KITTEN KRUSTIES: The Worst Stuff We Reviewed in 2025

While we enjoyed reviewing another big batch of Blu-Rays, DVDs and movies in 2025, they haven’t all been picks of the litter. Time to take a look back at the worst of them. Our list consists strictly of titles which were sent to us for review purposes.

BLEH...THE WORST: As much as we love movies, there are times when reviewing them feels like an actual job. The following titles deserve to be buried in the litter box (in no particular order):

THE SAND (Rising Sun Media) - The Sand might be good for a moment or two of unintentional laughter, especially with such a dead-serious tone. But ultimately, it seldom even rises to the level of endearingly tacky. A cheap flick with awful characters, a stupid ending and cut-rate CGI.

THE DEMONESS (Well Go USA) - This is a Russian production with a Russian cast, yet it's shot in English, its actors obviously dubbed to get rid of those pesky accents. The results are awful and there’s strong evidence that the cast had minimal understanding of their own lines. It also fails as a horror movie - even an erotic one - because the languid pace and an abundance of tired tropes negate its peepshow qualities.

BRIDE HARD (Magenta Light) - Rebel Wilson she plays a secret agent who squares off against a crew of mercenaries at her bestie’s wedding, but at no point is she convincing or funny, nor is anyone else. An interminable attempt to blend action and comedy, this makes Paul Blart: Mall Cop look like Lethal Weapon. Saddest of all, it's directed by Simon West, who once showed promise with such kitchy classics as Con Air.

SMURFS (Paramount) - Do you know anyone who was actually pining for another Smurfs movie? It’s yet another cynically assembled, pop song-laden product with Rihanna and a huge cast of well-known actors lending their voices (and marquee value). While there are a few interesting animated bits, this is one of those movies that you pop into your machine to keep the wee ones amused while you clean the garage.

DADDY (Anchor Bay) - The story takes place in a dystopian future where being a parent is a privilege that must be earned from the government by successfully completing a program. Interminable and irritating to the point of being almost unwatchable, the film wastes its intriguing premise on obnoxious characters, pointless ambiguity and plot threads which hint at something ominous or meaningful, but end up going nowhere.

THE RITUAL (Decal) - This is the most drab, derivative and dull horror movie I’ve seen this year, playing like a checklist of every possession trope we’ve seen in countless movies since 1973. Characterization is minimal, and all that's required from most of the cast is to react in horror. As for the great Al Pacino…while I’m assuming he earned a healthy paycheck, he brings little more than perfunctory professionalism to a role that could’ve been played by anybody.

THE BASEMENT (Uncork’d) - The Basement is essentially torture porn, and like The Passion of the Christ, nearly the entire film consists of extreme torment being inflicted on one guy. While the make-up effects are pretty convincing, the film isn’t scary or suspenseful. It’s relentlessly talky between torture scenes and serves up a dull protagonist. Worst of all, clumsy foreshadowing renders the “shocking” twist ending kinda predictable.

McCARTNEY: NOW AND THEN (Rising Sun Media) - Short, superfluous and offering absolutely nothing any self-respecting fan doesn’t already know, this is a Cliff’s Notes summary of McCartney’s career, and I doubt director Robin Bextor even met his subject before patching this thing together. If you really want to hear from the horse’s mouth, stick with The Beatles Anthology.

CROWN OF SHADOWS (High Fliers Films) - A creatively bankrupt exercise in tedium that makes your typical mockbuster from The Asylum look like Game of Thrones. Worse yet, it runs a deadly 142 minutes. Even worse than that, there’s so much obvious use of AI that I can’t help but question the amount of actual human effort involved in throwing the whole thing together.

4 HALLOWEEN (Darkside Releasing) - If you love a good horror anthology flick, look elsewhere. In addition to being nearly nonsensical, 4 Halloween is amateurish and cheap looking, with godawful performances and, aside from some of the gore, visual effects that look like something cooked up by a public access TV station in the 1990s. Not only is this garbage a complete waste of time, it’s a waste of the disc it’s burned onto.

WATCH THE SKIES (Decal Releasing) - Compared to the other films on this list Watch the Skies isn’t actually terrible. But at the risk of sounding like a crusty old Boomer yelling at clouds, the idea of using AI to make foreign films look and sound more American leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Is this really the direction we want movies to go?