10 Critically Reviled Horror Movies (That Weren't Actually That Bad)

2014 saw future Riverdale and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina head honcho Roberto Aguirre-Sarcasa produce a remake of 1976’s small-town chiller The Town that Dreaded Sundown. The flick was written off as “cookie cutter carnage” by the likes of The Guardian, who didn’t appreciate the film’s meta spin on its source material.

You see, the remake takes place in a reality where the original film exists and is both watched and commented on by characters within the film, lending the film’s dark humour a meta twist and making the story harder to decipher as it switches between reality and fiction. It’s a fun conceit from director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, who would go on to enjoy critical success with 2015’s Me Earl and the Dying Girl, and horror super producer Jason Blum.

So why didn’t critics care for it? Well, we’re willing to bet it’s because the film is pretty satisfied with its meta commentary on horror, and the people paid to comment on films for a living didn’t love hearing criticisms of horror cinema spouted by characters that could easily be read as a parody of critics themselves.