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We expected too much...
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00:00At some point or another, every moviegoer has fallen victim to overhype. If you found
00:04out a film you loved was getting a sequel, how are you going to stop yourself from getting
00:08pumped up? If you learned that your favourite actor is making a feature with an iconic director,
00:12well, you'd expect it to be an instant classic. But sometimes this overhype can unfortunately
00:16derail a movie's success, either going in there expecting something and then seeing
00:20something completely different, or just not being able to live up to the monument you've
00:24built in your own mind. So let's take a look at them as I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com,
00:28and these are 10 movies that are ruined by fan overhype. And just for the record,
00:33most of the movies on here are still very, very good, they're just different from what
00:36most people expected.
00:3810. Us
00:39Because Jordan Peele was initially known for his comedy skits, nobody expected his directorial
00:44debut to be a psychological horror. As an extra shocker, Get Out was amongst the most
00:48thought-provoking films in recent years, which helped cement Peele as a director to look out
00:52for. So when Peele announced his next project, Us, fans were immediately invested. Although
00:57the trailer gave little away, save the story revolving around a family being tormented by
01:01their doppelgangers, many assumed that it would be another smash hit. However, Get Out was
01:06a deeply personal story which the filmmaker spent four years fine-tuning to perfection.
01:10And because he spent less than half that time on Us, it didn't carry the same level of finesse
01:15as its predecessor. Also, the style and the structure of both features were very different.
01:20Despite Get Out's outlandish reveal during the climax, it ends with everything explained
01:24and resolved. Us, on the other hand, was more surreal and deliberately vague, forcing viewers
01:30to fill in the blanks themselves. Now, the reception of Us was positive, but saying that
01:34it fell short of expectations, that is a huge understatement.
01:379. Hostel
01:39Hostel centers around a group of backpackers who get kidnapped and tortured by a nefarious
01:43organization. And because of the film's innovative gore and disturbing premise, Hostel would have
01:48been received positively by the masses if it was released without fanfare. Instead, Eli Roth's work
01:54was plugged as the goriest movie ever, and more terrifying than The Exorcist, stirring horror
01:59fans into a frenzy. And when Quentin Tarantino's endorsement for the movie was slapped on the
02:03poster, Hostel's rep was heightened even more. In hindsight, it seems like Hostel was set up to
02:08fail, since it was built up way too much. Now, I know it's important for a studio to sell a
02:13movie,
02:14but it's also imperative not to oversell it. Hostel isn't a terrible film by any stretch of the
02:19imagination, but it wasn't deserving of the hype it drew. Martyrs, which deals with a very similar
02:24plot, received a lot of praise due to its nuanced performances, visceral gore, and haunting tone.
02:30Another aspect that made Martyrs stand out was how it didn't toot its horn for months,
02:34declaring itself as the scariest movie ever. If Hostel hadn't put itself on a pedestal,
02:38it probably wouldn't have been so disappointing.
02:408. Land of the Dead
02:42During the noughties, zombie horror experienced a welcome resurgence. Even though films revolving
02:47around shambling, brain-munching corpses have been stagnant for years, 28 days later,
02:51Shaun of the Dead and Dawn of the Dead's remake proved that there was plenty of life left in the
02:55undead genre. But just like it seemed when zombie horror had peaked, the unthinkable happened.
03:00In 2004, Night of the Living Dead director George A. Romero revealed that he was making a follow-up
03:05called Land of the Dead. Because Romero is directly responsible for popularizing zombie lore,
03:11the hype for this installment was through the roof. Instead of regurgitating a premise that we've
03:15seen a million times, Land of the Dead revolved around zombies who could think, learn, and strategize,
03:20making them far more dangerous than the mindless flesh-eaters that we've grown accustomed to.
03:24And the end result was… well, just okay? I mean, unlike the previous three installments,
03:29it's difficult to remember a single compelling character, inventive scene, or creative kill.
03:34Because Romero had been in the business for 40 years at the time, it was heartbreaking to see
03:38his work being outperformed by zombie films made by far less experienced directors.
03:427. Glass It's never wise to over-praise a new director,
03:47based entirely on just one movie. So when M. Night Shyamalan was hailed as the next Steven
03:51Spielberg after the success of The Sixth Sense, it seemed like the poor guy never stood a chance.
