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!
I first heard about The Mandela Catalogue through a couple of nephews who were obsessed with the ARG’s sinister mythology. It was only after watching Wendigoon’s in-depth analysis of the series that I realized just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
In fact, I’d already been exposed to the nightmarish visuals of Alex Kister’s YouTube creation for years at that point without even realizing that it was the origin of several viral “cursed images” and spooky memes that had leaked into the wider internet – with this viral element actually being a part of the Catalogue’s overarching narrative.
Flash-forward to 2026 and the unprecedented success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms has led to Hollywood betting on horrific internet properties with existing fanbases, which means that Kister’s unique hybrid of both religious and analog horror is finally headed to the big screen with a script written by Kister himself alongside Tyler Clifton.
While this news shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing success of The Mandela Catalogue (both myself and Wendigoon having previously predicted that the series would inevitably make the jump to theaters one day), plenty of horror fans are likely confused as to why so many folks are excited for what appears to be a Hollywood adaptation of a series of creepy .jpeg images under a VHS filter.
With that in mind, today I’d like to invite fellow readers to accompany me as I explore the origins of Alex Kister’s viral hit and attempt to explain exactly why we should all be excited about the Mandela Catalogue adaptation!
From High School Writing Project to Internet Horror Phenomenon
The first seeds of The Mandela Catalogue were sown when Kister was still in high school and developed a writing project subverting religious tropes in a world where biblical history had been altered by demonic forces. A little while later, Kister came across an analog horror contest on Reddit and decided to adapt his ideas into a standalone video where he would edit a religious kids’ cartoon –The Beginner’s Bible: The Nativity, to be specific- into something far creepier. This is how the iconic Overthrone video was born, with this viral short film taking on a life of its own as fans demanded more eerie content from Kister.
Though the video was originally meant to be a one-and-done sort of affair, with Kister actually regretting some of its primitive visuals and considering the editing amateurish and “YouTube-Poop-like” when compared to his current standards, fan reaction and free time during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged the (then) seventeen-year-old filmmaker to continue producing content set in this same world. The Mandela Catalogue name was inspired by the Mandela Effect conspiracy theory, as the series would slowly begin to explore the subtle horror of alternate histories.
Inspired by existential dread brought on by extended periods of quarantine as well as a personal crisis of faith, Kister continued to expand his alternate timeline where the rise of Christianity had been prevented by what was presumably the Devil disguised as the Archangel Gabriel. This alternate course of fictional events led to the existence of certain paranormal anomalies that had come to be accepted as “normal” by the 1990s, which is why most of the series’ supernatural horror is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner.
Most of this background information and religious lore is delivered by increasingly cryptic broadcasts and in-universe PSAs, as well as the occasional found footage video, that often have to be decoded by clever viewers. Of course, it’s the consistently disturbing imagery that made the series so popular – much of which was originally created by Kister on a smartphone!
The Alternates: Horror’s Most Unsettling Modern Monsters
The show’s early episodes mostly take place within the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin and depict life in a world where demonic entities are capable of using media to enter our reality. This process usually involves scaring victims into killing themselves and then repurposing their bodies as horrific doppelgangers referred to as “Alternates”. This terrifying phenomenon has become so common that local police already have specialized procedures in place to deal with the issue, though this usually consists of simply ignoring calls for help so as to avoid spreading so-called “Metaphysical Awareness Disorder” any further.
Over time, Kister would expand this mythology and incorporate different kinds of Alternates into the mix, though the story never stopped deconstructing religious concepts. The series’ second volume exponentially increased both video quality and the overall narrative scope as we began to follow the lives of characters who had already grown up in this dystopian hellscape where the government is forced to prohibit religion, television, and even mirrors in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the ongoing invasion of otherworldly entities.
The really interesting part comes into play when you realize exactly how the Alternates make use of scary media in order to spread their demonic influence, with the analog horror of it all being a diegetic part of the story and something of a memetic trap orchestrated by the false Gabriel.
I particularly appreciate how some characters begin to suspect that there’s something wrong with their version of reality and that things weren’t meant to play out this way, especially when Mark utters the haunting line “who have I been praying to all this time?” That’s why I think The Mandela Catalogue is an effective piece of religious horror even if you don’t subscribe to the Christian worldview, as the mere idea of a world where evil has already won is a universally terrifying concept in and of itself. Not only that, but the series’ uncanny analog imagery alone is already worth the price of admission, as you’ve likely already noticed by looking at the pictures accompanying this article.
Why The Feature Adaptation Could Be Horror’s Next Big Success
It’s actually been a whole year since Kister first announced that he had been working on a feature-length screenplay for a Mandela Catalogue movie since 2022, with his proposed story following an ensemble of high-school graduates who uncover a supernatural conspiracy after the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. This premise sounds similar to narrative elements present in the series’ second volume, but I’m pretty sure that Kister is going to go the Kane Parsons route and make the movie more of a spin-off than a re-imagining of its source material.
While notable Hollywood producers like Aaron B. Koontz, Scott Stuber, and Steven Spielberg himself are backing the upcoming project, I feel like there’s no one better to adapt this deeply personal exploration of faith and the dark side of communication than the person who first came up with it. That’s why I can’t wait to see Kister’s work on the big screen, as I have a feeling that this young filmmaker is the next one on the list about to make cinematic history – especially since this is clearly a passion project that has been in the works for years at this point!
That being said, there’s always a chance that the film could end up unleashing a fresh wave of Alternate incursions, but I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.
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