basically consists of cyanide poisoning, affects only the cancer cells. However, this is categorically false, and a number of cases of death due to cyanide poisoning have been documented. Because of this danger, and due to the fact that it is ineffective as a treatment, Laetrile has been banned from being transported into the US, though it is still used throughout the world.

9Colloidal Silver

Colloidal silver is a popular treatment for a number of serious illnesses, such as cancer, HIV, herpes, and other bacterial and viral infections. Basically, a colloidal substance consists of microscopic particles suspended in a liquid. It’s usually taken orally, although some colloidal silver products are salves or injections. (In fact, topical drugs containing silver have been shown to actually benefit burn victims.) Research has been done to examine the claimed effectiveness of oral colloidal silver treatments, but so far no benefits have ever been observed.

The most common side effect of the oral ingestion of colloidal silver is the buildup of silver in a person’s body tissues, which normally results in a condition known as argyria. Usually untreatable and irreversible, argyria doesn’t pose a serious health risk, but it does create a cosmetic problem: The sufferer’s skin, eyes, and internal organs will all become discolored, normally a sickly blue. Excessive amounts of colloidal silver can also result in kidney damage and various neurological problems.

8Yohimbe

Extracted from the bark of a species of evergreen tree native to western Africa, yohimbe has long been a traditional aphrodisiac for the local inhabitants. Touted by “experts” as having beneficial antioxidant properties designed to prevent heart attacks, it can actually lead to medical complications, including increased heart rate or kidney failure. Brought over to Europe at the end of the 19th century, Western medicine used the extract for treating impotence, a popular idea which persisted until other medications, such as Viagra, were introduced.

Unfortunately, the evidence for whether or not it even helps with impotence is spotty at best. Numerous trials have come up with either inconclusive or contradictory data. That not only makes it worthless as a treatment for its primary use, it turns it into nothing more than a potentially life-threatening placebo.

7Aveloz

Aveloz is an herbal extract made from the sap of a Brazilian shrub. For nearly 2,500 years, practitioners of folk medicine have used it as a remedy, thanks in no small part to its corrosive properties. Relatively obscure until the 1980s, aveloz has now become a much more popular extract. Often diluted into water or tea, the chemical makeup has never been analyzed, as it was long seen as an afterthought in the fight against alternative medicine hucksters.

Its proponents claim that it can kill tumors, whether taken orally or used on the skin. (It is supposed to be highly effective against cancers on the face.) Unfortunately, the sap can actually burn the skin, mouth, and throat of anyone desperate enough to use it. Not only is aveloz useless as a treatment for cancer, some studies have shown that it may actually promote the growth of tumors. However, showing again why research is important, certain extracts of the family that aveloz belongs to have shown antileukemic properties.

6Colonic Irrigation

Colonic irrigation, also known as colon cleansing, is a procedure in which liquid—sometimes water and sometimes other substances, such as coffee—is shot through a tube into a person’s rectum, often in high quantities. Its proponents often claim that colonic irrigation “detoxifies” the body, suggesting that nearly all diseases originate in the colon. For most of humanity’s history with medicine, the colon, thanks to its duties in our waste system, has been seen as the bane of our existence. In fact, a form of colonic irrigation dates back to the ancient Egyptians.

However, doctors have been fighting public perceptions about colonic irrigation for years, although there hadn’t been many studies on the practice. Recently, a new study done by Georgetown University has concluded that it is worse than useless. During the procedure, kidney and liver failures occur, as well as rectal perforations. After a number of them, patients can lose the ability to even have bowel movements, rendering them forever dependent on enemas.

5Germanium

Sold under a number of different names, including vitamin O or germanium sesquioxide, germanium is a metalloid, similar to tin or silicon. Commonly used in fiber-optic systems or in solar cells, tiny amounts of organic (meaning not man-made) germanium can be found in a few plants, which is where proponents get their reasoning for its necessity in the human body. Luckily, the amounts found naturally in our foods don’t appear to have any negative effect.

Hyped as a cancer cure as well as a treatment for a number of other diseases such as asthma, diabetes, and hepatitis, germanium has been outlawed for import for human consumption in the United States by the FDA. Various studies have been undertaken, and only one single case study has shown anything to suggest that germanium helps cure cancer. Proponents claim that it also stimulates the body’s production of interferon, an anti-cancer compound, and certain types of white blood cells. It’s actually been shown that chronic use of germanium, even at the recommended dosage, has led to kidney damage and death.

4Escharotics

Otherwise known as black or yellow salves, escharotics are any number of ointments made of corrosive agents which are claimed to be able to “draw out” the cancer in a person’s body. Some of them are even used as treatments for various STDs. Given their name because of the trademark scab they produce (known as an eschar), they have been used for at least a few hundred years, if not even longer, and they were very popular in the 18th and 19th centuries.

While there have been some substances proven to be effective in treating superficial skin cancers, standard treatment is preferred because the cure rate is nearly 100 percent either way, and standard treatments do little or no damage to the nearby area. On the other hand, escharotics often burn normal tissue, usually resulting in unnecessary scars. In addition, nearly all escharotics on the market have no scientific evidence proving their effectiveness, with a multitude of reports of damage caused by their use.

3Chelation Therapy

While it is proven to be helpful with heavy metal poisoning, especially mercury or arsenic, chelation therapy makes this list because practitioners of alternative medicine utilize it for a number of disorders and diseases, including autism. The procedure involves injecting a chemical that binds with heavy metals and allows them to be flushed out of the body. At-home chelation kits are extremely risky, as the procedure, even when performed in a hospital, can have any number of complications, especially with the kidneys. In addition, children are at a higher risk for complications since they are often the ones who are targeted for its unfounded use as a treatment for autism.

A recent study at Baylor University concluded that chelation is not only ineffective in curing autism, but it is also incredibly dangerous. Its use as a treatment stems from the groundless theory that mercury is the cause of autism. To make matters worse, chelation therapy can remove helpful metals, such as calcium, from the body, further harming those who are given it thanks to useless studies which had any number of issues.

