50 Worst Kids Movies

Nukie (1988)

The Movie: Bargain basement atrocity heralded by some as the ‘most painful movie ever made’. The ‘plot’ revolves around two alien brothers who crash land on Earth.

Most Disturbing Detail: Nukie himself – a stoned-looking sloth thing that’ll give anybody nightmares.

The Garbage Pail Kids Movie (1987)

The Movie: Based on kids’ trading cards, this well-known piece of trash follows what happens when the garbage pail kids befriend a young boy.

Most Disturbing Detail:
The ‘kids’, which are halfway between Muppets and something from Spitting Image .

Mac & Me (1988)

The Movie: A horribly hollow E.T . rip-off about an escaped little alien who makes friends with a wheelchair-bound human boy.

Most Disturbing Detail: That infamous scene in McDonalds that runs like an extended advert for the ‘restaurant’. Shocking.

The Neverending Story 3 (1994)

The Movie: Stars Free Willy ’s Jason James Richter as the Neverending Story saga proves it really just won’t ever end. Well, until this threequel buried it.

Most Disturbing Detail: Poor old luck dragon Falkor is looking seriously mangy by now.

Doggy Poo (2003)

The Movie: Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘what a piece of shit’. This 30-minute stop-motion oddity from South Korea follows the plight of a depressed dog poo who fears he has no purpose...

Most Disturbing Detail: The whole flippin’ thing.

Land Before Time 2 (1994)

The Movie: First direct-to-video sequel to the otherwise passably decent original film. Want to know what happens after Littlefoot and co reach the Great Valley? Find out here… if you dare.

Most Disturbing Detail:
How safe the whole thing is compared to the original. Talk about patronising a generation.

Babes In Toyland (1986)

The Movie: A young Drew Barrymore and Keanu Reeves sleepwalk their way through this horrendous TV movie, in which Barrymore’s 11-year-old Lisa is too busy looking after the family to play with toys. Sob.

Most Disturbing Detail: The title, which has us imagining an altogether less kid-friendly movie.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 (1993)

The Movie: The film that killed the live-action Turtles films. Even the Jim Henson Creature Shop realised how bad this one was, refusing to provide animatronics for the threequel. The result is noticeably dreadful.

Most Disturbing Detail: There’s hardly any fighting!

Batman & Robin (1997)

The Movie: Universally derided fourth Batman film, starring George Clooney as Bruce Wayne and Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl. Just awful.

Most Disturbing Detail: Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr Freeze, spouting some of the worst one-liners of his career. Which is saying something.

Pocket Ninjas (1997)

The Movie: Trashy, DTV ridiculousness. When the evil, Underworld-dwelling Cobra Khan ascends to present day earth, he starts polluting the atmosphere. So the White Dragon sends his teen students after him.

Most Disturbing Detail: It was actually filmed in 1994, and gathered dust for three years before finally getting a release in '97. Most disturbing is that it secured a release at all.

Josh Winning has worn a lot of hats over the years. Contributing Editor at Total Film, writer for SFX, and senior film writer at the Radio Times. Josh has also penned a novel about mysteries and monsters, is the co-host of a movie podcast, and has a library of pretty phenomenal stories from visiting some of the biggest TV and film sets in the world. He would also like you to know that he "lives for cat videos..." Don't we all, Josh. Don't we all.