As I look out of my window, and I see a Britain surrendering to winter’s sharp and bony grip, I realise that the time is perfect to stay inside, and depress oneself further, with a bleak and depressing film. Because sometimes we have to embrace our inner emo.
Which, then, is the most depressing? Films that kill your childhood could quite easily enter into the mix. I entered into such an existential crisis after seeing Attack of the Clones that it took repeated viewings of The Two Towers to restore me to any semblance of my former self. The realisation that The Phantom Menace wasn’t simply a one-off, the porcelain acting of Mannequin Skywalker, the green screen, oh my god the endless green screen…other films that could come into this category could be Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and the Transformers franchise, both of which took things that had managed to bottle an intangible, and perhaps, indefinable awesomeness, and somehow decided to replace that with Shia Labeouf.
Are these films really depressing, however? Sure, they made you realise that even if you love something very much, that thing can whither and die, leaving you to ponder the reality of death’s abyss, from which no-one, or seemingly, no beloved movie franchise can escape, but at the end of the day, you can always go back and watch the originals and drink heavily to forget the anguish.