2Cellular Medicine

The brainchild of a quack named Matthias Rath, cellular medicine is touted as the study of “the role of micronutrients as biocatalysts in a multitude of metabolic reactions at the cellular level.” Promoting his own special vitamin pills, Rath’s organization has been sued in a number of different countries, with various governments condemning his claims. Touted as a cure for cancer as well as AIDS and a number of other diseases, cellular medicine has never been proven to be effective at anything. A few studies involving things like huge doses of Vitamin C have failed to show any promise in treating cancer or any other disease.

One of Rath’s biggest and most public failures was his venture into South Africa and his attempt to sell his “medicine” as a cure for AIDS. Using newspaper ads to denounce modern-day medicine as toxic, Rath endangered thousands of lives by keeping patients from getting free AIDS drugs given out by the government.

1Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS)

Created by a man named Jim Humble, who, ironically enough, once compared himself to Jesus, Miracle Mineral Solution is a 28-percent solution of sodium chlorite, a compound used primarily in the bleaching and stripping of paper. Followed to the letter, the instructions given by Humble say to mix MMS with an acid like citrus juice. This generates chlorine dioxide, a powerful bleach which, when taken orally, causes nausea and diarrhea, among other things.

Banned in a few countries already, MMS has been linked to a number of deaths. However, that hasn’t swayed the proponents of MMS, who have even recently begun to claim that it is a viable treatment for autism in addition to its alleged success against cancer and AIDS. Not only are oral treatments prescribed, but there are also protocols for enemas and baths using what is essentially industrial-strength bleach.

Movies require a ton of work and money to make, so studios attempt to make nothing but hit films. Of course, the reality is, more movies suck than don’t, and the world has been assaulted with thousands of terrible movies over the years.

Sometimes, a movie is so bad, it’s actually fun to watch. Ed Wood’s infamous Plan 9 From Outer Space is a perfect example of this, as it has a 67% on Rotten Tomatoes^[1] despite being absolute trash. At least the more-realistic audience rating makes more sense at 46%. As you’ll see on other entries on this list, the critics are clearly not from the same species as regular film-goers as they seem to get it wrong every time.

This list identifies those movies so bad, they’re just bad, and they are presented in no particular order.

Top 10 Lost Films

10 Comedy—Jack And Jill (2011)

When it comes to Adam Sandler’s movies, they are often hit or miss. Some of his earlier work is outstanding while his more recent fare for Netflix has met with little more than a “meh” from audiences around the world. Still, he manages to get a few laughs in even his worst-rated flicks, but it’s hard to find anything funny about 2011’s Jack and Jill. The movie was so horrendously awful, it was nominated for 12 Razzies, and became the first film in the award show’s history to sweep the major awards for Worst Picture, Worst Actor, and Worst Actress (Both for Sandler).

If you haven’t seen the movie, please, for the love of God, don’t! It’s about the twins annoying one another during a Thanksgiving event, and it features some of the worst acting ever to grace the silver screen — and that’s taking into account the fact that Al Pacino is inexplicably in the movie. Oddly enough, it made a decent amount at the box office but was so critically panned, it’s somewhat surprising to see that it has a 3% (36% from non-critics) on Rotten Tomatoes.^[2]

9 Drama—Glitter (2001)

Glitter is all about Billie Frank, an orphan who grows up to become a superstar, and the film follows her life through her turbulent childhood to her discovery as a star. Mariah Carey took on the role of Frank, and while she made it clear that she could sing, she also made it crystal clear that being a great singer doesn’t mean you can act. The movie came about as a sort of passion project for Carey, having begun creating a soundtrack and film back in 1997. There were some delays, but she finished the project at what amounted to be the worst possible time.

The soundtrack dropped on September 11th, 2001, which meant that hardly anyone noticed, and the film followed ten days later. While the terrorist attacks didn’t help her project gain a lot of traction, the people who did see the film universally hated it. Carey’s acting was the primary source of criticism, and she even later said she regretted being involved in the project. In terms of money, the movie cost around $22 million to produce, and it only raked in a measly $5.3 million at the box office.^[3]

8 Science Fiction—Battlefield Earth (2000)

In 1982, L. Ron Hubbard published a book titled Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000, and just about anyone who followed Scientology ate it up. To be fair, the book may be unnecessarily long, but it’s not the worst sci-fi book ever written. Still, it’s not one that could easily be adapted into a major motion picture, but if you tried to tell that to John Travolta in the 1980s and ‘90s, it would fall on deaf ears. Travolta worked hard to get the movie made, but the connections to Scientology and issues with the script kept it in development hell.

Sadly, 1998 changed all that when Franchise Pictures gave Travolta the green light and $73 million to turn his passion project into a reality. The movie was so incredibly awful, it’s an insult to science fiction and motion pictures in general. The over-the-top hammy acting by Travolta is inexcusable, seeing as he wasn’t new to the trade, and there really isn’t anything redeeming about the movie at all. It is arguably the worst movie ever made. Battlefield Earth won nine Golden Raspberry Awards and forced the production company into bankruptcy following fraud charges concerning the budget.^[4]

7 Romance—Gigli (2003)

Many years ago, the Hollywood “it” couple everyone was talking about was that of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. The two were dubbed “Bennifer” by the press, and their love was so true, they got to star in a movie that showcased it, and as you can imagine, it was awful. Gigli has a ridiculous plot, which involves a hitman taking a job to kidnap the younger brother of a federal prosecutor. Things get complicated, and not at all interesting when a beautiful gangster assigned to help him with a kidnapping starts stepping on his toes.

