23 Cinematic Bombs That Are Worth A Second Look

It’s important to remember that every critic is just some guy, and even a Rotten Tomatoes score is just a collection of dudes whose opinions may or may not have any relationship to a movie’s value. Maybe they just didn’t “get it.” Maybe it’s ahead of its time, and the world simply isn’t ready for its genius (see: Spice World). Maybe it’s just fun in a way that stuffy old academics don’t care about (also see: Spice World). Whatever the case, a surprising number of movies we consider masterpieces today were thoroughly shit upon when they opened.

For example, “I was just reading some of the contemporary reviews of The Shining and John Carpenter’s The Thing, and it’s amazing to me how much critics just hated those movies at the time of their release,” Redditor Plusungoodthinkful recently told r/Movies. They then asked, “Which recent critically derided movies (if any), do you think we might consider classics (or at least not as awful) in 20 or 30 years?” and Reddit sang the unsung praise of singing cats, campy comedy, and above all, neck balls.