10 Underhyped Movies That Blew Everyone Away

6. Chronicle

Chronicle Dane Dehaan
20th Century Fox

The Non-Hype

Not only was Chronicle severely underhyped, but the fact that it's a found footage movie actually turned some people off it altogether.

After the success of Paranormal Activity, the movie space became littered with low-budget shaky-cam imitators, and Chronicle - despite not being about ghosts or haunted houses or anything like that - had the whiff of a wannabe cool-kid jumping on the bandwagon of a popular gimmick.

It was a victim of an overcrowded genre. People were tired of found-footage movies back then, and with its non-existent marketing and lack of star power, the buzz for Chronicle just wasn't there.

The Big Reaction

But in true underdog fashion, the lack of awareness surrounding the movie didn't stop it from breaking out into the mainstream consciousness (it earned rave reviews, and, compared to its small budget, it was a box-office smash), and furthermore, it even managed to prove the found footage naysayers wrong.

This "gimmicky and overused" style was employed not for cheap jump scares, but as a way to reinforce character. Protagonist Andrew has an abusive father and a dying mother: he's lonely and afraid, and so, he starts recording his life so he has something to latch on to, something to connect to.

With an engaging script, relatable characters and some amazing effects work for such a small budget, Chronicle turned out brilliantly, even though it had a lot going against it. There was even talk of a sequel at one point, but it sadly never materialised.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!