03:56Even though his next few films were met positively, his work got progressively worse. By the time that
04:00Shyamalan released The Happening, The Last Airbender, and After Earth, it was hard to believe how revered
04:05he once was. So when Shyamalan announced that he was making Split, a psychological horror revolving
04:10around a sociopath with 24 personalities, many assumed it would just be a travesty. However,
04:15Split was met positively, mainly because of James McAvoy's tour de force performance. Also,
04:20viewers were blown away by the climax, which revealed that the story took place in the same
04:23universe as Unbreakable. When Shyamalan declared the leads of both films would face off in a follow-up,
04:29Glass, it looked like the infamous filmmaker had finally got his mojo back. But due to exposition
04:34dumps, barren dialogue, and excessive twists, the reaction to the long-awaited crossover was,
04:39well, pretty much the same as most of Shyamalan's work. Glass may have had some redeeming qualities,
04:44but it could have been so much more.
04:466. Wes Craven's New Nightmare
04:48A Nightmare on Elm Street helped define the 1980s as the decade of the slashers. Due to Wes Craven's
04:54solid direction and Robert Englund's performance as the wisecracking dream demon Freddy Krueger,
04:59the series quickly became a horror staple. However, Craven moved on to other projects
05:04after the first installment, leaving other directors to take over the sequels. Although
05:08the follow-ups may have had their moments, none of them even came close to reaching the original
05:12outing. So when the sixth entry, Freddy's Dead The Final Nightmare, seemingly killed off the
05:17overarching villain, it looked like the franchise had nowhere else to go. But out of nowhere,
05:21Wes Craven suddenly announced a new Nightmare movie called, well, New Nightmare. Rather than
05:26churning out the same old schlock, New Nightmare was a meta-slasher, starring Wes Craven, Robert
05:31Englund, and the original Final Girl actress Heather Langenkamp, playing themselves. This time
05:36around, the cast and crew of A Nightmare on Elm Street find themselves being haunted by a demonic
05:40entity who's taken the form of Freddy Krueger. With Craven on board and a bold new direction,
05:45it looked like this sequel would be Nightmare on Elm Street done right. But to everyone's horror,
05:50and not the good kind, New Nightmare was full of tired tropes, bad special effects,
05:54and underwhelming scares. And just to add salt to the wounds, Freddy's redesign was utterly awful.
05:59You do have to commend Craven's ambition, but New Nightmare wasn't the return to form that many of
06:04us were hoping for. 5. Nope
06:06If you felt disappointed after watching Us, you'd think that you'd be a bit more cautious about
06:11Jordan Peele's next project, once bitten, twice shy and all that. However, Peele's latest follow-up,
06:16Nope, drew us all in with his masterful marketing. First off, that title, Nope. I mean,
06:21despite how abrupt and unintentionally funny it sounds, fans spent months dissecting the title's
06:26meaning, which led to all sorts of wild theories. The poster, which showed a flagged string dangling
06:31down from an ominous cloud, explained next to nothing and yet left us utterly tantalised.
06:36And although we thought all would be explained when the trailer dropped, it just left us with
06:39even more questions. And after watching the phenomenal teaser, everyone had the same thought,
06:44I have to see this movie. And like Us, Nope was a very divisive film. Despite the fact that
06:51there's plenty of people who loved it, there's just as many who detested Nope with an unbridled
06:55passion. 4. Army of the Dead
06:58No one is going to deny the fact that Zack Snyder is a love-or-hate filmmaker. However,
07:02there's one thing that we can all agree on, and that is that his Dawn of the Dead remake is
07:06nearly
07:06impossible to fault. So, when the Watchmen director revealed that he was making another
07:11ZOM-fest called Army of the Dead, it looked like a sure thing. As refreshing as it was to see
07:16Snyder received so much support, the hype for this blockbuster was utterly preposterous.
