10 Worst PG-13 Horror Films Since 2010
Good PG-13 horrors are out there, but not here.
When a movie is given a PG-13, it means that it is not suitable for children under the age of 13, or that parents should at least be cautious when showing it to their little ones.
You might think that this would be a death sentence for a horror movie, as they would need a full R rating to really bring out the scares. This simply isn't true, as there have been plenty of classics that have stuck firmly to these rules.
There's Guillermo del Toro's Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, M. Night Shyamalan's The Visit, and The Woman in Black, the film so scary it turned Harry Potter into a full-grown man with sideburns. These are just some examples from the last decade or so, but sadly, there have also been some real stinkers.
The following ten films were all released between 2010 and 2019 and were given the PG-13 rating by the American Motion Picture Association. Sometimes, the rating itself played a part in why they were so bad, but often, they would have sucked no matter who was allowed to view them.
10. Insidious: The Last Key
When the first Insidious movie hit theatres in 2010, people were very impressed with this tale of otherworldly possession and were keen to see more. Alas, sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.
The Insidious films just kept coming, with each subsequent sequel failing to reach the heights of the original. Things hit an all-time low with the fourth movie, 2018’s The Last Key, which was actually a prequel to film number one.
Elise Rainier, the parapsychologist from the first movie, takes centre stage, leading an expedition to root out the ghosts living in her childhood home. Viewers were pleased to see veteran actor Lin Shaye in a main role, but that was about the only thing they were happy about.
The Last Key was indicative of a franchise that had run out of steam. The plot was like a thousand other haunted house stories before it, the other characters were so paper thin you could see through them, and the jump scares felt cheap and manipulative. That last part couldn’t even be blamed on PG-13, as all the Insidious movies carry that rating.