Sometimes once just isn’t enough … it’s too much. Yet inexplicably, far too many terrible, horrible, no good, very bad movies don’t go to the graveyard of flopped turkeys where they belong, but actually give birth to terrible, horrible, no good, very bad sequels. On the occasion of Grown Ups 2 hitting theaters today—despite its 2010 predecessor being branded as “lazy, mean-spirited, incoherent, infantile and, above all, witless”—here’s a look back at its brethren: movies so bad we’re still baffled they spawned sequels.
The “comedy” starred the rat pack of crass crap—Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, David Spade, Rob Schneider, and Kevin James—as high school friends who reunite 30 years later at a lake house.
Rotten Tomatoes score: 10 percent
Sample review: “Grown Ups is exactly, beat for beat, what the previews would have you believe: a depressingly predictable, two-chuckle deconstruction of what Sandler sees as the modern American male.” – Marc Savlov, Austin Chronicle
Sequel: Grown Ups 2 (2013)
Tracy Bennett/Columbia Pictures
Martin Lawrence stars as an FBI agent who guards a mother and son in the federal witness protection program. To do so he dresses in drag as an obese old lady.
Rotten Tomatoes score: 30 percent
Sample review: “If Big Momma’s House isn’t as bad as you imagined, then you’ve no imagination at all.” – Luke Y. Thompson, Dallas Observer
Sequel: Big Momma’s House 2 (2006)
20th Century Fox, via Getty Images
After being mistaken for a male gigolo while house-sitting, Rob Schneider decides to actually become one. So-called hilarity ensues.
Rotten Tomatoes score: 23 percent
Sample review: “A little Disney Christmas release that comes wrapped in used toilet paper.” – Jack Matthews, Daily News
Sequel: Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (2005)
Touchstone Pictures, via Everett Collection
The classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon gets a live-action adaptation starring Buffy the Vampire Slayer, her husband, the lady from Freaks and Geeks who was just on Mad Men, and the worst CGI dog cinema has ever seen.
Rotten Tomatoes score: 30 percent
Sample review: “Get out your pooper-scoopers. Doo happens June 14, warn the ads for Scooby-Doo. And they say there’s not truth in Hollywood.” – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
Sequel: Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004)
Casey Rodgers/AP
The only thing worse than living in Lake Placid is living in Lake Placid while a cranky crocodile is on a murderous rampage.
Rotten Tomatoes score: 39 percent
Sample review: “It’s like summer stock Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, with the proviso that occasionally a giant snaggle-tooth monster slobbers onstage and eats George or Martha.” – Michael O’Sullivan, The Washington Post
Sequels: Lake Placid 2 (2007), Lake Placid 3 (2010), Lake Placid: The Final Chapter (2012)
Getty Images
Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube are documentarians searching for a lost Amazon tribe. Instead they find a gargantuan man-eating snake. Oops.
Rotten Tomatoes score: 38 percent
Sample review: “Such a classic combination of feckless dramaturgy and rampant excess that giving way to giggles is the only sane response.” – Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
Sequels: Anacondas – The Hunt for the Blood Orchid (2004), Anaconda III (2008), Anacondas: Trail of Blood (2009)
Columbia Pictures, via Getty
Alvin, Simon, and Theodore are singing chipmunks who torment Jason Lee. Also anyone forced to sit through the film.
Rotten Tomatoes score: 26 percent
Sample review: “If karma exists, Alvin and the Chipmunks must be Lee’s punishment for appearing in the likes of Jersey Girl.” – Elizabeth Weitzman, Daily News
Sequels: Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009), Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (2011)
Christopher Polk/Getty Images
Neil Patrick Harris discovers a colony of tiny blue people in New York City, and the one entertainment vehicle he can’t charm his way out of unscathed.
Rotten Tomatoes score: 22 percent
Sample review: “Looking at the obnoxious TV ads for The Smurfs, it’s easy to dismiss the film as a shrill, joyless exercise in special effects without substance. It’s even easier after actually seeing it.” – Todd Gilchrist, Boxoffice Magazine
Sequel: The Smurfs 2 (2013)
Sony Pictures Animation
A sadistic surgeon carries out a human experiment in which he removes his patients’ kneecaps and sews them together in a chain, mouth-to-anus. Which, ew.
Rotten Tomatoes score: 49 percent
Sample review: “There are terrible movies and there are loathsome movies. And then there’s that rare breed so idiotic, exploitative, and sickening one wishes they could be scrubbed from memory.” – Michael Ordona, Los Angeles Times
Sequel: The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) (2011)
IFC Pictures
Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins frolic nearly naked on a tropical island after a shipwreck. They discover their sexuality. You discover you’re watching borderline child pornography.
Rotten Tomatoes score: 12 percent
Sample review: “You can focus on the gorgeous locales or the underage skin. Or you could just watch a much better movie.” – Scott Weinberg, eFilmCritic.com
Sequels: Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991), Blue Lagoon: The Awakening (2012)
Silver Screen Collection/Getty
Kathleen Turner and Christopher Lloyd crack the code to a secret baby language, but their dastardly plan to use this to take over the world is thwarted by a hyper-intelligent tot in diapers.
Rotten Tomatoes score: 2 percent
Sample review: “One way to get through Baby Geniuses is to think about whether it really is the worst movie you’ve ever seen. Probably not, but pretty darn close.” – Elvis Mitchell, The New York Times
Sequel: Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (2004)
Columbia TriStar, via Getty Images
Hugh Jackman wears tank tops and has claws.
Rotten Tomatoes score: 38 percent
Sample review: “The X-Men franchise takes a giant leap backward and off a cliff with its fourth offering.” – Robert Wilonsky, Village Voice
Sequel: The Wolverine (2013)
Marco Ugarte/AP