Gigli was, by all accounts, one of the worst movies ever made, (critics rate it 6% and normal people rate it 13%) and that is reflected in its box office performance, which established it as one of the most expensive flops of all time. The film cost $75.6 million to make, and that hardly makes sense, seeing as it’s not really an over-the-top action film. When the dust settled at the worldwide box office, it only managed to pull in $7.2 million. Gigli was directed by Martin Brest, who is best known for directing Midnight Run and Scent of a Woman, but Gigli ended up being his last directing job, which isn’t all that surprising, given what he ultimately produced.^[5]

6 Horror—Troll 2 (1990)

Horror is an interesting genre when it comes to identifying the worst, as many horror movies are shot on a shoestring budget, and aren’t all that great. That being said, some of the best horror films are shot for nearly nothing; The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is arguably one of the best slasher films ever made, and it cost only $140,000 to produce. Finding the worst of the worst is no easy task, but fortunately, the studios made it easy for horror with the celluloid equivalent of a dumpster fire that is Troll 2.^[6]

Troll 2 was billed as a sequel to the 1986 film Troll, but the two movies have absolutely nothing in common with one another. Troll 2 was shot under the title, Goblins, and was meant to be a comedy. The producers didn’t feel that the movie would succeed, so instead of doing expensive reshoots, they opted to change the title, call it a sequel, even if it wasn’t one, and release it. Behind the scenes, the crew only spoke Italian, the cast only spoke English, and the resulting movie is the celluloid equivalent of utter nonsense.^[7]

10 Movies Based On Common Misconceptions

5 Action—Batman & Robin (1997)

Back in 1989, when Tim Burton and Michael Keaton did Batman, there was a lot of concern that the movie would flop — it didn’t. The sequel wasn’t bad either, so Warner Bros. opted to continue making them, though the director and star changed in Batman Forever. When it came time for a fourth movie, the result was Batman & Robin, which is often considered to be both the worst action film of all time as well as the worst comic book film adaptation ever made, and that’s saying something, as there have been a ton of crappy comic book movies over the years.

George Clooney was cast to play Batman/Bruce Wayne, and while he could pull off a billionaire playboy without breaking a sweat, he was a terrible Batman. Add to that the plethora of cheesy villains, the horrible dialogue, which came off as little more than a string of bad puns and one-liners, and you’ve got yourself a terrible movie. The worst aspect of the film is probably the minor detail added to the hero’s costumes, as the costume department decided to add nipples, and nobody knows why anyone thought it was a good idea.^[8]

4 Adventure—Catwoman (2004)

Back in 2004, Halle Berry signed on to play Catwoman in the eponymous film, but she wasn’t originally slated for the role. When Batman Returns came out, the studio wanted Michelle Pfeiffer to star in a spinoff film, where she would play Selina Kyle, but it never manifested. The movie sat in development hell for years, but in 2004, it hit the theaters, and it was a massive flop. The movie completely changed the character into one who was unrecognizable to people who even had a vague understanding of who Catwoman was.

They changed her name, her origin story, her place in the DC Universe, and everything else about her making her a Catwoman in name only. Halle Berry did her best with what she was given, and it’s not as if she’s not a brilliant actress, but that didn’t stop her from receiving a Razzie nomination for Worst Actress. She was a good sport about it and is one of the rare examples where a star actually shows up to collect the unprestigious dishonor. When she accepted it, she said, “Thank you for putting me in a piece of s***, god-awful movie!”^[9]

3 Fantasy—Highlander II: The Quickening (1991)

The first Highlander movie wasn’t a hit when it was released, but it soon became a cult classic with a large fan base. That movie was all about a group of people called the Immortals, who lived forever — right up to the point they were decapitated. While that would kill anyone, nothing else could kill them, so they had a leg up on the rest of humanity. That movie’s ending concluded the story, and there really wasn’t any reason to make a sequel… Sigh… if only Hollywood listened.

Highlander II was completely different from its original. It kept Sean Connery and Christopher Lambert in the franchise despite the fact that Connery’s character was killed in the first movie. The plot is incoherent, it changes the origin of the characters, and the added science-fiction element was laughably ridiculous. Everything about Highlander II served to undermine what made the first movie special, and as a result, it’s reviled by fans of the franchise. The director hated what he produced, and re-released the movie twice with different cuts in an effort to improve his creation.^[10]

2 Musical—From Justin To Kelly (2003)

American Idol is one of the most successful music competition shows ever made, and it stayed that way for years by adapting and changing its format a little bit here and there. The first season, which saw Kelly Clarkson win in the end, had a different prize package for the winner and runner-up. Clarkson got a record deal, and another ‘prize’ given to the top two performers was a movie all about them! While that may have seemed like a great way to push the show’s popularity into another medium, the movie that came out of it was disturbing, to say the least.

From Justin To Kelly starred Clarkson and Justin Guarini in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for Spring Break. The two kids meet, they fall in love with one another, various complications ensue, and they sing songs merrily on the beach. It was basically Beach Blanket Bingo but released in 2003 instead of 1965. The songs were banal, the so-called romance between the two leads lacked any and all chemistry, and it was quickly apparent that two people with absolutely no acting experience were thrown in front of a camera without much preparation of instruction.^[11]

1 Animation—Titanic: The Legend Goes On (2000)

When it comes to animation, there are tons of movies that could take the top prize in the genre. Mars Needs Moms is often cited as the worst animated film ever made, but that’s largely due to the fact that it cost an exorbitant amount of money to make, and it bombed. Then, there’s Titanic: The Legend Goes On from 2000, and the movie wasn’t just bad due to its terrible writing and animation; it was also bad because it was done in very poor taste, as it tried to capitalize on a historical tragedy by calling it a legend.

