“Never Make Another Movie Again”: Filmmakers Choose Their Favorite Negative User Reviews

Talkhouse Film contributors dig around on IMDb, Amazon, Netflix and more to find the most hilariously outspoken takes on their movies.

By Sean Baker, Jim Hemphill, Marshall Curry, Kris Rey, Nathan Silver, Kat Candler, Stephen Cone, Patrick Brice, Chad Hartigan, Onur Tukel, and Megan Griffiths

11:14 AM EDT on March 22, 2016

Talkhouse Film contributors were invited to share the negative user reviews, from sites such as the Internet Movie Database, Amazon, Letterboxd, Netflix and more, that had particularly caught their attention (or just made them laugh). Below is the first installment of their responses. - N.D.

This is my favorite review of Take Out from Netflix:

Zero stars. The movie is so slow that watching paint dry would be an order of magnitude more exciting than sitting through that movie. The story that it tells rings true, but there is only enough material for ten minutes. Get drunk and drive your car into a tree; injuring yourself will be more fun than wasting your time watching that movie.
- Sean Baker

There's a wonderful message board thread someone started on my IMDb page with the headline "Never make another movie again." The content of the message is then simply, "Please." I have to admire that kind of simple, straightforward plea...
- Jim Hemphill

This is my favorite IMDb Message Board topic for The Overnight.

The calmly bigoted initial post is met with a heap of disdain. Gives me a little faith in humanity? No, no it doesn't.

Also see below.

- Patrick Brice

These are my two favorites off Amazon.

I just love to say "BORING!" out loud in my office and remind myself I need "a lot more" dialogue in my movies. That one in particular makes me smile.

- Kat Candler

My favorite is a Netflix review for my first film that nobody saw called Luke and Brie are on a First Date.

You can see a screengrab here, but it goes: "Cheap, grainy, talking heads borefest. Amateur and drags like a dying snail. Don't wast your time. And the actors are NOT attractive"

I just love the last line. Sorry, George and Meg.
- Chad Hartigan

Here's a Netflix review of my film Eden (aka The Abduction of Eden). Gotta love it when someone feels so moved by their hatred of your film that they resort to Haiku. Although it looks like I'm in the fine company of at least 1188 other filmmakers...

- Megan Griffiths

This inspired me to go look up some user reviews on Netflix. Not only have I never looked at user reviews on Netflix before for any film, but also I didn’t even realize they existed. My favorite is this one-star review: “Reminded me of why I never want to have a baby. Don’t do it to yourself guyz. Don’t do it.”

So good.
- Kris Swanberg

I consider these two side-by-side, opposing Amazon reviews of The Wise Kids my finest hour. "See the movie that audiences everywhere are calling, "Too Christian!" and "Too Gay!"

- Stephen Cone

I'm pretty fond of this one from IMDb on Stinking Heaven...

- Nathan Silver

A one-star Summer of Blood review on Netflix:

"If you really want to see Seth Rogen and Woody Allen mushed together and trapped in the body of a middle aged Turkish American who becomes a vampire then this is the film for you."

This isn't a insult, it's an endorsement. I want to hire this person to do my PR. It's also inspiring me to write a new movie called Two Jews in a Turk.
- Onur Tukel

This was emailed to me after our broadcast on PBS:

"Dear Marshall Curry, Just saw your Point & Shoot. A disgusting piece of work on many levels. My wife and I, lovers of film, were repulsed and ashamed at ourselves for continuing to watch it. -Gerald F."

I loved three things about it: First, I loved that someone decided it was a good use of his time to write this email, get on the internet, track down my email address, and send it to me. Second, I loved that it wasn't just disgusting on one level. And best of all I loved that he and his wife continued to watch it to the end.
- Marshall Curry

Sean Baker

Sean Baker directed the award-winning and Spirit Award-nominated films Take Out and Prince of Broadway. His latest film, Starlet (winner of the Robert Altman Spirit Award), marks the lead role debut of Dree Hemingway and was released in North America by Music Box Films. He is also one of the creators of the long-running comedy television show entitled Greg the Bunny and its spin-off, Warren the Ape. Collectively his films have garnered over 30 awards and nominations.

Jim Hemphill

Jim Hemphill is the writer and director of the award-winning film The Trouble With the Truth, which is currently streaming on Amazon Prime and other platforms. He has written about movies and television for Filmmaker magazine, American Cinematographer and Film Comment, and is the author of The Art and Craft of TV Directing: Conversations with Episodic Television Directors. He also serves as a film historian at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and has contributed audio commentaries to DVDs and Blu-rays for Indicator, Shout Factory, the BFI, and other home video labels. His website is www.jimhemphillfilms.com.

