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!
Twice a month Joe Lipsett will dissect a new Amityville Horror film to explore how the “franchise” has evolved in increasingly ludicrous directions. This is “The Amityville IP.”
A bizarre recurring issue with the Amityville “franchise” is that the films tend to be needlessly complicated. Back in the day, the first sequels moved away from the original film’s religious-themed haunted house storyline in favor of streamlined, easily digestible concepts such as “haunted lamp” or “haunted mirror.”
As the budgets plummeted and indie filmmakers capitalized on the brand’s notoriety, it seems the wrong lessons were learned. Runtimes have ballooned past the 90-minute mark and the narratives are often saggy and unfocused.
Both issues are clearly on display in Amityville Karen (2022), a film that starts off rough, but promising, and ends with a confused whimper.
The promise is embodied by the tinge of self-awareness in Julie Anne Prescott (The Amityville Harvest)’s screenplay, namely the nods to John Waters’ classic 1994 satire, Serial Mom. In that film, Beverly Sutphin (an iconic Kathleen Turner) is a bored, white suburban woman who punished individuals who didn’t adhere to her rigid definition of social norms. What is “Karen” but a contemporary equivalent?
In director/actor Shawn C. Phillips’ film, Karen (Lauren Francesca) is perpetually outraged. In her introductory scenes, she makes derogatory comments about immigrants, calls a female neighbor a whore, and nearly runs over a family blocking her driveway. She’s a broad, albeit familiar persona; in many ways, she’s less of a character than a caricature (the living embodiment of the name/meme).
These early scenes also establish a fairly straightforward plot. Karen is a code enforcement officer with plans to shut down a local winery she has deemed disgusting. They’re preparing for a big wine tasting event, which Karen plans to ruin, but when she steals a bottle of cursed Amityville wine, it activates her murderous rage and goes on a killing spree.
Simple enough, right?
Unfortunately, Amityville Karen spins out of control almost immediately. At nearly every opportunity, Prescott’s screenplay eschews narrative cohesion and simplicity in favour of overly complicated developments and extraneous characters.
Take, for example, the wine tasting event. The film spends an entire day at the winery: first during the day as a band plays, then at a beer tasting (???) that night. Neither of these events are the much touted wine-tasting, however; that is actually a private party happening later at server Troy (James Duval)’s house.
Weirdly though, following Troy’s death, the party’s location is inexplicably moved to Karen’s house for the climax of the film, but the whole event plays like an afterthought and features a litany of characters we have never met before.
This is a recurring issue throughout Amityville Karen, which frequently introduces random characters for a scene or two. Karen is typically absent from these scenes, which makes them feel superfluous and unimportant. When the actress is on screen, the film has an anchor and a narrative drive. The scenes without her, on the other hand, feel bloated and directionless (blame editor Will Collazo Jr., who allows these moments to play out interminably).
Compounding the issue is that the majority of the actors are non-professionals and these scenes play like poorly performed improv. The result is long, dull stretches that features bad actors talking over each other, repeating the same dialogue, and generally doing nothing to advance the narrative or develop the characters.
While Karen is one-note and histrionic throughout the film, at least there’s a game willingness to Francesca’s performance. It feels appropriately campy, though as the film progresses, it becomes less and less clear if Amityville Karen is actually in on the joke.
Like Amityville Cop before it, there are legit moments of self-awareness (the Serial Mom references), but it’s never certain how much of this is intentional. Take, for example, Karen’s glaringly obvious wig: it unconvincingly fails to conceal Francesca’s dark hair in the back, but is that on purpose or is it a technical error?
Ultimately there’s very little to recommend about Amityville Karen. Despite the game performance by its lead and the gentle homages to Serial Mom’s prank call and white shoes after Labor Day jokes, the never-ending improv scenes by non-professional actors, the bloated screenplay, and the jittery direction by Phillips doom the production.
Clocking in at an insufferable 100 minutes, Amityville Karen ranks among the worst of the “franchise,” coming in just above Phillips’ other entry, Amityville Hex.
The Amityville IP Awards go to…
- Favorite Subplot: In the afternoon event, there’s a self-proclaimed “hot boy summer” band consisting of burly, bare-chested men who play instruments that don’t make sound (for real, there’s no audio of their music). There’s also a scheming manager who is skimming money off the top, but that’s not as funny.
- Least Favorite Subplot: For reasons that don’t make any sense, the winery is also hosting a beer tasting which means there are multiple scenes of bartender Alex (Phillips) hoping to bring in women, mistakenly conflating a pint of beer with a “flight,” and goading never before seen characters to chug. One of them describes the beer as such: “It looks like a vampire menstruating in a cup” (it’s a gold-colored IPA for the record, so…no).
- Amityville Connection: The rationale for Karen’s killing spree is attributed to Amityville wine, whose crop was planted on cursed land. This is explained by vino groupie Annie (Jennifer Nangle) to band groupie Bianca (Lilith Stabs). It’s a lot of nonsense, but it is kind of fun when Annie claims to “taste the damnation in every sip.”
- Neverending Story: The film ends with an exhaustive FIVE MINUTE montage of Phillips’ friends posing as reporters in front of terrible green screen discussing the “killer Karen” story. My kingdom for Amityville’s regular reporter Peter Sommers (John R. Walker) to return!
- Best Line 1: Winery owner Dallas (Derek K. Long), describing Karen: “She’s like a walking constipation with a hemorrhoid”
- Best Line 2: Karen, when a half-naked, bleeding woman emerges from her closet: “Is this a dream? This dream is offensive! Stop being naked!”
- Best Line 3: Troy, upset that Karen may cancel the wine tasting at his house: “I sanded that deck for days. You don’t just sand a deck for days and then let someone shit on it!”
- Worst Death: Karen kills a Pool Boy (Dustin Clingan) after pushing his head under water for literally 1 second, then screeches “This is for putting leaves on my plants!”
- Least Clear Death(s): The bodies of a phone salesman and a barista are seen in Karen’s closet and bathroom, though how she killed them are completely unclear
- Best Death: Troy is stabbed in the back of the neck with a bottle opener, which Karen proceeds to crank
- Wannabe Lynch: After drinking the wine, Karen is confronted in her home by Barnaby (Carl Solomon) who makes her sign a crude, hand drawn blood contract and informs her that her belly is “pregnant from the juices of his grapes.” Phillips films Barnaby like a cross between the unhoused man in Mulholland Drive and the Mystery Man in Lost Highway. It’s interesting, even if the character makes absolutely no sense.
- Single Image Summary: At one point, a random man emerges from the shower in a towel and excitedly poops himself. This sequence perfectly encapsulates the experience of watching Amityville Karen.
- Pray for Joe: Many of these folks will be back in Amityville Shark House and Amityville Webcam, so we’re not out of the woods yet…
Next time: let’s hope Christmas comes early with 2022’s Amityville Christmas Vacation. It was the winner of Fangoria’s Best Amityville award, after all!
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