So you’re stuck at home on Thanksgiving, suffering through the usual indignities (we’re not married yet either, so tell your mom you’re not alone on that), and you’re beginning to wonder if any family could possibly be worse than yours.
Yes. Yes they could. Don’t you watch movies?
Terrible families have been a dramatic staple since the dawn of drama, and movies have not proven the exception in the 100+ years that we’ve had them. In fact, coming up with a list of the most Awful Movie Families in history is something of a crap gig. We wish we hadn’t thought of it. We could whip out a Top 100 pretty easily, and narrowing it down to the Top 10 is kind of impossible. So these are the not the Top 11 Awful Movie Families. They are merely 11 extremely awful movie families, ranging from dangerously psychotic to merely insufferably annoying, that we hope you will consider before you sit down to Thanksgiving dinner. Your family probably isn’t that bad in comparison. And if they are as bad as the movie families we’re about to present to you, get out! Get out of the house right now and call the police!
Or at least move. Anyway, here we go…
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
11 Awful Movie Families
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The Ushers
From: The Fall of the House of Usher (1960)
Here's Why: Edgar Allen Poe's gothic nightmares don't lend themselves to friendly chats or family values. In Roger Corman's influential first Poe adaptation, he turns the ill-fated, congenitally-diseased Usher family into melancholy, terrible hosts who doom themselves to misery and despair. Worse than, they're really boring.
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The Shaws
From: The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Here's Why: Controlling mother, corrupt politician father, secret Communist spies who brainwash their own kid to become an assassin, the Shaws are about as bad as it gets without becoming serial killers. The creepiest part? Laurence Harvey's mom, Angela Lansbury, is only three years older than him. Ew.
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The Trapps
From: The Sound of Music (1965)
Here's Why: The musical wunderkinds from Robert Wise's beloved Oscar-winning musical are annoying mischief makers before Sister Maria (Julie Andrews) gets to them, and insufferable moppets afterwards. It's all very wholesome, and the music is great, but we'd rather kill ourselves than come over to the Trapp's house for Thanksgiving.
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The Sawyer Family
From: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1975), et al
Here's Why: Because they're cannibals, damn it. What more do you need? They kill people, eat them, wear their skin and make furniture out of their bones. But ironically, they actually love each other. They just hate everyone else, at least until they've been ground into chili.
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The Fratellis
From: The Goonies (1985)
Here's Why: The Italian crime family - in that they are an actual family, not that they run an organized crime ring - are bickering monsters who keep a real monster, a loveable but deformed sibling named "Sloth," locked in the basement forever. Mean assholes, the lot of them, and they're trying to kill adorable treasure hunting kids to boot.
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The Tannens
From: Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Here's Why: In the sequel to Robert Zemeckis's sci-fi classic Back to the Future, Marty McFly accidentally ends up in an alternate timeline where the bully Biff has become a billionaire who killed Marty's dad, forced Marty's mom to marry him, and has terrible taste in interior decorating. Those are bound to be some awkward family dinners.
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The Robesons
From: The People Under the Stairs (1991)
Here's Why: They're incestuous parents who mutilate their children and keep them locked in crawlspaces throughout the house. And on top of it all, they're shitty landlords. The labyrinth of the Robeson house hides countless horrors, like Everett McGill's full body leather gear. Don't go checking the cabinets when you use their bathroom. You won't like anything you find.
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The Denethors
From: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Extended Cut (2003), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Here's Why: Firstly, we don't know their last name. Sorry. Tolkien experts can feel free to correct us. In any case, brothers Faramir and Boromir are the victims of a controlling father, Denethor, who plays favorites and emotionally manipulates his kids into killing themselves for the sake of the kingdom... while he eats like a slob, safe and sound in Gondor. Those kids should be therapy, not on battlefield, compensating for Denethor's inferiority complex.
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The Witwickys
From: Transformers (2007), Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)
Here's Why: The Witwickys are Michael Bay's idea of a "normal family," in that they are doting but shrill, condescending white stereotypes. They're not "awful," they're just super annoying, and we wouldn't want to spend one minute of our real lives with them.
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The Dogtooths
From: Dogtooth (2009)
Here's Why: The never-named family from Yorgos Lanthimos' Dogtooth has isolated their adult children, taught them the wrong names for everyday items, and subjected them to bizarre behavioral modification and psychosexual experimentation. The most horrifying thing of all is that they're living a nightmare and have no idea they have any options.
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The Cleeks
From: The Woman (2011)
Here's Why: Rampant abuse and misogyny ought to cover it. The Cleeks seem like a normal household, but under the thick veneer of wholesome values lies a sick father figure whose hatred of women goes beyond verbal and physical abuse and into nightmare territories we just can't spoil. You will freak out, and you will be afraid that this is what your neighbors are like behind closed doors.
