And I wouldn't try to rank all of them, but put them in categories. 600 is just too hard. Have a top 100 ranked and the rest in groupings.
I have a solid Top 47 from my Essentials. I started back at the dawn of cinema because I'm not a fan of early Horror. I'm building alongside my current Marathon list, where I'm up to 1944 and I have a total of 32 films.
You really need a bottom 10 as well.
How about a Bottom 17. I ruled out some of the more forgettable garbage and titles that were trying to be Best Worst Movie (like Birdemic). These films still make me mad when I think about them.
17.
The Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence (2011)
The perverse fascination of someone making a film with a 12-person centipede as the centerpiece, the feeling that it’s carnival entertainment and manages to never sink below that, is all that keeps this from being 0 Stars
16.
Dreamcatcher (2003)
S**t weasels, Mr. Gay. Morgan Freeman has never been bad in a movie. This one performance balances the scales.
15.
Tusk (2014)
Kevin Smith's directing has become worse over time and now he's just as bad a writer.
14.
Driller Killer (1979)
I’d rather watch the b-roll footage as a documentary than Abel Ferrara casting himself as a pretentious jerk artist. The kind of trash where someone would turn to a horror junkie like me and say, “you actually like this crap?” No… I don’t.
13.
Blood Freak (1972)
A guy does too much drugs and turns into a giant turkey monster. According to Letterboxd, there are 30 worse films in this Marathon, but that would surprise me. It surpasses Terror in the Midnight Sun, though still slightly better than Night of the Lepus, also released in 1972. This barely qualifies as a film with occasional cutaways to a guy sitting at a desk to fill in story gaps. Big laugh for the sound of a turkey gobble to attempt suspense.
12.
Street Trash (1987)
This is like some cinematic Fear Factor, disgusting imagery, with little surrounding it. Bad actors fake their way through terrible scenes with no story to connect them besides the toxic drink, so all you have to look forward to are gross out moments of bodies melting.
11.
Snuff (1976)
A terrible exploitation film that’s sometimes hilariously bad. (Among the dubbed cast is a young girl clearly voiced by a male doing a high, squeaky voice.) Then at the end comes the film’s reason for being, an alleged actual murder of one of the cast. I’m thankful for the incompetence of the filmmakers, but it only points up the cheap gimmick and the cynical approach towards achieving cinema immortality.
10.
Lady in a Cage (1964)
9.
Tales From the Quadead Zone (1987)
Some people praise the filmmakers passion over the lack of a sound mix, Casio keyboard score and other horrible qualities. I came up in this era and it’s not sour grapes to say there are better examples of Trash Cinema out there.
8.
The Guardian (1990)
William Friedkin's killer tree movie. The worst edited film in history with montages of unrelated imagery.
7.
Beloved (1998)
Thinks it can get away with sickening imagery by wrapping itself in importance. The noisy crickets during the dialogue scenes are more interesting.
6.
Night of the Lepus (1972)
5.
I Spit on Your Grave (2010)
After 15 minutes of cute/clumsy antics by the lead while the camera leers at her up and down, this uncalled for remake of one of the most well-known terrible films had the bare minimum of my attention. This premise will always fail because as long as it’s written and directed by men, it will never earn the feminist shield it hides behind, and if it were ever made by a woman, an honest depiction of the horror would be more than any viewer could bear to sit through. This is better-acted than the original, but it also claims a moral superiority that it never earns.
4.
The Woman (2011)
Nobody who releases a film this awful deserves the chance to make another one. Tommy Wiseau is a more capable filmmaker than Lucky McKee.
3.
House at the Edge of the Park (1980)
I heard about this one years ago and debated even including it because it's crude exploitation built off the success of Last House on the Left, from the director of Cannibal Holocaust. I see the class warfare angle that somebody might have put in at one point, but this is just a lot of indefensible rape and cruelty from a director whose angry, neanderthal view of humanity didn't need to be shared with the world.
2.
I Spit on Your Grave (1978)
1.
Demons (Dèmoni) (1985)
Demons is slightly less off-putting to watch than 2 Girls, 1 Cup. And it's about as professional in the technical qualities. Screenplay would be a tie.