Reacher Star Alan Ritchson Would Probably Like You To Forget About His First Movie

Alan Ritchson has become one of TV's biggest stars thanks to his role as Jack Reacher in the Amazon original "Reacher." Based on a series of beloved adventure novels, the Prime Video series puts Ritchson into the title role, taking over for Tom Cruise, who'd played the character twice on the big screen. After the show's debut in 2022, Ritchson quickly established himself as the perfect man to play the part, with a convincing mix of gritty toughness and clever street smarts, with a towering physique that made him a mountain masher with his fists.

But Ritchson didn't come out of nowhere; in fact, he was already a fan-favorite actor thanks to several comic book roles. In his acting debut, two years after his failed "American Idol" experience, Ritchson became the first man to portray DC's Aquaman in live-action when he took on the character in a recurring part in "Smallville" in the 2000s. He later returned to the world of DC Comics to play the hero Hawk in "Titans" and voiced Raphael in Michael Bay's "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" movie. But Ritchson's career isn't exclusively filled with such high-profile projects. In fact, he probably wishes people wouldn't talk about his first movie — the 2006 horror schlocker, "The Butcher."

An extremely low-budget slasher, "The Butcher" is a cheap knock-off of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and follows a group of teens (including Ritchson) who are pursued by a deranged family in a remote town while on their way to Las Vegas. And boy, is it not good.

Plenty of actors have bad movies in their filmography, particularly early in their careers. Heck, we've published entire articles about the worst films made by some of Hollywood's greatest actors. But Alan Ritchson's "The Butcher" isn't just a regrettable early role he'd want us to forget about; it's so bad that it might be one of the worst movies of its decade, right up there with infamous clunkers like "Battlefield Earth," "Catwoman," and "Gigli."

With a 3.6 rating on IMDb and a 19% score on Rotten Tomatoes, it's easy to see that "The Butcher" was woefully reviewed by both critics and audiences. The choice to shoot the movie on digital video means it's a pretty bad viewing experience right from the jump, as it's not just an awful-looking movie, but also has such bad audio quality that it's at times difficult to endure, especially in moments that are intended to be shocking. The shoestring budget and lack of scares don't help matters, as the film looks even cheaper than it sounds, while its script comes across like something a middle schooler would come up with.

A rehash of slasher cliches we've all seen before, "The Butcher" is a mishmash of ideas, none of which are original. Unfortunately for Ritchson, this isn't a movie he can pretend doesn't exist, because it's still available to watch on streaming. Thankfully, nobody's being asked to pay for it, as it's offered on platforms like Pluto TV and the Roku Channel. Free or not, though, we'd recommend you skip it.