Editorials
[Readers’ Choice] 13 Acclaimed Horror Films That Many Horror Fans Hate!
The beauty of film as an art form is that everyone has different opinions on different films. Sometimes there are movies we are told we should like, but when we don’t like those movies we feel ashamed to admit it. It doesn’t help that months of hype and buildup can completely tarnish a viewing experience. Films like The Babadook and It Follows have shown that just because a film is praised by critics does not mean horror fans (or general audiences) are guaranteed to like them. I touched on this subject a while back, but wanted to get more input from all of you. I decided to take to Twitter* to ask the following question:
Many of you** have strong opinions on this matter, and there were a handful of films that you seem to hate more than others. I’ve put this list together in order of least amount of mentions to most, with a sampling of some of the responses (this includes Twitter replies and comments from the previous article). I confess, this was a tough post for me to write because I love about 90% of these films, but I figure if I can tell you that I hate Suspiria and Candyman then I can suck it up and read your confessions sans judgment.
*This is the second in a recurring series of posts where I ask a question on Twitter and post the responses in a post here, so if you would like a chance to be included in a future post start following me on Twitter at @TracedThurman.
**I should point out that I do not know the demographic information of any of the people selected for inclusion on this post. It’s just a random sample!
The Blair Witch Project
This entry isn’t too surprising. The Blair Witch Project was one of those movies whose slow place was never going to please everyone. As was the case with this year’s The Witch, some people just need a lot of jump scares in order to like a film and are unable to interpret dread as scary. Here are some of the most scathing comments of The Blair Witch Project:
@TracedThurman @BDisgusting The Blair Witch Project and its awful anticlimactic ending.
— naomi (@_oceano) April 21, 2016
@TracedThurman@BDisgusting the Blair witch project, you don’t see ANYTHING scary in that entire movie!
— |◇·Monica·◇| (@EvilDoerMonica) April 21, 2016
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
I confess, I was in the Texas Chain Saw Massacre hate camp when I first saw the film at age 15 (I saw the remake first and had wildly different expectations for the original), but have since come to appreciate it. It’s understandable that modern audiences may look back at the original and find it boring.
The Evil Dead Series
Some people just don’t get horror comedy…..
The Conjuring
One of the more recent examples on this list is James Wan’s The Conjuring. It looks like not everyone found it as terrifying as the MPAA did.
@TracedThurman@BDisgusting Conjuring. When the secondary story is scarier than the actual story, that’s a problem.
— Dustin Jacobs (@Dustin_Jacobs) April 21, 2016
Friday the 13th
It’s hard to believe that one of horror’s most prolific mascots gets so much hate, but you’d be surprised at how many people brought up the Friday the 13th franchise when asked which horror movies they hated. The responses below are just a small sample! Surprisingly, I’ve met a lot of people who loathe this franchise. Who knew?
@TracedThurman @BDisgusting Easy! Friday the 13th. Cheap knockoff, doesn’t add anything new to the genre.
— Alex (@cinema416) April 21, 2016
@TracedThurman@BDisgusting Okay I got it. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. Except for an exceptional Crispin Glover that movie annoys me
— Victor A. Gonzalez (@SeeminglyJaded) April 21, 2016
The Shining
Once again, some people find a film that is filled with dread to be just plain boring. It’s no secret that Stephen King has negative feelings toward’s Kubrick’s film, but it looks like he’s not alone!
@TracedThurman@BDisgusting The Shining. I just find it boring and daunting instead of dread-inducing.
— Daniel Reeves (@Daniel_R_Reeves) April 20, 2016
The Exorcist
Can you believe that the first horror film to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy awards can instill so much hatred, but here we are with stone cold evidence that there are some horror fans that just can’t stand William Friedkin’s The Exorcist!
@TracedThurman @BDisgusting The Exorcist..it was boring. I’m Wiccan, so it takes more than that to scare me.
— zezrie (@zezrie) April 21, 2016
@TracedThurman @BDisgusting The Exorcist. While I admire the technical achievements, it’s full of characters I don’t care about.
— David Billington (@MrSpiderClown) April 21, 2016
@TracedThurman @BDisgusting I don’t feel like I ever get to know any of the characters to make me feel for them. Plus it’s slow in the…
— David Billington (@MrSpiderClown) April 21, 2016
@TracedThurman@BDisgusting second act. I remember the first and last part of movie, not really the middle.
— David Billington (@MrSpiderClown) April 21, 2016
Halloween
Some of you feel like nothing happens in what is arguably the definitive slasher film (some may argue Black Christmas started the trend in 1974). With this film (and many horror films to come out of the 70s), it really comes down to the fact that today’s audiences are desensitized and conditioned to non-stop action/killings in their horror films. A slow build film like Halloween may not be everyone’s cup o’ tea.
