1. Father Carlo - Blessed (2004)
Horror filmmakers have been exploring the fear of children and pregnancy for decades. This trend of 'paedo-phobic' horror reached its peak in the 1960s and 1970s, with films like Village of the Damned, Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, The Omen and even Alien to some extent. Since then, horror films have struggled to bring anything new to the table on the subject of scary children. But few have failed quite so blatantly as Blessed, another film which thankfully few people have seen. Blessed is a British-Romanian co-production directed by Simon Fellows, who later helmed the Danny Dyer vehicle Malice in Wonderland. James Purefoy and Heather Graham play a couple who are desperately trying for a baby, but their hopes are dashed when Graham's character is diagnosed as being infertile. They are given hope by a new treatment available at the Spiritus Research Clinic, and the couple soon find themselves expecting twins. What follows is an increasingly stupid story involving priests, secret pacts and the Devil's DNA (I've lost you already). Blessed is essentially what you would get if you took Rosemary's Baby and stripped out all the subtext and atmosphere. It's a rubbish horror movie that's riddled with cliches, and unlike Drag Me To Hell it doesn't gain the audience's trust by poking fun at its own shortcomings. Serkis takes the cake, though, phoning in his performance as Father Carlo with a lack of commitment bordering on contempt for the material. He seems genuinely embarrassed to be there, barely making eye-contact with Graham in their scenes together. Serkis' best work has always come from total commitment to a role, making this a shoe-in for the worst performance of his career.
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