The term “rapping dog” should be the worst part of this movie, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg. The movie is more or less a ripoff of James Cameron’s epic tale Titanic from a few years earlier. The development was fraught with issues, which is why the animation and art style changes, almost from one scene to the next, and the strange cacophony of characters make the plot into complete nonsense. It’s also vastly inappropriate for children despite being marketed to them, and very little about the story makes any sense. It’s little more than a movie that should never have been made. Ever.^[12]

10 Best of the Worst Films

You’re walking down one of Gotham City’s many dark alleys, clutching your valuables when you sense a presence behind you. A mugger? Maybe something worse—the city has been suffering through a veritable plague of enhanced criminals, maybe it’s one of those ghoulish guys and gals? Could it be the dreaded Penguin? Maybe you’ll get driven into a fear-driven madness by Scarecrow? You pray it isn’t the most feared of all the city’s enemies…The Joker. Nope, it’s just some guy in a Snowman suit who can produce blue-hued frozen precipitation from his top hat. Phew! Batman deserves a night off anyways. Let’s take a look at the worst villains in comic book history, (then take a look at the worst super heroes!)

10 Real-Life Inspirations For Comic Book Characters

10 Asbestos Lady

First Appearance: Human Torch Comics #27, 1947

We start off with an, (albeit poorly named), villain who isn’t half bad! She burns, burns, burns but never burns herself. Fire has a weapon is common in both heroes and villains in various comic book universes but it how an individual (mortal/non-super) human avoids becoming a smoky, crispy pile of bones is rarely alluded to. Asbestos Lady addressed this potential plot hole—asbestos-lined suits for her and her minions! Couple of problems though—COPD, asbestosis, ovarian cancer and mesothelioma.

It’s hard to think of a villain who is more ‘of their time’ than Asbestos Lady. ‘Betamax Boy’, perhaps? Or, maybe, a baddie called something racially insensitive like ‘The Mandarin’…oh, wait.^[1]

9 Egg Fu

First Appearance: Wonder Woman #157, 1965

Speaking of good ole’ racial insensitivity—enter, Egg Fu. If Humpty-Dumpty had always seemed a bit weird and unsettling to you, why not add in some casual racism? Perhaps Egg Fu was designed to solve Chairman Mao’s blundering during the ‘Great Leap Forward’. So the ‘Four Pests’ campaign (amongst other missteps) cased the death of tens of millions of people? No problem, let’s all tuck into the biggest omelette mankind has ever seen. Thanks, communism!

This diabolical chicken period looks a lot less anti-Asian nowadays but he still seems to be a giant, cybernetically enhanced egg.^[2]

8 Codpiece

First Appearance: Doom Patrol #70, 1993

Hey, men, have you ever been told that you aren’t tall enough? Hurts doesn’t it? You do know what people really mean when they say that, right? They’re talking about your junk! I know—doesn’t it make you just want to invent a set of power armour that includes an ‘Inspector Gadget’ style wang-enhancing section below the belt? No? Just this guy, then.^[3]

7 Rainbow Creature

First Appearance: Batman #134, 1960

This unimaginatively-named monster combated the bat in a South American republic plagued by a wannabe dictator named Diaz. This evil authoritarian has enlisted the help of a primeval creature born from a volcano that is made from four coloured bands, each giving the monster a power that reflects each hue—blue makes things extra cold, red is capable of making things very hot, yellow…turns things to mist and green, as you would expect, turns enemies into two-dimensional, flattened cut-out versions of themselves. Batman managed to trick this festive beast into using all its powers at once which makes it disintegrate, thus saving the South American nation from its insurgent rebel tormentors, returning the citizenry to living under (probably) their even worse current dictator. Gracias, caped crusader.^[4]

6 Blue Snowman

First Appearance: Sensation Comics #59, 1946

This is not the comic book version of that most terri(ble)fying of movie monsters, Jack Frost, the killer snowman, this is the ever-so-impressive foe of Wonder Woman. His powers and/or abilities? How about a corncob pipe that fires icicles? How about a hat that produces snow, and not just any type of snow, blue snow? Yeah, this dude is lame. How lame, you ask? Try reading this premise from ‘All-new Batman: The Brave and the Bold’ #8 without immediately washing your eyes with acid—Blue Snowman crashes the marriage between Batman and Wonder Woman along with a host of evil-doers which include such formidable foes as Amoeba Man, Angle Man, Crimson Centipede, Fireworks Man, Mouse Man, and Paper-Man. *shudder*^[5]

10 Comic Book Heroes Who Could Theoretically Exist

5 Armless Tiger Man

First Appearance: Marvel Mystery Comics #26, 1941

Read the entry title again. Armless. Tiger. Man. And, boy, is he evil! Like many antagonists from this era, he is a Nazi. But not any old jack-booted supremacists, oh no! He has the ferocity of a tiger! And no arms.

Eric Hertz worked in a factory where, because he was probably terrible at his job, both his arms get ripped off by one of the terrible machines. Did he get a fat cheque from the government? Did he file a lawsuit against his company for millions? Nope, he learned how to use his feet and mouth, got his strength enhanced to superhuman levels and embarked on a luddite campaign of wrecking for his Nazi masters. In Wakanda, trying to secure vibranium for the Nazi war effort, The Armless Tiger Man gets shot in the head and sent straight to…Hades, where all dead Nazis go, I guess. In Hades, amongst the Greek Gods, Armless Tiger Man keeps getting his butt kicked by Pluto (uh…that’s Roman Marvel, not Greek), Zeus and Hercules. Guy can’t catch a break.^[6]

4 Snowflame

First Appearance: New Guardians #2, 1988

Colombia. Land of Gabriel García Márquez, one of the greatest authors of the 20th century. Land of arepas and patacones and arroz con coco and a whole cuisine that tantalises. Land of outstanding natural beauty, from the Andes to the Amazon. And, of course, land of cocaine-fuelled super villains.

