Five Terrible Gift Ideas the Movies have Taught us to Avoid

We all dream of living as they do in the movies, but when it comes to romantic gestures, buying gifts and birthday surprises, the Hollywood scriptwriters often leave us green with envy. Luckily, there’s some pretty bad ones in there to make us feel better about ourselves when we’re scratching our heads for romantic presents, 40th birthday ideas or the perfect retirement gift. Here’s five of the least successful, strangest or downright daft gifts handed over in the movies.

Psycho ex-girlfriend buys Wayne a gun rack. Wayne’s World, 1992
When Mike Myers’ cult hero Wayne’s mentally unstable ex-girlfriend insists on giving him a present, he reluctantly accepts but makes no attempt to hide his displeasure and downright confusion after unwrapping a gun rack. “I don’t even have a gun, let alone lots guns that would necessitate an entire rack. What am I gonna do with a gun rack?” If you’re trying to win back your lost love you probably need to put a bit more thought into it. She should have tested the water with paintballing or some clay shooting before progressing onto the gun rack.

Teenager gets a cute monster, chaos ensues. Gremlins, 1984
For all those youngsters who pester their parents for a pet kitten or puppy, let this be a lesson to them. Ok, you can’t deny Gizmo was cute, but look what happened when Billy broke the golden rules for looking after him: murderous offspring marauded through the town causing the sort of festive destruction that makes the London riots look like a minor scuffle. While being given the new pet didn’t exactly go too well, it still showed a heart-warming bond between pet and owner. Just don’t feed him after midnight.


Six-year-old Max gets a breadmaker. Old School, 2003
Appropriate behaviour is not exactly Frank the Tank’s strongpoint in frat house tale of reclaimed youth Old School, where a group of 30-somethings are determined to experience days of frivolity once more. But even his pals disapprove when he tries to offload an unwanted wedding gift of a breadmaker on his friend’s six-year-old son. “Yey! What do you think Max? It’s got three speeds.” Frank’s feigned enthusiasm fails to impress.

Steve Martin builds his girlfriend her dream house, complete with ribbon. Then she leaves him. Housesitter, 1992
Ok, this one didn’t go too well either, but it’s the thought that counts. Steve Martin’s downtrodden architect Newton Davis designs and builds the dream home for his longterm partner Becky, played by Dana Delany, but she says no to his proposal of marriage and, heartbroken, he leaves the house empty. It works out ok in the end though, as he ends up falling in love with Goldie Hawn. Plus the giant red ribbon around the house shows that no gift is too big to wrap.

Watch this video, end up dead. The Ring, 2002
We’ve all had pretty bad videos or DVDs as presents before, but surely they don’t get much worse than the one which was passed around in horror flick The Ring. If you’re unfortunate enough to watch it you only have seven days left and then you get killed. Give someone that video for a present and they’ll think you’re trying to tell them something.

This article has been created by Activity Superstore, the UK's leading Gift Experience Days supplier.