Video game movies used to have quite a bad reputation, and considering the painful missed opportunities of many earlier entries in the genre, it’s easy to see why. Between the success of films like The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Five Night’s at Freddy’s, and the Sonic the Hedgehog trilogy, it’s safe to say that the supposed “video game curse” once said to plague movie adaptations has been definitively lifted. But there are still plenty of examples of terrible video game movies that could’ve been so much more.

Some video game movies were destined to be failures from the very beginning, with concepts that would have been next to impossible to make work. For instance, the infamous live-action Super Mario Bros. from 1993 was a terrible idea from the start, as attempting to portray a world as dreamy and bizarre as Mario’s with real people wasn’t a smart play. But plenty of other bad video game movies could have been so much better than they actually turned out if only the source material was better respected.

10

Alone In The Dark

Butchered a chance at recognition

Considering Alone in the Dark is the progenitor of the survival horror genre, with famous games like Silent Hill and the Resident Evil series practically owing their existence to it, it’s surprising that it isn’t a more talked-about тιтle in video game pop culture. On the cutting edge of elements like fixed cameras from multiple third-person perspectives and weight-based inventory management, the series eventually soft-rebooted with Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare. This game was then, in turn, adapted by the infamous Uwe Boll, whose name will come up often in the conversation of bad video game movies.

Alone in the Dark isn’t just one of the worst video game adaptations, but one of the worst movies ever made in general. For one, the movie, more-or-less, completely started from scratch story-wise compared to the game it’s supposedly based on, taking place in a museum rather than a manor on an isolated jungle island. The goofy creature SFX, horrible performances, and utter lack of imagination put Alone in the Dark on a rare level of bad compared to the beloved game it could’ve taken more inspiration from.

9

Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time

Whitewashed and bland

The reboot of the 90s platformer series Prince of Persia with Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is one of the most successful brand makeovers in video game history. The move to 3-D for the Arabian-inspired sword-and-sandal series came with a new mechanic centered around the тιтular Sands of Time, allowing players to rewind time itself for a few seconds upon making a mistake. Sadly, this re-branding was ruined by the mediocre film adaptation in 2010, which failed on a mulтιтude of levels.

For one, casting Jake Gyllenhaal as the тιтular prince rather than an actor of actual Iranian descent whitewashed the story. Moreover, Gyllenhaal’s heart clearly wasn’t in the project, sleepwalking his way through a variety of CGI spectacles that would’ve been elevated with a proper casting choice. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was meant to be the start of a Pirates of the Caribbean-esque swashbuckling trilogy, but because of this fundamental miscast, the film was bound to slip through the sands of time unnoticed.

8

Max Payne

A terrible blow to Mark Wahlberg’s career

The Max Payne movie is a sort of pop-culture ouroboros, a movie based on a game that was itself heavily inspired by a movie. The Max Payne games took the “bullet time” slow-motion style of action firefights popularized by The Matrix and made it a central gameplay mechanic, allowing players to dramatically and slowly fling themselves through the air while firing dual-wielded pistols. All the carnage is set against the backdrop of a simple but effective revenge story, laying down some good bones for a solid action flick.

Mark Wahlberg’s Max Payne in 2008 had the chance to be John Wick before the first John Wick ever came out, combining slick and stylish gunfights with soapy revenge drama. While the film did get across some of the former, the latter was obscured by bizarre story decisions such as moving the game’s opening scene to take place in the middle of the film. Worst of all, Wahlberg’s wooden performance slaughtered any aspirations the film had for being taken seriously, earning him his second Razzie nomination for worst actor of the year alongside The Happening.

7

Borderlands

Valued star power over game accuracy

Despite its over-the-top violence, basic first-person shooter gameplay and childish sense of humor, the Borderlands series could have actually made for an interesting movie. The sci-fi premise of an abandoned mining planet left to become a post-apocalyptic wasteland only to attract attention again once valuable alien technology is discovered might’ve made for an interesting dark comedy. Sadly, the Borderlands film has some of the most flagrant disrespect for its source material of any video game adaptation ever.

For one, the film totally mixed and matched the timeline of the series into a wholly different order with no regard to the pre-established lore, flipping around characters, organizations, and relationships however it saw fit. Casting the 5’5″ jokester Kevin Hart as the quiet, courageous super soldier Roland was also a horrific mistake, and Jack Black didn’t even attempt to mime Claptrap’s iconic chipper robot voice. Essentially an entirely new story, the Borderlands movie has nothing in common with the games save for a few proper nouns.

6

House Of The ᴅᴇᴀᴅ

Butchered an iconic first-person shooter series

Creating a good zombie movie based off of House of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ shouldn’t have been hard, yet Uwe Boll struggled with the concept all the same. The original House of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ is perhaps the single most iconic light-gun arcade shooters of all time, credited with re-popularizing zombies in video games along with zombies in pop culture in general thanks to its success. Despite the simple fun of the first-person shooter, the game has a surprisingly elaborate plot regarding a mad scientist who crafts a variety of horrific unᴅᴇᴀᴅ creatures in addition to simple zombies.