Snowflame’s vital stats are interesting—his special abilities are mostly the norm (superhuman strength, pyrokinesis, increased speed), but one power is quite unique—cocaine touch. This dude is so wired on the old marching powder that touching him is enough to get wired. His main weakness? Well, he’s addicted to cocaine…seriously addicted. His equipment? Grappling hooks? Hi-tech weaponry? Robot howler monkeys? Nope, it’s cocaine. COCAINE!!!! Aaaargh! This tweaking tormentor pledges his allegiance to, you guessed it, cocaine, proving to be the narcotic’s servant and living embodiment of its, um, will (?) Thank goodness he gets defeated by the ‘New Guardians’, after which, I assume, they had a real party over his corpse—waste not want not (probably not though, he’s back in a new web comic!)^[7]

3 Turner. D. Century

First Appearance: Spider-Woman #33, 1980 (yes, that’s 1980, not 1908)

Who doesn’t love a pun? What’s that, almost everyone hates puns? Somebody should have mentioned that to the Marvel writers back in the 80’s. One panel even addresses this; regarding his marvellous moniker a character quips “…calls himself…ready for this? Turner D Century! Corny…Real corny”. Yeah no ****, Sherlock!

But his cheesy name is the least lame thing about him—that would be his raison d’être. Turner’s dad was a chauffeur to a stuffy millionaire in San Francisco at the turn of the century (19th to 20th). When Turner, originally named Clifford F Michaels, is orphaned he is taken in by the millionaire and raised as his adopted son. What does he learn from his surrogate dad? To hate the way good manners have gone out f fashion. Turner goes on a rampage using his flamethrower umbrella and flying bicycle and a magical horn that has the power to kill people under the age of 65…how rude! At least this insufferable evil-doer foreshadowed the rise of hipsters—a 1900’s inspired, moustachioed loser from San Francisco who utilises modernised versions of outdated tech? Freaky stuff.^[8]

2 Ruby Thursday

First Appearance: The Defenders #32, 1976

Some say the human brain is like a powerful computer network. Nobody says the face is like a powerful computer network. This ‘classic’ foe has replaced her head with, ugh, ‘a mass of organic circuitry’ inside a small, plastic head. Her mission? Get the rest of the human race to adopt a small, plastic head. Chilling. A special one shot series called ‘ I heart Marvel’ celebrating Valentine’s Day, 2006 included Ruby Thursday in a relationship with fellow bad guy ‘Answer’. Seriously.^[9]

1 Spider Man

First Appearance: Whiz Comics #89, 1947

‘But, wait, Spiderman isn’t a villain! Spiderman doesn’t suck, how dare you!” Ok, OK, settle down Mary Jane. This is Spider Man, not Spiderman, the subtle gap is all important. One is a wise-cracking web-slinger and saviour of New York city on many an occasion, beloved by many. This entry is about the other, far less impressive comic creation.

He has the same tech-enhanced abilities as Peter Parker’s alter ego, but that suit! He must be baking. What is it, gorilla fur? If looking like a giant tarantula was his goal, he may want to consider covering his wicked-witch-from-Snow-White-face. Without a mask he looks like he should be holding up a sign for ‘Web-tacular Hotdogs at Jimmy’s! 4 for $5’^[10]

10 Of The Most Offensive Superheroes In The History Of Comics

About The Author: CJ Phillips is an actor and writer living in rural West Wales. He is a little obsessed with lists.

We like to imagine that we learn from our tragedies—that when the worst moment comes, people change their ways and start working together to make things right.

But sometimes, even after the catastrophe is over, the tragedy continues. People get swept up in the havoc and chaos of the moment and do things that make history’s worst moments even worse. And in the aftermath, some of our darkest moments are left with details too bleak to make it into the history books.

10 Tiananmen Massacre
China Billed The Victims For The Bullets

In 1989, after the death of the controversial figure Hu Yaobang, Chinese students marched out to Tiananmen Square and tried to force real change in China. They made a list of demands and led a hunger strike, hoping to bring an end to corruption and forge the first steps toward democracy.

All that came to an end, though, when the army marched in. Soldiers and tanks advanced on Tiananmen Square, right in the heart of Beijing. At least 300 people were gunned down by their own government, with some estimates putting that number as high as 2,700.

Usually, the story ends there—but there’s an extra little detail that makes it that much worse. After the massacre, some sources reported that the government billed the victims’ families for the cost of the bullets. The families of the protesters were charged the equivalent of 27 cents for each bullet used to kill their children.

The Chinese government has never admitted to it. But we know for a fact that they charged other dissidents for the bullets that killed them. There’s a lot of reason to believe that the reports are true that the government did it here, too.

9 My Lai Massacre
Nixon Pardoned The Man Responsible

The worst incident in the Vietnam War was the My Lai Massacre. In 1968, American soldiers slaughtered more than 350 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam. They gang-raped women, mutilated children—and met absolutely no consequences.

Of everyone involved, only one soldier was actually charged: William Calley. The courts found Calley guilty of killing 22 innocent people and sentenced him to life in prison.

He never actually served the time, though. Instead, they just put him on house arrest, and he didn’t do that for very long. Calley hung around at home for three years and then got a full presidential pardon from Richard Nixon.

That doesn’t mean that everyone got off easy. One person suffered: Hugh Thompson. He was the man who reported the massacre and testified against the people who did it.

Thompson risked his life trying to save as many Vietnamese people as he could from his own men. He was rewarded for his bravery and heroism with death threats. People left mutilated animals on his porch each morning, and he suffered PTSD for the rest of his life.

8 Pompeii
A Nearby Town Got So Hot That People’s Heads Exploded

The destruction of Pompeii is one of the most infamous natural disasters in history. An entire city was leveled under a sea of volcanic ash that killed thousands.

Compared to the people in Herculaneum, though, Pompeii got off easy. After the volcano erupted in AD 79, a witness described the scene: “A fearful black cloud, bent by forked and quivering bursts of flames, . . . sank down to the earth and covered the sea.”

That black cloud hit Herculaneum and covered the whole city. It was incredibly hot—over 500 degrees Celsius (932 °F). It burned the tops of buildings off completely and then touched on the people below. At such incredible temperatures, their teeth cracked, their skin burned off, and their bones turned black. Then their heads literally exploded.

