10 Most Overrated Horror Films Of The Past 20 Years

1. The Blair Witch Project

Scream Babadook
Artisan

What The Critics Said: “May be the creepiest and most original horror film since John Carpenter’s classic Halloween.” (USA Today)

Why They’re Wrong: If you haven’t seen The Blair Witch Project, it’s about a redhead, a beatnik and some other guy who get lost without a cell phone while shooting a documentary about a witch that leaves piles of stones in the woods. The kids aren’t smart enough to follow the river (which will lead to a bridge, which will lead to a footpath etc), and film critics weren’t smart enough to know they’d been had.

If ever a movie proved the power of marketing, it’s The Blair Witch Project. “The Scariest Movie Of All Time Is A True Story!” claimed the ads, and if you believed them, then you sat in the cinema watching a Razzie Award winning actor shake a camera while shouting, “What the hell is that?” All around you, your friends shrugged and said, “What is WHAT?! Stop shaking the goddamn camera so much!”

Agree with this list? What other recent horror films are overrated? Let us know what you think down in the comments.

Contributor

Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'