Fall Movies Fantasy League Week 8: After We Collided Is the Worst-Reviewed Film of the Year

After We Collided has a staggering zero percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Photo-Illustration: Vulture and Open Road Films (II)

In Vulture’s Fall Movies Fantasy League, contestants stake their pride, and the respect of their peers, on their ability to predict the tumultuous next few months of cinematic releases.

The Antebellum Memorial Wing of the Fall Movies Fantasy League Hall of Shame has a long and storied history. Since its inception in late September, the wing has welcomed a diverse class of inductees: its namesake, of course, and also the Jessica Chastain assassin movie Ava, and the Robert de Niro family comedy The War With Grandpa, all three of which boasted reviews atrocious enough to earn a small points penalty for their unlucky owners. But for all the pans they received, each also had their defenders. None of them were universally ridiculed.

You can’t say the same about the newest member of the club, which enters the AMW the way Zion Williamson entered the NBA — a swaggering colossus that makes all other comers seem puny by comparison. For Antebellum, Ava, and The War With Grandpa were merely disliked; After We Collided is despised. The second installment in a film franchise adapted from a YA series that was itself based on a popular Harry Styles fanfic, After We Collided has earned a staggering zero percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the few critics that bothered to review it getting a head-start on sharpening their knives for the holidays. Jessica Kiang slams the “numbingly repetitive series of manufactured minor dramas between the two terminally self-involved, staggeringly uninteresting protagonists,� while Peter Sobczynski calls it “a film so lazy and inane that it feels as contemptuous towards its audience as I am towards it.�

Weirdly, this terrible-sounding film was directed by the guy who made Cruel Intentions. Even more weirdly, it’s the 13th-highest grossing film of 2020 worldwide, having performed surprisingly well in its European release earlier this fall. Still, that means it’s topped out at $45 million, with its $420,000 domestic opening weekend unlikely to help it break the $100 million threshold that would bring the real points haul for its owners. But hey, at least it was cheap!

None of my Vulture staffers decided to pick up After We Collided, or Rebecca, Over the Moon, or The Empty Man, some of the other films that debuted this week. But three of them were intrigued by Bad Hair, the Justin Simien horror comedy that debuted on Hulu to mildly positive reviews. Of all those movies, can you guess which one scored the highest? That’s right, it was The Empty Man, a supernatural thriller starring James Badge Dale that was the only film in the bunch to open wide. It came in fourth place, grossing $1.2 million on 2,000 screens. 2020 — what a weird time at the movies.

Here is the update for the staff league:

Week 8 Results

Hunter Harris
Bad Hair: October streaming release (4) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) = 5 points

Total: 5 points

Chris Murphy
Bad Hair: October streaming release (4) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) = 5 points

Total: 5 points

Jen Chaney
Bad Hair: October streaming release (4) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) = 5 points

Total: 5 points

Current Standings

1. Rachel Handler: 58 points (8 movies)
2. Katy Brooks: 48 points (7 movies)
t-3. Hunter Harris, Neil Janowitz, Tolly Wright: 32 points (6 movies each)
6. Jen Chaney: 30 points (6 movies)
7. Chris Murphy: 26 points (6 movies)
8. Justin Curto: 25 points (6 movies)
9. Jackson McHenry: 17 points (4 movies)
10. Alison Wilmore: 14 points (6 movies)

Staff fantasy-league teams are listed in full here.

Vulture’s Fall Movies Fantasy League is open to all readers. Enter and you can look forward to an exciting autumn of endlessly refreshing Box Office Mojo and Rotten Tomatoes and quibbling over the precise definition of wide release.