7 9/11
Fallout Led To More Cancer And Car Crashes

On September 11, 2001, when the planes flew into the twin towers in New York City, 2,996 innocent lives were brought to an end. It was a horrible moment and the worst terrorist attack on US soil. Over the next few years, though, that death toll would become even higher.

People were so afraid of flying after 9/11 that airline use went down by 20 percent. As a result, a lot more people were going greater distances in cars instead—which is a lot more dangerous. In the 12 months following the attacks, an estimated 1,595 more Americans died in car accidents because they were afraid to fly on planes.

Worse, though, was the increase in cancer. The twin towers were built with 400 tons of asbestos, which spread through the city when the towers collapsed. That cloud of asbestos affected an estimated 410,000 people, and cancer in New York City has spiked because of it.

The responders suffered the worst. About 70 percent of the recovery personnel who helped on that day now suffer from lung problems. Approximately 1,400 responders died in the 10 years after the tragedy. Another 1,140 responders have developed cancer since that tragic day.

6 The Irish Potato Famine
Queen Victoria Forbade People From Donating Too Much

When the people of Ireland started to starve from the Irish Potato Famine, Abdul Medjid Khan, the sultan of the Ottoman Empire, wanted to help. In 1847, he prepared ships full of food and offered to send Ireland £10,000 to help them through the crisis.

British diplomats, though, ordered him not to. British royal protocol, they explained, said that no one should contribute more than Queen Victoria herself. At their order, the sultan reduced his donation to only £1,000 instead.

The Irish were thrilled with his donation anyway. They called the donation an “act of regal munificence” and said, “For the first time, a Mohammedan sovereign, representing multitudinous Islam populations, manifests spontaneously a warm sympathy with a Christian nation.”

The sultan, though, may have revealed a little regret at the compromise when he wrote back, “I would have done all in my power to relieve their wants.”

5 Black Death
The Plague Led To A Jewish Genocide

The Black Death wiped out between 75 and 200 million people in the mid-1300s. It killed an estimated one-third of the population of Europe. It was a terrible tragedy—and like most tragedies, Europe dealt with it by blaming the Jews.

Many Europeans believed that the plague was a Jewish conspiracy. According to the story, the Jews had gone around the country poisoning wells to make good Christian people suffer. At first, it was a conspiracy theory. Then the Inquisition rounded up Jewish people and tortured them until they agreed to say they’d done it. Then it was, in the eyes of the people, a full-blown fact.

Mobs rose up and dragged people out into the streets. Jewish babies were pulled from their parents. Whole communities of people were tied to stakes and burned alive. In one case, more than 2,000 people were incinerated at once.

The Black Death, of course, was not a Jewish conspiracy. It affected Jews and Gentiles alike. That didn’t save anyone, though. In the city of Strasbourg, it became law that no Jew should enter the city for 100 years.

4 Hurricane Katrina
A Neighboring Town Turned Away Refugees At Gunpoint

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, countless people lost their homes. In a desperate bid for survival, people fled to neighboring towns for safety. The police of New Orleans helped them, pointing the way to the bridge that led to the town of Gretna.

But instead of a welcoming party, these people found a barricade on the bridge. Four police cruisers blocked the lanes, and eight officers were waiting for the refugees with shotguns. They yelled, “We don’t want another Superdome!” and chased the people off. According to some reports, the officers even stole the refugees’ food and water before chasing them away.

Arthur Lawson, the Gretna chief of police, didn’t even deny it. He confirmed that he sealed off the bridge, saying, “There was no place for them to come on our side.”

3 Wounded Knee
20 Soldiers Were Given Medals Of Honor

In 1890, US troops attacked an innocent Lakota camp. Most of the people were unarmed, but the troops ran as many down as possible, slaughtering approximately 200 innocent men, women, and children. It was an outrage, and the men who did it were murderers. And for doing it, 20 of them were given Medals of Honor.

More people were given awards for the Wounded Knee Massacre than for most real battles. The government actually wanted to give out 25, but a man named General Miles fought it, calling it “an insult to the memory of the dead.” Even with his protests, they still handed out 20.

One man, Sergeant Toy, was cited “for bravery displayed while shooting hostile Indians.” In the full report, though, it was made clear that he shot Native Americans who were running away. Another man, Lieutenant Garlington, was awarded for blocking off the escape of fleeing victims. He forced them to hide a ravine, and Lieutenant Gresham was awarded for going into that ravine to kill the victims.

At least one Medal of Honor recipient seems to have felt the guilt of what he did. Two years later, Sergeant Loyd killed himself just a few days before the anniversary of the massacre. For his part at Wounded Knee, he had been given the Medal of Honor for “bravery.”

2 The Great Fire Of London
The Town Hanged A Mentally Handicapped Man

Robert Hubert was described as “not well in the mind” by everyone who knew him. He was very likely mentally handicapped or at least mentally ill. He could barely speak a word of English, and his limbs were constricted by palsy. But despite all that, he was hanged for firebombing London in 1666.

Hubert wasn’t actually in London when the fire happened. He showed up two days later and walked around repeating the word “Yes!” In 1666, that was enough evidence to a form a lynch mob, drag him off the streets, and pull him into the police station.

There, he was interrogated until he said “Yes!” that he’d been paid a shilling by a Frenchman to burn down London. He changed his story every time he told it, but they hanged him anyway.

Fifteen years later, the captain of the ship that took Hubert to London finally stepped forward and told everyone that Hubert wasn’t even in London during the Great Fire. By then, though, it was far too late.

1 The Titanic
They Billed The Families Of The Victims

The White Star Line was nothing if not frugal. Due to a clause worked into their contracts, every employee aboard the ship was fired the second that the Titanic began to sink. The company would not, after all, pay wages for employees who were wasting their time drowning.

Afterward, the families of the dead were informed that they would have to pay the freight cost if they wanted their loved ones’ bodies. Most couldn’t afford it, of course, and so today, many of those who died have memorials instead of graves.

