Horrific indeed

From seemingly endless Saw sequels to the needless remakes of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween and Friday the 13th, the horror film genre has more than its fair share of turkeys.  For every slick and smart edge-of-your-seat thriller like Paranormal Activity, there's another generic slasher movie like Sorority Row right around the corner. Below, we examine the worst horror films of the past decade. Beginning tomorrow, we'll look at the flip side with a pair of articles about the best horror movies of the last 10 years.

The 10 Worst-Reviewed Horror Films Since 2000

1. Chaos (2005) Add to Netflix Queue

"The only thing this so-called cautionary tale will inspire audiences to do is to never sit through another insultingly awful piece of exploitative trash 'conceived' by David DeFalco."

--Laura Kern, The New York Times

A mean-spirited and pointless rip-off of Last House on the Left, Chaos is the story of Eddie "Chaos" Cooper, who, along with his friends Daisy and Frankie, brutalizes two young girls that were just trying to get to a rave party in the woods. Reviled by critics, the film gained a small amount of controversy due to a war of words between the filmmakers and critic Roger Ebert, but that wasn't enough to help the movie at the box office.

2. Transylmania (2009) Add to Netflix Queue

"Transylmania is so inept that it even fails as an adolescent breast-delivery device."

--Steven Hyden, The Onion A.V. Club

Perhaps the only genre more cliché-filled than horror films is the spoof movie, and Transylmania fits in perfectly with its old jokes and pathetic crude humor. A group of horny college students go to Romania so one of them can try to score with a girl he met on-line, but they soon discover that vampires abound, and they must try to survive. Unsurprisingly, Transylmania's theatrical run was brief, and the film was one of the biggest box office duds of 2009.

3. Alone in the Dark (2005) Add to Netflix Queue

"Alone in the Dark will be the worst movie of 2005. The idea that anything could be worse is the only genuine scare the movie has to offer."

--Chris Kaltenbach, Baltimore Sun

When paranormal investigator Edward Carnby's (Christian Slater) friend is killed, Carnby's search to bring the killers to justice leads him to Shadow Island, where he and his ex-girlfriend (Tara Reid, playing an archeologist) must stop demons from taking over the world. Adapted from the videogame series and directed by Uwe Boll, who once again brings his signature incompetence, Alone in the Dark is often unintentionally hilarious and hardly ever scary.

4. House of the Dead (2003) Add to Netflix Queue

"Here’s a would-be horror film that contains not one ounce of professional pride in its making, not one shred of technical competence. This is one of the worst films of recent times."

--David Grove, Film Threat

A group of kids go to a mysterious island looking for fun and sex but only end up finding the undead in Uwe Boll's House of the Dead. Flesh-eating monsters are a staple of the horror genre, but Boll manages to make them boring and tiresome as he can't decide if he's making a horror film or a videogame adaptation. Notable only for an early performance from Smallville's Erica Durance, House of the Dead is mostly just another forgettable zombie movie.

5. Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000) Add to Netflix Queue

"If you harbor any fond feelings for the original, stay far away from this mess."

--David Ansen, Newsweek

After the massive success of the first Blair Witch Project, a low-budget movie that came out of nowhere to become a word-of-mouth sensation in 1999, a sequel was inevitable. Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows follows a tour group visiting various places that are significant in the Blair Witch mythology. It isn't long, though, before strange things start happening and people start dying. With none of the suspense or originality of the first movie, Book of Shadows won a Razzie for Worst Remake or Sequel.

6. Darkness (2004) Add to Netflix Queue

"Darkness was clearly tossed together like salad in the editing room, since it's little more than the sum of its unshocking shock cuts."

--Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

Before she was Sookie Stackhouse on True Blood, Anna Paquin played Regina, a young girl who has just moved into a spooky house that holds a dark family secret. Darkness (also known as The Dark) was filmed in 2002, but sat on the shelf until 2004, when an edited-down PG-13 cut was dumped in theaters. Only a few scares can be found in this dull and boring thriller that wasn't sure of how to fully flesh out its ideas.

7. Feardotcom (2002) Add to Netflix Queue

"A depraved, incoherent, instantly disposable piece of hackery."

--Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

Feardotcom has the interesting idea of a website that drives people insane, but unfortunately that idea is never fully developed into an interesting story. Stephen Doriff plays the detective trying to get to the bottom of the mysterious website that involves a ghost seeking revenge against the man who tortured her and the people who watched it online. Borrowing heavily for the original Japanese Ring series, Feardotcom tanked at the box office.

8. Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000) Add to Netflix Queue

"If you've seen one 'Scream' rip-off, you really have seen them all."

--John Hartl, Film.com

One of many slasher films to emerge after the success of Scream, the first Urban Legend was a solid hit with moviegoers, playing on the clever idea of a serial killer acting out different urban legends as he dispatched his victims. The sequel, Urban Legends: Final Cut, is far less inspired with its story of a film student making a movie about serial killers, only to have an actual serial killer show up. Though not as successful as its predecessor, Final Cut was followed by another sequel -- Urban Legends: Bloody Mary -- that went straight to DVD.

9. Lost Souls (2000) Add to Netflix Queue

"Full of atmosphere and visuals, it's empty of anything that really matters."

--Jay Carr, Boston Globe

When a group of Roman Catholics suspect that a particular man (Ben Chaplin) will be possessed by Satan, Winona Ryder is dispatched to help save him in Lost Souls. One of several end of the worlds films, (End of Days, Stigmata) released at the turn of the century, Souls offered nothing new story-wise and performed poorly at the box office, doing little to help Ryder's declining career.

10. Bless the Child (2000) Add to Netflix Queue

"A cheesy crock of religious mumbo jumbo."

--Susan Wloszczyna, USA Today

After winning best supporting actress for L.A. Confidential, Kim Basinger was nominated for a Razzie for her work in Bless the Child, an Omen clone about a child who with supernatural powers that could help bring about the end of the world. With a cast featuring Jimmy Smits and Christina Ricci as well as director Chuck Russell (Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors) Bless the Child could and should have been much more than a predictable satanic cult movie.

What do you think?

What are your least favorite horror films of the past ten years? Would you like to defend any of the films mentioned above? Let us know in the discussion section below.