Like any powerhouse production company, Blumhouse deals in almost as many hits as it does misses, but based on nothing but the wildly disparate responses from critics and audiences, maybe the horror hit factory would have been better off releasing Totally Killer in theaters instead of sending it straight to streaming.
At the time of writing, the genre-bender that’s already on its way to instant cult classic status is carrying Rotten Tomatoes scores of 85 and 83 percent from critics and audiences. Meanwhile, Blumhouse’s The Exorcist: Believer – which carries a $30 million price tag in addition to the $400 million it cost Universal to secure the rights to the franchise in the first place – is flagging with 23 and 55 percent ratings.
The latter is even on course to disappoint at the box office with an estimated $28 million opening, which is still enough to set a high for the long-running saga without coming close to breaking the bank. Meanwhile, Totally Killer has weaponized its acclaim to great effect after debuting as the number one most-watched feature on Prime Video in 45 countries around the world, per FlixPatrol.
Kiernan Shipka’s time traveling murder mystery whodunit black comedy slasher juggles a lot of balls in the air at once, but it only manages to drop one or two by the time the credits roll, an impressive feat considering the ambition on display. Maybe big budgets aren’t suited to the Blumhouse methodology, because The Exorcist: Believer isn’t even close to being the best horror to debut this weekend.