Drag Me To Hell
You all know my thoughts on Sam Raimi’s masterful horror comedy, but a lot of you don’t agree. There were tons of negative comments and Tweets about Drag Me To Hell. I guess the comedic elements in the film just aren’t to everyone’s taste. Also, a lot of you feel that Christine deserved her fate because of her sacrificing her cat and because of how she treated Mrs. Ganush. That’s a topic for another post but for now I’ll just say: no.
Scream
This one stung the most for me because Scream is my favorite slasher franchise, but I’ve seen so much hate for it lately. It’s mostly because of all of the copycats it inspired (if that is the reason you hate it then all of you should also hate Friday the 13th, since it was a copycat/ripoff of Halloween). How anyone could think Scream (and its arguably superior sequel) is terrible is beyond me, yet here we are.
@TracedThurman @BDisgusting Scream, because it felt it was much more clever than it actually was. Always a turn-off for me.
— d (@symbolicmyths) April 21, 2016
@TracedThurman@BDisgusting Scream because it fucking sucks. Every movie in that saga SUCKS.
— Anna (@ItsAnnaCV) April 21, 2016
The Babadook
You knew this one was going to be on here. After all of the hype surrounding the film’s release in 2014, it was practically guaranteed to disappoint. Audiences had some incredibly high expectations for it, and unfortunately the film didn’t meet them. I’m sad to say that while I don’t fall in the hate camp, I am lukewarm on the film.
@TracedThurman @BDisgusting Babadook…it was predictable and I hated every single second of it!!!
— Gina Corotto (@Gboo1987) April 21, 2016
It Follows
Man, a lot of you hate It Follows. As soon as I Tweeted this question out I got about 10 responses about the film. Maybe it’s because it is so fresh in all of your minds as the most recent example of an over-hyped film (The Witch only featured in two responses). It may not deserve all of the vitriol it receives, but it makes one wonder why audiences even reference critic aggregate websites like Rotten Tomatoes in the first place (It Follows sits at a mighty comfortable 97% positive based on 207 reviews).
@TracedThurman @BDisgusting I liked It Follows the first time I saw it, hated it the second time. I strongly disliked Hush as well.
— Jeff (@actionnerd) April 21, 2016
@TracedThurman @BDisgusting I nominate It Follows. Killer Carpenter-esque soundtrack and allegorical premise. Just not scary / thrilling.
— Logan Middleton (@LoganPMiddleton) April 21, 2016
@TracedThurman @BDisgusting It Follows. That "new twist" on the slasher genre that everyone talked about wasn't that impressive. Slow movie.
— Diego Monterrosas (@D_Monterrosas) April 21, 2016
It Follows. I was stoked for it and all I got was some scary music and bad teenage acting. WHO WERE THE FOLLOWERS?!? https://t.co/EH3rDAbhAC
— me (@_311la) April 21, 2016
@TracedThurman @BDisgusting It Follows was dead ass boring. Overhyped, its not scary AT ALL and that ending was super lame.
— ⠀ (@syfiqishk) April 21, 2016
@TracedThurman @BDisgusting It Follows was very boring. I kept waiting for it to turn itself around, but I got more and more disappointed.
— Nanna S. Carlsen (@DogPawDK) April 21, 2016
#ItFollows
Amounted to little more than a coolio concept with an even better soundtrack that lacked a 3rd act. https://t.co/16fXBNx09r— Jaimé En Fuego (@JaimeEnFuego) April 21, 2016
The Cabin in the Woods
Drew Goddard’s The Cabin in the Woods really takes the cake in terms of number of responses. I don’t understand how someone can’t have fun with the film, but many of you feel differently. As with Scream, some of you think it fails at being meta. Others don’t find the film to be particularly funny. Others hate the final act (how?!). Is this the majority opinion? Or just a vocal minority? You tell me.
@TracedThurman @BDisgusting Cabin in the Woods. Great premise but hated the characters. The final act was a mess of bad CGI.
— Kevin Sommerfield (@krsommerfield) April 20, 2016
@TracedThurman @krsommerfield @BDisgusting Cabin in the Woods tries to be so meta but fails so badly at it.
— Tim Schilling (@timjschilling) April 20, 2016
So there you have it. I’m a firm believer that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but some of these really made me gasp. Do you agree with any of your fellow readers? Or do you have a few choice words to say about their opinions? Let us know in the comments below!
Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.
To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.
Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.
For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.
Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.
Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.
From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.
The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.
Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.
With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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