Marshall Curry

Marshall Curry is a two-time Academy Award nominated filmmaker. He was the director of Street Fight, Racing Dreams, If a Tree Falls: a Story of the Earth Liberation Front and Point and Shoot, and executive producer of Mistaken for Strangers. Learn more at marshallcurry.com.

Kris Rey

Kris Rey began her film career studying documentary film production at Southern Illinois University. Using naturalistic techniques and often working with non-actors, she went on to focus her career in narrative film. Her first feature, It was great, but I was ready to come home, played in competition at SXSW in 2009, was followed by Empire Builder (2012) and the short film Baby Mary (2014). Her third feature, Unexpected, starring Cobie Smulders and Anders Holm, premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and will be distributed later this year by the Film Arcade.

Nathan Silver

Nathan Silver graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2005. Since then, the filmmaker has written and directed five short films and eight feature films. His films have played festivals and venues around the world, including New York Film Festival, Tribeca, Locarno, Rotterdam, Viennale, Deauville, Melbourne, AFI, MoMA and the Cineteca Nacional Mexico. (Portrait by Cait MacIntosh.)

Kat Candler

Kat Candler's award-winning short films Hellion and Black Metal have screened at Sundance, SXSW, Los Angeles Film Festival, and many more. Her feature film, Hellion starring Aaron Paul and Juliette Lewis, premiered in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and was released theatrically by IFC Films. Hellion was a Sundance Creative Producing Lab participant and San Francisco Film Society/Kenneth Rainin Foundation Grant recipient, and Candler received the same grant for her upcoming Untitled Metal Feature script.

Stephen Cone

Stephen Cone is a Chicago-based filmmaker whose films include Princess Cyd (BFI London Film Festival, BAMcinemaFest) and Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party (BAMcinemaFest, Maryland Film Festival), both of which are currently streaming on Netflix, as well as the Outfest-winning, New York Times Critics Pick The Wise Kids, which can be found streaming on Hulu. Other films include Black Box (Devolver Digital), This Afternoon and In Memoriam (Vimeo). Stephen teaches in the Department of Radio / Television / Film at Northwestern University.

Patrick Brice

Patrick Brice was born in Grass Valley, Ca. He holds a BFA in Film/Video from California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). His first film, Creep, premiered at the 2014 SXSW Film Festival and released in 2015 by Netflix. His second film as writer/director, The Overnight, premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and was distributed by The Orchard. He lives and works in Los Angeles.

Chad Hartigan

Chad Hartigan was born in Nicosia, Cyprus, and attended the North Carolina School of the Arts, School of Filmmaking. In 2008, he wrote and directed his first feature, Luke and Brie are on a First Date, which premiered at the Hamptons International Film Festival and was remade for Latin American audiences in 2013 as Luna en Leo. His second feature, This is Martin Bonner, premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival where it won the Audience Award for Best of NEXT and went on to also win the John Cassavetes Award at the 2014 Film Independent Spirit Awards. His third feature, Morris From America, starring Markees Christmas, Craig Robinson and Carla Juri, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2016, where it won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award and a Special Jury Award for Robinson. It was released by A24, and received both Gotham and Independent Spirit Award nominations.

Onur Tukel

Onur Tukel is a writer, director and illustrator. Some of his films include Catfight, The Misogynists, Scenes From An Empty Church and Summer of Blood. He co-wrote the children's books Let's Make a Movie! and The Legend of Halloween with David Gordon Green, and his latest book, the illustrated novel Run Werewolf Run, is out now.

Megan Griffiths

Megan Griffiths is a writer and director working in film and television whose latest film, the coming-of-age drama Year of the Fox, starring Sarah Jeffery, is now available on digital. She has directed episodes of the Duplass Brothers’ Room 104 for HBO, Animal Kingdom for TNT, Prodigal Son for Fox, as well as shows for Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and EPIX. Her recent features include I'll Show You Mine, starring Poorna Jagannathan and Casey Thomas Brown, and Sadie, starring Sophia Mitri Schloss, Melanie Lynskey, John Gallagher Jr, Danielle Brooks and Tony Hale, which premiered at SXSW 2018 and is now streaming on Amazon Prime. Her feature work also includes The Night Stalker (starring Lou Diamond Phillips as serial killer Richard Ramirez), Lucky Them (starring Toni Collette, Thomas Haden Church, Oliver Platt and Johnny Depp), Eden (starring Jamie Chung, Matt O’Leary and Beau Bridges) and The Off Hours (starring Amy Seimetz, Ross Partridge and Scoot McNairy). More on Megan can be found at thecinechick.com. (Photo by Susan Doupe.)