Shoah (1985)
The Bad Date Movie: A nine-hour long movie about the Holocaust. Put it this way, if this date doesn’t go badly, you probably know you’ve found yourself a keeper!
Impact On Your Evening: It will occupy all of it, and staring at a screen for nine hours probably isn’t the best way to spend quality time with a loved one.
Sleeping With The Enemy (1991)
The Bad Date Movie: Julia Roberts in a steamy romance? Sure-fire winner! Julia Roberts in a bizarrely misogynistic psychodrama? Slightly dodgier ground.
Impact On Your Evening: It depends what you were expecting. When Julia fakes her own death rather than making gooey expressions at a catalogue model, your date might feel slightly alarmed!
Funny Games US (2007)
The Bad Date Movie: Horror movies often make good date movies. However, one that shows a couple so utterly at the mercy of their antagonists probably doesn’t fit the bill. As bleak as they come.
Impact On Your Evening: Did you used to feel safe from harm so long as you had each other? Not any more.
9 Songs (2004)
The Bad Date Movie: Given the famous sex scenes you might have thought you were on to a winner with this one, but the steamy lovemaking soon gives way to tears and arguments in this painful dissection of a failing relationship.
Impact On Your Evening: You might avoid any damage if you turn it off after half an hour or so. Otherwise, you’re in for a long hard look at your relationship.
Kramer vs Kramer (1979)
The Bad Date Movie: A portrait of divorce and the subsequent legal wranglings over Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep’s kid. Nobody is winning here, least of all the institution of marriage.
Impact On Your Evening: The night takes a turn for the maudlin as one half of the couple starts recounting their own tale of a broken home.
Husbands & Wives (1992)
The Bad Date Movie: Woody Allen makes great date movies. Annie Hall and Manhattan are classics of the genre. Do not be fooled into thinking this is more of the same. This is about relationships going wrong, and very little else. Good, but hardly the kind of thing you cuddle up in front of…
Impact On Your Evening: Expect this to set any potential proposal back by a couple of years at least!
Rosemary's Baby (1968)
The Bad Date Movie: Roman Polanski’s harrowing horror about a man who pimps out his wife to the devil, and the subsequent pregnancy that follows. Misogyny, agonising childbirth, subjugation of women… all the ingredients are there for the perfect date! Or not.
Impact On Your Evening: “Would you ever sell me to the devil?” “No dear, of course not.” “I bet you would…” etc.
Revolutionary Road (2008)
The Bad Date Movie: Kate Winslet and Leo DiCaprio, reunited once more! But this ain’t Titanic . Instead, pretty much everything that can go wrong does go wrong for the ill-fated couple, right up to the crushingly downbeat ending. Oof!
Impact On Your Evening: If Kate and Leo can’t make it work, what chance do you guys stand?
21 Grams (2004)
The Bad Date Movie: Sean Penn and Naomi Watts are seemingly happy, but for the fact he’s got the heart of her dead husband in place of his own bum ticker. As you might have anticipated, things get messy and complicated sooner rather than later.
Impact On Your Evening: It shouldn’t be too bad, unless of course one of you is harbouring an organ that previously belonged to the other’s ex-lover. Then it could get awkward.
The Last Woman (1976)
The Bad Date Movie: Depression is a thorny issue for a date, particularly if the character in question is depressed on account of a woman. Then when he decides to cut off his manhood in order to rectify the problem… well the evening’s gone downhill a bit, hasn’t it?
Impact On Your Evening: If you’re out with a bloke you don’t really fancy, it’ll be a whole lot harder to bin him after watching this!
