10 Horror Movies Test Audiences Loved (And Everyone Else Hated)

Test screening reports can certainly be used in cynical ways to drum up hype for movies that, honestly, aren't all that good, as was perhaps the case with 2019's Taylor Schilling-starring horror The Prodigy.

Several months prior to its release, director Nicholas McCarthy boldly claimed that test audiences found the movie so terrifying that it actually had to be re-edited for practical purposes. McCarthy said in an interview with EW:

"The first time we previewed the movie, there is a section where people screamed so loud that we had to go back and re-edit the scene that followed it, because people were still recovering from what they had just seen, and they were missing the dialogue."

Yet The Prodigy ultimately failed to make much of a dent, receiving indifferent reviews from critics while audiences gave it a mere 37% approval rating and mediocre "C+" CinemaScore.

The film's tiny $6 million budget allowed it to still turn a profit regardless, but McCarthy's earlier claims of a test screening which brought down the house evidently didn't translate into wider success.