13 Awesome 2016 Movies Everyone Thought Would Suck
1. Lights Out
Why It Should've Sucked: A debut feature from a short film director, touting an immensely generic premise and what appears to be a criminal waste of an excellent cast.
Why It Was Awesome: Lights Out works because it takes a basic idea (the fear of the dark) and wrings enormous mounts of suspense out of it, driven by stylish direction and strong performances from Teresa Palmer and Maria Bello in particular.
It establishes a series of fun rules and mostly sticks to them, subverts genre expectations in a number of ways and at just 81 minutes in length wastes no time at all. Basically, it overshot expectations in every possible way.
Which movies have proved most pleasantly surprising this year? Shout them out in the comments!