2024 may have given us Challengers, the best love triangle movie that’s ever been made, but it’s also served up some seriously head-scratching cinema.
From comedies inspired by breakfast foods (Jerry Seinfeld’s Unfrosted) to a true crime thriller starring a former Real Housewife (Bethenny Frankel’s Danger in the Dorm), it’s been a good year for people who love movies that sound like 30 Rock jokes.
Us compiled a list of movies from 2024 that we can’t believe exist. Keep scrolling to see our perplexing picks:
‘Irish Wish’
After 2022’s Falling for Christmas, Lindsay Lohan resumed her Netflix rom-com career with this love story set in Ireland. She plays editor Maddie Kelly, who makes a wish — at the prompting of a woman who casually turns out to be Saint Brigid — that her arrogant author boss would marry her instead of her best friend. Because she’s on a magical Irish wishing bench (of course), the wish comes true, and she wakes up engaged.
While plenty of great rom-coms have insane premises — 13 Going on 30 and Lohan’s own Freaky Friday come to mind — Irish Wish never quite rises above its kooky plot.
‘Unfrosted’
In addition to Seinfeld, who also cowrote and directed the film, Unfrosted has a star-studded cast, including Melissa McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan, Max Greenfield, Hugh Grant and Amy Schumer. Why Seinfeld felt the need to gather this impressive ensemble for a movie loosely based on the creation of Pop-Tarts is a bit of a mystery.
The Daily Beast called Unfrosted “as bad as you’d except” while The Chicago Sun-Times dubbed it “one of the decade’s worst movies.” Ouch.
‘Danger in the Dorm’
Even Frankel was confused when she was asked to star in this Lifetime original movie, which is based on true crime writer Ann Rule’s first book.
“I was able to laugh, not at the amazing opportunity I was given, but kind of at the fact that at this age I was being offered a dramatic role about a murder,” the Real Housewives of New York City alum exclusively told Us of the project in June. “I think also part of me was self-deprecating because I was in shock at the fact that Lifetime would give me that kind of a role. I didn’t understand their choice.”
Despite the unlikely casting decision, Frankel was refreshingly believable as a concerned mom who tries to convince her daughter to leave school after a friend is murdered.
“I think I rose to the occasion. I loved the role, and when it mattered, I mustered it up,” Frankel said.
‘Under Paris’
This French action-horror disaster about a giant shark in the Seine isn’t as unapologetically campy as the Sharknado franchise, which makes it feel even weirder. Just like Jaws, Under Paris has a bewilderingly careless mayor who refuses to protect civilians from a murderous shark (or, in this case, an ever-increasing amount of murderous sharks).
‘Gaslit by My Husband: The Morgan Metzer Story’
The buzzwordy title Gaslit by My Husband feels like a striking understatement for a story about a woman (Jana Kramer) who gets assaulted by a masked man, who turns out to be her ex-husband.
’Sasquatch Sunset’
There’s zero dialogue in Sasquatch Sunset, just 88 minutes of Riley Keough, Jesse Eisenberg, Christophe Zajac-Denek and Nathan Zellner dressed as Sasquatches going about their lives in the Northern California wilderness. The film’s action ranges from an alpha Sasquatch attempting to have sex with a mountain lion and then getting eaten by said mountain lion, a family of Sasquatches performing a ritual in the hopes of attracting others like them and a Sasquatch birth.
‘Imaginary’
This horror flick, which feels like the evil twin of John Krasinki’s animated film IF, centers on a little girl whose teddy bear Chauncey turns out to be a sinister entity that can lure people into a realm called the Never Ever and turn into a monstrous, snarling bear. Chauncey’s monster form is too hilarious-looking to be scary, but the film isn’t self-aware like the intentionally campy M3gan, which is from the same producers and also about a nightmarish child’s toy.
‘The Front Room’
The Front Room doesn’t hit theaters until September, but the trailer has already earned it a spot on this list. In her first horror movie since 1998’s I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, Brandy plays a pregnant woman who is forced to take in her husband’s sick, estranged stepmother (Kathryn Hunter).
The wicked stepmom insists on moving into the baby’s nursery and adding her own decor (an excessive amount of religious paraphernalia). Oh, and she also “thinks that the Holy Spirit possesses her and gives her power,” as Brandy’s husband (Andrew Burnap) explains in the trailer. Plus, she’s a racist who belongs to the United Daughters of the Confederacy and is trying to frame Brandy for elder abuse. Just mother-in-law things!