Things were far worse for the musicians. The band who heroically played on while the ship sank were completely abandoned. They were registered as independent contractors, which meant that White Star Line legally didn’t have to do anything for them. The other crew members’ families got survivor benefits, but the families of the band didn’t get a penny.

That doesn’t mean they got nothing, though. The families of the band were sent one memento: a bill for the cost of the uniforms.

Movies are supposed to be escapism. Viewers watch fantastical antics of larger than life characters. Some roles require less imagination. For these ten actors, they simply had to remember the most traumatizing experiences of their life. They give a whole new meaning to method actors.

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10 Mercedes McCambridge was Forced to Relapse

In her most famous role, Mercedes McCambridge is never seen. Her name does not even appear in the credits. She is merely heard. That was enough to become a legend.

McCambridge lent her voice to Pazuzu, the demon that possesses Linda Blair’s Regan MacNeil in 1973’s The Exorcist. It takes a lot of embody a Mesopotamian monster. To achieve the haunting guttural cries of the beast, director William Friedkin physically strained McCambridge to her breaking point. McCambridge was bound and gagged to a chair to induce anger and aggression. To achieve a gravelly voice, she was compelled to swallow raw eggs and chain smoke. Meanest of all, she was forced to drink whiskey shots.

In 1950, McCambridge married Fletcher Markle. The marriage dissolved in part because of McCambridge’s alcoholism. She was often hospitalized for drinking too much. In 1969, she finally achieved sobriety with help from Alcoholics Anonymous. William Friedkin, aware of this history, still made her drink on set. Four years of sobriety were gone. Luckily, McCambridge did not fall back in her old ways.

Oh, and in case you didn’t know, in 1987 her son was fired from his job on Friday 13th so he put on a wrinkled demonic halloween mask and shot his wife, children, and then himself. His suicide note laid the blame at his mother’s feet.^[1]

9 Winona Ryder Dove Headfirst Into Her Fears

Winona Ryder has fought villains as varied as Demogorgons, Beetlejuice, and Dracula. Her main enemy is something much more mundane, water. As a teenager, Ryder nearly drowned to death. Stemming from that accident, she developed crippling aquaphobia. She fell into a restrictive panic any time she had to get near water. For years, she completely avoided going into a pool or the ocean. She had to overcome that fear on the set of Alien: Resurrection.^[2]

Conditions were less than ideal to alleviate a lifelong paranoia. The tank was murky from grime and flotsam. Even more experienced divers struggled to navigate the partially submerged kitchen set. As Ryder’s costar Ron Perlman swam underneath, props floated in his path. The set pieces blocked him from breaking the surface. On four separate occasions, rescue divers were deployed to save Perlman. Due to her personal history and the precarious conditions, Ryder was sent into a panic.^[3]

8 The Displaced Cast of Casablanca

Nobody knew how the war was going to end. In 1942, the patrons of Rick’s café belted out a stirring rendition of La Marseillaise. Their version of the French anthem dwarfed the similar call for nationalism from their German occupants. For all they knew, it might have been a meaningless gesture. A group of refugees tried to humiliate the Nazis. It might have been a hallow victory. It still brought the cast to tears.

Almost all of the cast members were immigrants. A large portion of them were genuine refugees. Paul Henreid, an Austrian Jew, fled England after being labelled an enemy of the Nazi party. Conrad Veidt may have played SS officer Strasser, but he was still compelled to wear the racial label “Jude” in his native Germany. Madeleine Lebeau openly teared up while singing because she was reminded of her homeland. Both her and her husband Marcel Dalio evacuated Paris on the eve of the German occupation. S.Z. Sakall sang as his sisters and his niece were sent to the camps they eventually died in. La Marseillaise was a symbolic protest. For many of them, it was all they had.^[4]

7 Joaquin Phoenix Reenters a Cult

Director Paul Thomas Anderson insists that The Master is fictional. For legal reasons, he cannot say that the work is loosely based on the early years of the Church of Scientology. Main lead Joaquin Phoenix has not been as cagey. He openly admits which cult he was inspired by, the one he grew up in.

Like his character Freddie Quell, Joaquin’s parents were lost souls. They had grown tired of the complacency of post-War America. They were susceptible to the alluring charm of the Children of God. The Children of God are now infamous for promoting pedophilia and rampant sexual abuse. Phoenix’s experience was more positive. Along with his siblings Rain and River, Joaquin sang spirituals to raise funds for the religious sect. The organization earned a fortune, while the family lived in rat-infested huts. Before the worst elements of the church were uncovered, the family abandoned the group. The family discarded all reminders of their previous life. They dropped their surname “Bottom.” To signify their rebirth, they chose the name “Phoenix.”^[5]

6 Katey Sagal’s Miscarriage

Married…With Children was not a show equipped with handling complex moral questions. Sometimes they barely wrote plots more complicated than thirty minutes of Al Bundy sitting around with his hand down his pants. When actual tragedy befell the cast, they reworked the entire show.

Season Six premiered with Peg Bundy revealing she was pregnant, much to her husband’s chagrin. Al spent much of the season worried about the financial strain of a new child. Luckily for him, it turns out the whole season arc was a dream. For Peg Bundy actress Katey Sagal, it was a nightmare.

Sagal spent most of the season noticeably pregnant. Unfortunately, she suffered a stillbirth eight months into the pregnancy. Out of sympathy, the storyline was adjusted so that she would not have to deal with an infant on set. Because they could not simply ignore that her character was supposed to have a child, the script made it all a dream. Even in that preferable option, she was still required to talk about a pregnancy that never rendered any child.^[6]

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5 Pieter Dengler Became a Prisoner Again

Werner Herzog is not known for his gentle touch as director. Commentators have labelled the German auteur’s eccentricities and grueling demands as torturous. For Lieutenant Dieter Dengler, that was not hyperbole.