07:20Almost a year before the Army of the Dead was released, a prequel and an anime spin-off were
07:25greenlit. And the same week that the film hit Netflix, Snyder unveiled a sequel called Planet
07:30of the Dead was also in the works. All of these projects were declared willy-nilly under the
07:34assumption that Army of the Dead was a guaranteed success. Which it wasn't. It may have had its moments,
07:40for sure, but this zombie heist thriller was let down by its bum-numbing runtime,
07:44absurd plot holes, half-baked subplots, and lack of payoffs. I mean, why did Vanderhoe tease his
07:49buzzsaw if he wasn't even going to use the damn thing? Even though Army of the Dead was
07:52underwhelming in its own right, the fact that the studio saw it as the tentpole for a cinematic
07:57universe made it all the more crushing. 3. The Blair Witch Project
08:01The marketing campaign for The Blair Witch Project didn't just advertise the movie well. The way that
08:06they sold this found-footage horror as an authentic documentary was a work of art. Because the actors in
08:13the film die in the climax, they went into actual hiding while The Blair Witch Project was advertised
08:17to make their deaths seem legit. The Blair Witch website had fake police reports and phony interviews
08:22about the missing party to add to the deception. After half the world was duped into believing The
08:27Blair Witch Project was the real deal, it was no surprise when it made an absolute killing at the
08:32box office. But there was just one problem. The Blair Witch isn't actually that great as a film. I know
08:37it sounds mad, but seriously, go back and watch it with a critical eye. It's kind of boring, it's
08:41definitely badly shot because it's meant to be amateurish, and it's deeply repetitive. Also, it's responsible
08:46for popularising one of the most annoying aspects in the history of cinema, shaky cam. If you're sick and tired
08:52of this ridiculous filming technique, will you just blame The Blair Witch? Maybe if the filmmaker spent more time
08:57on telling a compelling story rather than how they sold the movie, The Blair Witch Project would have actually
09:02been remembered much more fondly. 2. IT Chapter 2
09:06Even though Stephen King adaptations are a kind of mixed bag, the 2017 adaptation of IT surpassed
09:12almost everyone's expectations. Although Bill Skarsgård earned the most praise for his career-defining
09:17performances Pennywise, the child actors who portrayed the Losers Club also received universal acclaim.
09:23The performances of Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Jack Dylan Grazer, and the other children were so
09:27beloved that fans were demanding their return in the follow-up. And despite the fact that IT
09:32Chapter 2 was supposed to deal with the Losers Club members as adults, the filmmakers buckled under the
09:37pressure, incorporating scenes of the kids. And sadly, the children's inclusion caused a number of problems.
09:43Because the ensemble cast had noticeably aged by this point, their voices and appearances had to be digitally
09:49de-aged, which was noticeably distracting. Also, since we've seen these characters as adults, the flashback sequences
09:55had zero tension, because we knew that they would survive their encounters with Pennywise. On top of that,
10:00these needless sequences tacked on an extra 40 minutes of the runtime, causing it to balloon to nearly
10:05three hours. If fans actually hadn't hiked these kids' performances so much, they wouldn't have been
10:10implemented into IT Chapter 2, which would have allowed the sequel to be tighter and probably more
10:15efficient. 1. Halloween Ends
10:18Because Halloween Ends was the conclusion of a 45-year-old movie saga, the rabid fanbase were desperate
10:24for an epic payoff. The horror community were dying to see the final confrontation between Laurie Strode
10:29and her tormentor. And most importantly, we needed to witness the death of one of horror's most iconic
10:34villains, Michael Myers. Considering the bad far outweighs the good in the Halloween franchise, you'd assume that
10:40fans would have been more prepared for the disappointment by this point. After all, the previous
10:44installment, Halloween Kills, proved that this trilogy was on pretty shaky ground. Nevertheless, many were eager to see how
10:49Michael and Laurie's story ended. And yet, Halloween Ends was worse and way more bizarre than even the
10:55biggest cynics speculated. We're not talking Halloween Kills bad, no, no, no. Due to Michael's
11:00absence and the ridiculous change of direction, Halloween Ends is on par with Curse of Michael Myers
11:05or Halloween Resurrection. And it ticked off so many viewers it inspired a petition encouraging the director
11:11to reshoot the movie. Yes, disgruntled viewers are expecting Halloween Ends to pull a Justice League
11:16here. And just to be clear, Halloween Ends is not the worst entry in this series, but because of how
11:21much it was built up, it's definitely the most disappointing installment.
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