8 Overrated Horror Movies Everyone Pretends to Love

Cult favorites, Halloween marathon regulars, huge fan ratings. The movie.guru score watched all eight with the lights on and stayed perfectly calm.

Number one owns a famous typewriter, and I'm calling it merely good.

1. 8
   Cloverfield (2008)5.6

   A monster movie filmed by the worst guest at the party.

   448,807 IMDb voters gave it a 7.0, and opening night crowds handed it a C CinemaScore. 85 minutes of wobbly camcorder, and you barely see the monster.
2. 7
   World War Z (2013)5.8

   A zombie apocalypse with the bite filed down.

   A reported $190 to $269 million budget bought ant-pile zombies and a PG-13 rating. 797,550 IMDb voters say 7.0. The movie.guru score says 5.9, which is a shrug.
3. 6
   Midsommar (2019)6.4

   Pretty enough to frame, slow enough to nap through.

   148 minutes of daylight dread. Critics rank it above 76% of notable movies, audiences only 46%, and opening crowds gave it a C+. Florence Pugh deserved a tighter edit.
4. 5
   Split (2016)6.5

   James McAvoy is the whole movie. Several of him, actually.

   A reported $9 million budget became $278.5 million worldwide. Great trick. But 117 minutes is a lot of basement, and IMDb's 7.3 is mostly McAvoy's doing.
5. 4
   The Menu (2022)6.8

   Eat-the-rich satire that assumes you missed the point.

   Ralph Fiennes is perfect as a chef with a grudge. IMDb gives it a 7.1 from 519,271 votes. 107 minutes, one joke, served in a lot of tiny courses.
6. 3
   Saw (2004)5.1

   A great hook stretched over 103 very dim minutes.

   Opening night crowds gave it a C+, and critics rank it above 31% of notable movies. Somehow 518,662 IMDb fans landed on 7.6. The premise is the entire movie.
7. 2
   Predator (1987)5.9

   Great creature, great handshake, very thin everything else.

   Audiences rank it above 73% of notable movies, critics only 34%. 7.8 on IMDb from 507,901 fans. Half the runtime is guys with giant guns walking through a jungle.
8. 1
   The Shining (1980)7.5

   Iconic is not the same thing as scary.

   8.4 on IMDb from 1.25 million fans, 68 on Metacritic, and a C+ from opening crowds. 146 minutes of gorgeous hallways, with Jack Nicholson's eyebrows doing the heavy lifting.

$5,144 says you defend number one by sending me a video essay about the carpet.

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Current mood: ready to fight about it