Film is a lot like Chinese philosophy in that the ying and the yang are forever connected.  As with darkness there is light.  Day follows night.  And bad films, follow good.  In other words, just as there are the fantastic big monster movies where Hollywood is clever or innovative in telling stories about giant monsters that destroy cities, there are also awful films where Hollywood relies on rote repetition and tired tricks.  You've read the list of the best big monster movies, now read about the worst. 

5. Eight Legged Freaks (2002)

Eight Legged Freaks is the least offensive entry on this list for the simple reason that it attempted something new.  Big giant spiders?  No one's seen that before!  Unfortunately, despite the film's attempts at playing into the inherent humor of such a situation, it just doesn't work.  And by "just doesn't work" I mean the script isn't that great, the characters are stale, and the production values are slightly above "made for TV."  But, at least, they gave us spiders, and no one had done that before...that's something.

4. Jurassic Park Sequels (1997 - 2015)

As recently discussed in a review of the Jurassic Park franchise, while the first film was innovative and new (using digital animation to new effect) the second and third films in the series were exactly the same as the first film, simply introducing new bigger and badder dinosaurs or growing the number of existing dinosaurs.  This is what you call milking a franchise for profit without any consideration for artistic endeavor.

3. Pacific Rim (2013)

When Hollywood makes a film, they make an unspoken pact with the audience.  Hollywood agrees to make an entertaining quality product and the audience agrees to suspend its disbelief regarding a precious few plot points, provided the rest of the story makes sense.  For example, in San Andreas, the audience agrees to put aside questions about the feasibility of an earthquake of the size in the film existing in real life, Hollywood in turn blows stuff up real good like.  Unfortunately, Pacific Rim broke this agreement.  It's a film that requires the audience to suspend its disbelief about everything:  About giant monsters existing out of a portal, out of man's ability to create giant robots to fight it, about mankind's ability to build a 50 feet thick cement wall all along the coastlines of the Earth's Pacific neighboring countries.  The entire movie is silly from start to finish, like a giant comic book, or a film aimed at ten year olds.  Without any anchor in reality, and the usual grandiose action heroes that exist without flaws, the film doesn't give the audience anyone to root for and consequently, I, at least, left the theater not caring a bit about anything in the film.  Rule to aspiring filmmakers:  Don't make films where your audience won't be able to care about a single piece of the story.

2. Godzilla (1998)

The 1998 Godzilla was quite simply, fairly awful.  Usually with these sorts of films (like the recent San Andreas), the special effects are fun enough that it's just a matter of whether or not you can sit through x number of scenes of lame characters reciting lame dialogue.  But not in Godzilla.  In Godzilla, the special effects are pretty awful.  For one the monster in the film seems to change size depending on the needs of the scene.  In the photo at left, Godzilla is shown as the size of the Brooklyn Bridge, yet in later scenes, he's shown to be as big as skyscrapers.  For another, almost all of the film occurs at night, all the better to shade and hide the digital sewing that occurred after filming.  And some of those shots of Godzilla fleeing though the city, the background almost looks like cardboard cut-outs.  And then, of course, if you add all the normal Roland Emerich issues to the film, and it becomes an unbearable exercise in cinematic patience.

1. Jaws Sequels (1978 -1987)

Spielberg made the first Summer blockbuster with his release of the iconic film Jaws.  The story had a beginning, a middle, and a proper ending, with the giant shark being killed.  It was a self-contained adventure that needed no further additions.  Of course, that didn't stop Hollywood from coming up with a second, and then a third, and then a fourth giant man-eating shark.  By the last film in the franchise, Jaws the Revenge, the production quality is so low and the story so absurd that it becomes immediately obvious there wasn't anyone on set who actually cared about the product; it was a paycheck for all involved.