10 Horror Movies Loved By Critics But Hated By Audiences
2. It Comes At Night
In a post-apocalyptic world, Paul and his family have survived a cataclysmic disease that ravaged most life on Earth. Believing that more people equals a higher chance of survival, Paul's wife convinces him to to allow a wandering man and his family to share their home.
The tension of the film lies solely in the gradual mistrust between the families. Like the final act of John Carpenter's The Thing, our gang succumbs to paranoid finger-pointing as their fear of infection mounts. In a commentary on the limits of human compassion, Paul ends up killing the host family, convinced the father was infected by the horrid disease. In true narrative karma, the film ends with Paul and his wife displaying early symptoms of infection.
It Comes At Night often feels like a long, straight road to nowhere and audiences weren't much pleased with the payoff. The film only earned a 44% rating from viewers on Rotten Tomatoes. The experts saw it differently, touting the bare-bones approach and slow-boil tension as assets, and gave it a very respectable 87% (For perspective, The Batman only scored 85% with critics).