The 10 Worst Teen Movies Of The Decade (According To Rotten Tomatoes)
Teen movies aren't known for being the classiest movies, the best movies, or even to be palatable in general, but there sure a lot of them, and they seem to do fairly well. That isn't to say that there haven't been plenty of teen movies that are well received. Heck, some of them even receive genuine critical acclaim.
But while there are some good ones, there are absolutely terrible ones too. Generally speaking, it's fun for a lot of people to read about movies that suck, so here's hoping that you're excited! The 2010s were particularly bad for awful teen movies.
10 Twelve - 3%
Twelve came out at the start of the decade in 2010. It's an American/Canadian film directed by Joel Schumacher. Joel directed solid films such as The Lost Boys, but also some of the less well-loved Batman sequels Batman Forever and Batman And Robin. The weird thing about this movie is that it's about teens, marketed to teens, and was even nominated for a teen choice award. The issue is that it's rated R, and it deals with some extremely heavy subjects, like sex and drug abuse. It tries incredibly hard to be cutting-edge, but it ends up looking edgy and like it's trying too hard anyway. It ends in a shootout at a party.
9 Abduction - 5%
Abduction is an action-thriller that came out in 2011 and stars actor Taylor Lautner of Twilight fame, mostly the reason he was cast at the time. The film was mostly panned due to his poor performance, the screenwriting, and the direction. Alfred Molina and Sigourney Weaver also show up in smaller roles for some reason. It made 82 million dollars in the box office, but it really didn't make an incredible return in comparison to the budget. It's obvious that Lautner wasn't incredibly invested since he had to rush filming to return to work on the last two films of the Twilight franchise.
8 Ouija - 6%
Ouija is a Blumhouse movie with a decent budget, directed by Stiles White in his first feature film. It's a shame then that this movie fell so flat. Universally panned by critics and fans of horror alike, plenty of people in the horror movie community have aired their outrage at just how bad this movie really is. There are multiple reports of audience members walking out, and not for the normal reasons one might decide to have wasted their ticket money and leave. It's about a group of friends who have a childhood buddy die in an unfortunate ouija board accident, only to contact her and achieve ghostly results.
7 The Host 9%
The Host is a film based on a lesser-known Stephanie Meyer novel that didn't receive the levels of attention that Twilight did. No one asked for it but they gave it to us anyway. The Host is about a parasitic race of aliens called "Souls" who decide to take up residence in the body of our main character, leaving her to fight for control of her own consciousness. Possession, but this time it's aliens. Unfortunately, the director helped produce and write The Truman Show, a much better film.
6 My Soul To Take - 10%
My Soul To Take is a 2010 slasher film by Wes Craven, making this only the first of properties that belong to him on this list. Somehow, while Wes Craven gets an insane amount of praise, which is well-deserved for making Scream and the original Nightmare On Elm Street film, he manages to make a teen-slasher that gets a 10%.
Sadly, Wes Craven was incredibly proud of the film and was hurt to hear that people didn't like it as much as he did. It suggests that a serial killer with multiple personalities is somehow imbued with multiple souls, and that only some of them are bad. When he escapes, the teens in the town perform an unsuccessful ritual to keep him away.
5 The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones - 14%
The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones is an action film from 2013 that actually grossed 30 million against its original budget. It's based on a book of the same name, with many more books to follow. There would probably be film adaptations of that one too if this one wasn't so rough. The story is fairly derivative. It's about teens who are a breed of half-human half-angels living in New York City that are tasked with hunting down demons.
4 A Nightmare On Elm Street - 15%
A Nightmare On Elm Street started the decade on a really sour note when it comes to horror. It was kind of doomed from the start when the director was announced. It was Samuel Bayer, a man who had previously only directed music videos for Green Day and the like. The story follows more or less the same formula as the original, with a group of teens who have to do their best not to sleep so they aren't murdered by the nightmare-invading Freddy Kreuger. Despite what you may have heard, Jackie Earle Hailey as Freddy isn't the problem. He does a competent job. The issue is that the film somehow manages to put its audience to sleep. The whole movie is essentially just looking at very tired people do their best to stay awake.
3 Vampire Academy - 15%
Vampire Academy is a teen horror-comedy directed by Mark Stephen Waters. He's also done more successful films like Freaky Friday and Mean Girls. Unfortunately, Vampire Academy was not at all successful. It made about 15.4 million when the budget was double that. The soundtrack is about what you'd expect too, featuring Katy Perry, Sky Ferreira, and Iggy Azalea. The film ends up seeming like it's what a bunch of 40-year-old men think teen girls want to see.
2 Beastly - 20%
This film, Beastly, is also based on a young adult novel, presumably because older men in Hollywood don't know what teens care about. While the source material is pretty well-received considering it's an adaptation of Beauty And The Beast, Beastly seems incompetent in acting, writing, directing, essentially the whole production is flawed.
1 Yoga Hosers - 22%
Yoga Hosers. Oh, how Kevin Smith has fallen. Director of critically acclaimed films such as Clerks, Dogma, and Chasing Amy, he's put out a rash of films that really don't do well lately. This one seems very much like an excuse to put his daughter and her best friend into a film.