Sadly, Uwe Boll once again threw out a pre-existing story to focus on his own bland ideas instead, following a group of friends who go to a rave only to find that all the attendees have been killed or zombified. With such a lean budget, Boll wasn’t able to approach any of the creative monster designs Sega put forth in the original game. All that’s left is a generic zombie movie with unintentionally-funny scares, cheap shock value, and generic characters.

5

ᴀssᴀssin’s Creed

Missed a golden opportunity for a franchise

The ᴀssᴀssin’s Creed games seem as perfect for a film adaptation as any video game series could be. Ubisoft’s stealth-action touchstone is a series of period pieces, with almost every game taking place in a new era of history, describing the centuries-old feud between the Knights of the Templar and the ᴀssᴀssin Brotherhood. The early games used the framing device of the Animus machine, a device that allowed users to experience the memories of their distant ancestors.

Interestingly enough, the ᴀssᴀssin’s Creed movie adaptation opted to tell another story set in the same universe rather than simply re-hash the events of the first game, though this decision may have been to the film’s detriment. Far too much time was dedicated to the modern day storyline, which was dropped from the main games for a reason, easily being the least interesting thing about the series as a whole. It’s too bad that ᴀssᴀssin’s Creed fumbled the chance at putting together a series of period piece action movies that explored a new chapter in history with each film.

4

Rampage

Missed a chance to bring the original’s humor to life

Another venerated arcade classic, Rampage is an irreverent game series that hands players control of giant animalistic monsters, encouraging them to bring as much destruction as possible to a series of buildings. The original arcade cabinet didn’t have much plot to speak of, but later additions to the series came up with fun ideas from the monsters fending off an alien invasion and continuing their rampage into space to a soda company whose products transform unwitting consumers into giant animals at an unprecedented rate. 2018’s Rampage included none of these.

Rather than having humans morph into the classic monsters, Rampage instead simply had normal animals mutate into the beasts. The film carried over none of the games’ charming dark humor, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson put in as generic a performance as ever as primatologist David Okoye. Making a fun kaiju movie featuring transforming humans might have been a novel idea, but Rampage squandered it in favor of a weirdly melodramatic disaster film.

3

Doom

Yet another video game dud from The Rock

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson seems to have a talent for spoiling what could have been fun video game adaptations. The original Doom is one of the most influential Western video games of all time, responsible for popularizing the first-person shooter genre alongside Wolfenstein 3D. The original game puts players in the boots of a lone space marine deployed to Mars as punishment only to find himself up against a legion of demonic invaders.

Doom might not be the most story-rich game, with programmer John Romero famously stating “Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It’s expected to be there, but it’s not that important.” in a book describing the game’s development. However, the film still missed the mark on the atmosphere and violence of the game, despite the creative first-person segments. Between its lifeless performances and an overall sense of disinterest from all those involved, Doom would be a very different movie if it came out today.

2

Far Cry

One of the worst flops from Uwe Boll ever

Yet another of Uwe Boll’s disastrous video game adaptations, Far Cry is seldom even remembered to have a film adaptation by even the most die-hard fans. While each тιтle in the Far Cry series tells a new story of some lone hero braving danger and bad guys in a remote wilderness setting, the first game tells the tale of an American special forces commando who goes on a one-man mission to a mysterious island in order to stop the plans of a mad scientist. Surprisingly for Boll, his film adaptation followed these events somewhat closely.

However, that is where the praise for 2008’s Far Cry begins and ends. The boring action and lack of intrigue compared to the game ensured that Far Cry was a mᴀssive financial failure, making under $800,000 at the box office against a budget of $30 million. Because of this, it’s a shame that a Far Cry anthology film series was never able to manifest in a similar way that the games have progressed.

1

Silent Hill: Revelation

Made a joke out of iconic horror characters

Silent Hill and especially Silent Hill 2 are some of the most revered names in the horror video game genre, proving the capability of the medium as a genuine tool for storytelling as well as a way to deliver bone-chilling scares in a way no movie can. The franchise received two film adaptations, with both being undwhelming to say the least, but Silent Hill: Revelation is a particular sore spot. The film’s first major mistake was to build on the previous movie without directly adapting a specific game in the series.

While the games are better known for slowly cultivating a sense of psychological dread, Silent Hill: Revelation settled for cheap jump scares and grimy snuff film aesthetics that were an obvious attempt to mimic the success of films like Saw. Even more insulting was the use of series staple Pyramid Head, an iconic villain who was made into a joke by the movie’s poor direction. Hopefully, the upcoming Return to Silent Hill, which aims to directly adapt Silent Hill 2, can do the video game justice with a proper movie adaptation.