Pilot Lt. Dengler crash-landed his plane into Laos during the Vietnam war. He endured imprisonment for months. Dengler’s determination resonated with Herzog. Herzog set out to capture Dengler’s story in the documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly. To get a more authentic version of the story, Herzog coerced Dengler to recreate even the most grueling experiences. The handcuffed Dengler was compelled to march through the jungle. Cast members beat him with sticks. In the most traumatic scene, Dengler reenacted the scene were a Vietcong guard chopped off his fingers as punishment for stealing back his engagement ring. The scene was so authentic that the South Asian extras believed he needed medical attention.^[7]

In 2007, Herzog remade the story as Rescue Dawn with Christian Bale playing Lt. Dieter Dengler. Apparently, he found a way to tell the story without resorting to physical torture.^[8]

4 Rita Moreno Broke Down after a Rape Scene

West Side Story is a wholesome love story of two people who would do everything they can to see each other. Tony and Maria may feel pretty, but much of the musical is a tale of street violence and racism. Anita, one of Maria’s friends, does not get the Hollywood ending. Her lover is murdered. The Jets reciprocate the violence. Even the musical street gangs are not fun to hang around.^[9]

Despite what the lyrics may say, Puerto Rico was not the show’s devotion. There was only one Puerto Rican actress among the cast, Rita Moreno. Morena’s acclaimed portrayal of Anita earned her an Oscar. It was a hard-won trophy. Years before shooting, Morena was raped on two separate occasions. She was nearly raped again during the Columbia Studios afterparty for the movie. In between those startling events, she had to reenact it. Her pain rushed back in a scene where it is heavily implied that Anita is raped. The emotional experience forced Morena to breakdown on set. For 45 minutes, she cried on set after remembering her trauma.^[10]

3 Dorothy Gibson Got Back on the Titanic

Dorothy Gibson could have waited. As Leonardo Dicaprio knows, people are still fascinated by the Titanic’s demise. Though less remembered than the 1997 blockbuster, the first movie about the ill-fated voyage was more impactful in one key aspect. It was filmed merely thirty days after the horrific incident. Bodies were still being recovered in the Atlantic by the time they started shooting.

Dorothy Gibson’s career was particularly pigeonholed by the calamity. Over two years, she made 25 movies. The penultimate one, Saved From the Titanic, is her most acclaimed performance. It is the most natural. Gibson was onboard the oceanliner when it sank into the midst. Director Étienne Arnaud wanted somebody who could capture the dread of nearly drowning. Only five days after she was pulled from the freezing water, Gibson was on set recreating her harrowing experience. She even wore the same clothes she had packed for the trip. The rushed production mostly focused on the narrow escape of the passengers on board. Today, the film is more remembered for failing to understand the concept of “too soon” more than any artistic genius.^[11]

2 Haing Ngor Never Escaped Killing Fields

Haing S. Ngor was barely an actor. That is not an insult. Professionally, he was an employed as a surgeon. When he gave the Oscar winning performance of Dith Pran, Ngor did not have to get into the mind of a fictional character. He simply had to repeat his life. Punished for his education and class, Ngor spent years interned in the Cambodian camps. His first-hand knowledge shaped how he portrayed the character.^[12]

1984’s Killing Fields is not a fun movie. The retelling of the Khmer Rouge reign is filled with gripping moments that showcase the worst horrors of the genocidal campaign. Yet, the moment that made Ngor cry the most was relatively banal. In one scene, a child soldier uproots a tomato plant that Pram grew. The unnecessary cruelty of the event was reminded Ngor of the callousness of his guards. Out of all the horrific sights in the movie, that was the one that show quickly people can be stripped of their humanity.^[13]

1 Ira Hayes Returned to Iwo Jima

John Wayne wanted to honor Ira Hayes. Ira Hayes did not think he was worthy. Hayes will forever be remembered as one of the soldiers who raised the flag over Iwo Jima. When Hollywood was set to memorialize the iconic image in 1949’s Sands of Iwo Jima, they reached out to the three remaining survivors to recreate the shot. Ira Hayes could barely manage a cameo.

In the years after the battle, Hayes felt significant guilt. Following the flag raising, Hayes was ordered to return home. Joe Rosenthal’s photo had cemented Hayes as a hero, but he felt like he deserted his fellow soldiers to die. He grew to so resent being part of the iconography of the war. He confessed that “Sometimes I wish that guy had never made that picture.” Hayes treated his burgeoning shell shock with copious drinking. His alcoholism only became worse the more coverage he received. He was so inebriated on the set of Sands of Iwo Jima that they cut out his speaking parts. In January of 1955, his lifeless body was found on the ground. The 32-year-old veteran had died of exposure and alcohol poisoning.^[14]

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About The Author: If this was the worst moment of your life, you can write to Nate at his email, [email protected]. To read more things he wrote, you can follow Nate on Twitter @nateyungman.

Readers who have been here since our inception nine years ago will remember a regular feature we used to have called “Your View”. Basically we propose a question, answer it ourselves, and then ask you to tell us what you think.

I have decided this week that we will bring this feature back to help us all get to know each other better, and, perhaps most importantly, to share our knowledge with others here.

So, this week’s Your View question is: “What Is The Worst Movie That Everyone Loves?”

My answer is: “Crash” from 2004, directed by Paul Haggis and starring Sandra Bullock, Ryan Phillippe, and Matt Dillon. It scores a whopping 7.8 on IMDB and won the Oscar for the best picture at the 78th Academy Awards.

I have watched this film numerous times hoping I might have been wrong about it the last time. While I totally get the premise of showing how harmful racism can be, each scene of racism depicted comes across as completely farcical. It is like someone who has never seen actual racism said “this is what racism must look like!” and then put it in the script.

Some of the acting was good (as you would expect with the likes of Ryan Phillippe who can be excellent at times) but the story line and scripting was so clearly trying to send a message that the actual message got lost.

This film is to racism, what Disney’s magic castle is to Hohenzollern Castle.