A reprehensible haunted house story shrugs off its dreadful reputation to become one of Netflix’s biggest hits

There’s a lot to be said – positive and negative – about the horror fandom’s incessant desire to consume as much terrifying content as possible, regardless of how atrocious it proves to be. Just when you thought there were no more surprises, along comes 2021’s truly dreadful The Mad Hatter to stake its claim as one of Netflix’s biggest hits.

Despite boasting a mere 2.8/10 score on IMDb to complement a Rotten Tomatoes audience approval rating of 19 percent, Catherine Devaney’s haunted house chiller has nonetheless shrugged off the scathing criticisms to suddenly emerge as a contender for one of the streaming service’s newest and most unlikeliest sensations.

Per FlixPatrol, The Mad Hatter has soared onto the Top 10 in 19 countries around the world, which has in turn elevated the painfully bad supernatural dud to the position of Netflix’s 11th most-watched feature on a global level, although we get the sneaking suspicion plenty of subscribers may live to regret it.

The story sees an eccentric professor bring four of his students to a supposedly cursed mansion inhabited by the titular urban legend, who was allegedly driven insane by mercury poisoning, despite the presence of inbred servants and a generally unsettling atmosphere that doesn’t quite signal that everything is sunshine and roses.

Needless to say, anything promising bumps in the night is virtually destined to capture a crowd on-demand, but it would be nice is some discretion or vetting was put in place, otherwise we might see The Mad Hatter rise even further up the ranks as the week progresses.