Despite terrible reviews, the #1 movie at this weekend’s box office was Obsessed, which raked in a shocking $28.6 million. The movie, starring Beyonce, Ali Larter, and little-known Idris Elba, is about a crazy white woman (Larter) intent on seducing her boss (Elba). Beyonce plays the wife in this Fatal-Attraction-esque film, which was described by one critic as “a tepid, sexless, thrill-free melodrama“. Apparently the movie’s only redeeming scene is the gripping catfight between Beyonce and Ali Larter at the end.
It’s not often that a moderately low budget film like Obsessed takes #1 at the box office, and it’s even more unlikely when that film gets reviews like, “Obsessed makes an inadvertent argument for the monastery“. But Obsessed, with its $20 million budget, has made the most out of being really, really bad. 
Its $29 million opening weekend dwarfed the critically-acclaimed State of Play, which has earned only $25 million at the box office over two weeks… this despite a $60 million budget and an 84% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
What’s so intriguing about Obsessed is that it really does look awful. The previews look awful. The title is awful (although it is reminiscent of another campy cult thriller with a duh! title, Snakes on a Plane). And the critics say it’s awful: its 22% rating on Rotten Tomatoes is even worse than Fast & Furious 4 (27%), the franchise that has historically defined awful.
So what is it about Obsessed that are making moviegoers, shall we say, obsessed? It’s probably the same phenomenon that makes you cringe at the tackiness of the previous sentence. 
It’s the cheesy, tried plotline, the bad dialogue and the forced puns. It’s so bad it’s good, and interestingly, its badness outshines the goodness of serious movies like State of Play.
That being said, I know what I’m going to see over the weekend. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past is at 17% on Rotten Tomatoes, and reviews look promising (“unsavory”, “rote”, and “witless”). Thus, I’m predicting that it will unseat Obsessed atop the box office this weekend, with, let’s say $25 mil. We’ll see how Beyonce and Ali Larter fare when Jennifer Garner gets in on the catfight. May the best worst film win.
