10 Comedy Movies That Looked So Good, But Were So Bad

Comedies are designed to make you laugh, to take you from the drudgery that is real life, and give you a couple of hours of pure laughter and jokes.

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What happens, though, when a comedy movie doesn’t do that? They wind up in the trash heap of the film society, aka, the $5 bin at your local dollar store. Those films were supposed to be comedic gold, but they did the exact opposite in bringing us pain, joyless pain. Here are 10 of those dollar store comedies that we had high hopes for, only to crash-land us into the abyss of miserable movie making.

The Pink Panther 2 (2009)

The first live-action Pink Panther wasn’t too much to sneeze at; but at the very least, it was entertaining. You can’t say that for The Pink Panther 2, which, let’s be honest, no one was really clamoring for, but thought at the very least it would be worth a watch.

Nope, the second installment was lifeless, soulless, and joyless, all the makings of a bad comedy movie. Steve Martin is a legend, and he deserved so much better than this mess of a movie.

Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (2003)

The first Dumb and Dumber was a hilarious movie that can be quoted until the end of time. So when the producers announced that Harry and Lloyd were coming back for a sequel, many jumped for joy and flooded movie theaters in 2003.

What the audience got was a bland movie that had none of the redeeming factors of the original. Instead of improving on the first film (which, you know, should be the goal of every sequel), Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd diminished and tarnished its name. This was a waste of a promising sequel.

Fred: The Movie (2010)

The warning signs were all there, we just ignored them until the hurricane of annoyance hit us with a force we’re still recovering from. While Fred: The Movie was always going to be dumb (and made for pre-teens), there was a little shred of hope that this film would be somewhat competent.

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Why did we think that? Fred: The Movie is one of those rare awful comedies that was everything it promised – loud, annoying, and pure awful.

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation 2 (2003)

This “comedy” goes to show that everything that has the name “National Lampoon” on it is worth watching. This installment saw Cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid) get his own movie; and, Jesus, Cousin Eddie deserved better than this monstrosity of a comedy movie.

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation 2 had a confusing plot and was generally unfunny, you’re much better off sticking to the Chevy Chase Vacation movies. Your funny bone will thank you.

Date Movie (2006)

It was clear that, by the mid-2000s, people were growing tired of parody comedies, and films like Date Movie were the reason why. Date Movie, a parody of rom-com films, simply failed to execute its purpose and came off as a tired and lame film that existed to squeeze a few bucks from unsuspecting moviegoers.

Yes, rom-coms have become quite clichéd over the years, but the producers of Date Movie could have done a much better job at making fun of the sub-genre than this hot garbage.

Madea’s Big Happy Family (2011)

There is little argument that Tyler Perry struck gold with the Madea stage plays. The common criticism about those plays is that they haven’t adapted well to a motion picture format.

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One of the prime examples is Madea’s Big Happy Family, which didn’t do much to differentiate itself from the (much funnier) stage play, making it seem stale and lacking in the funny department; except for the “Byrrrrrrynnnnnn” line, which itself got grating after a while.

Vampires Suck (2010)

The Twilight Saga is a series that is ripe for parody, and we all thought that 2010s Vampires Suck would be the movie that would finally give it the ridicule it deserves. Oh, it didn’t do that. Instead, the film didn’t even make the audience laugh, just made us question why In God’s name would they waste such potential?

That’s what made a lot of moviegoers angry at Vampires Suck. It had so much potential but was utterly, and shamefully wasted.

Epic Movie (2007)

This movie was supposed to be “Epic,” the parody film to end all parody films. It was so “Epic,” they named it Epic Movie. It was “Epic,” alright; an epic fail. Epic Movie through everything into the parody gauntlet, and what came out was a massive blob of blandness that was an insult to comedy.

Maybe, just maybe, Epic Movie works as a time capsule to what pop culture looked like in the 200s. As a comedy, this movie was an Epic dud.

Movie 43 (2013)

This film has so much star power, so much potential, that there was no way that Movie 43 would fail. It did fail, on a scale that disappointed many moviegoers when it was released in 2013.

The sketches were simply unfunny (except for Terrance Howard‘s basketball coach scene, which really should have been its own movie) and borderline offensive, and it left a bad taste in the mouths of viewers. Movie 43 is one of those movies in which the trailer was funnier than the film, and is a whole other level of sadness.

Son of the Mask (2005)

There was a certain charm that made 1994’s The Mask work. Son of the Mask, the second installment in the franchise, had none of the charms that made the original work. This was a poorly acted film that had zero funny moments and no redeeming quality.

Son of the Mask seemed like a direct-to-video movie that had too high of a budget (nearly $100 million) to not be released in theaters. It was so bad that star Jamie Kennedy disowned the film. Now that’s what you call a bad movie.

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