12 Common Movie Criticisms That Make No Sense

4. "It Wasn't Scary"

This is again a young-skewing complaint and naturally clings primarily to the horror genre, which is of course perennially popular with the teen crowd.

Just look at the audience reception to the most critically acclaimed horror films of the last few years such as The Babadook, The Witch, It Comes At Night and Hereditary.

The problem is that mainstream horror audiences, especially the young'uns, are so aggressively conditioned to expect jump scares that they practically end up asking for them, and when a film doesn't have them, viewers apparently don't have any other qualifiers for what's scary.

The above films are all far more reliant on atmosphere and mood than loud tension chords, and honestly, if in 2019 you don't do your due diligence about a film before going to see it, that's basically your fault.

Now, not all art-house horror films are automatically good or scary, but poo-pooing a horror flick just because it isn't loud and there aren't CGI monsters leaping into the frame every five seconds doesn't mean a film lacks for frights. Try putting the phone down, shutting up and just soaking in the experience.