Haunted house stories are a staple of the cinematic diet – and have been for decades – making it increasingly difficult for any creative team to put a new twist on a formula that’s been repeated so often. Based on the talent involved, though, there was every reason to expect 2018’s Winchester to turn out as a worthy addition to the subgenre.
Co-writers and directors The Spierig Brothers had won plenty of acclaim for doing just that across their previous features, after delivered intriguing and ingenious spins on both the vampire movie and time loop thriller via Daybreakers and Predestination respectively, so hopes were high that a bone-chilling tale with none other than Helen Mirren in the lead role making a very rare detour into tales of terror would be well worth the wait.
In the end, Winchester turned out to be a colossal disappointment. It did prove plenty profitable after netting $44 million at the box office on a budget of just $3.5 million, but a turgid 13 percent Rotten Tomatoes score and four nominations at the Razzie Awards for Worst Picture, Worst Actress, Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay tells you all that you need to know.
However, horror and streaming go hand-in-hand, so not even its disastrous reputation has prevented Winchester from apparating on Netflix’s most-watched list. Per FlixPatrol, the mind-numbing and monotonous Greatest Hits package that covers all of the haunted house beats has cracked the platform’s Top 10 in multiple nations around the world, once more proving that even bad films can draw in a fresh set of eyeballs in spite of a tainted legacy.