10 Most Divisive Movies Of 2017
4. It Comes At Night
Just like 2016's The Witch, It Comes At Night is a slow, disturbing psychological horror film that suffered due to the expectations of audiences being wildly different to what they actually got onscreen.
Critically, the movie is one of the best-reviewed of this year, sitting pretty at 88% on Rotten Tomatoes. But the audience response has been less-than impressive, in large part due to the way in which the film's trailers were constructed.
It Comes At Night was marketed as a traditional cabin-in-the-woods horror movie; its trailers are fast-paced, intercut with shots of bloody bodies and spooky, demonic faces, complete with sound bites of people yelling and screaming like they're being chased by Freddy, Jason or Ghostface.
It looked like a roller-coaster ride - something that would deliver jump scares and ghostly action at a consistent rate - but in reality, it was anything but.
It's really an arthouse psychological thriller that's less interested in scaring you in obvious ways and more interested in scaring you subtly, quietly, and (arguably) more skilfully. It's not a "shut your brain off" kind of watch; you have to be attentive to get the most out of the experience.
Audiences took this badly, and with their expectations having been shattered - not in a good way - It Comes At Night received bad word of mouth, resulting in low user scores and a poor box-office run.