Every decade has their own fair share of movies that don’t seem to make the cut with the critics or the fans and are deemed as either not worthwhile or just not that great. But the underrated movies of the 90s or any other decade are typically those that people can admit are actually pretty decent and just didn’t get a fair shake, or have a very good story but not a great execution. Some of those movies might just be all-around bad since they were trying for one effect and completely blew it, but some of them did deserve a little more recognition since they actually came up with a good idea, a good plan to execute it, and were ridiculed for one small reason or another. Sometimes it’s the critics, sometimes it’s the fans that are too demanding, but one thing is pretty clear, whoever starts the wave when it comes to telling others that a movie is or isn’t that good, it usually ends up influencing a lot of other people and eventually it can end up ruining a movie’s reputation.
Here are some of the most underrated horror movies of the 90s.
5. Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight
Drew Dietsch of Bloody Disgusting is being inordinately kind in saying that this movie is one of the best of the 90s but he’s not so far off the mark as to be absolutely wrong. The story did make use of a bunch of actors that at the time weren’t well known or had been around the business so long that people tended to shrug their shoulders and look past them. But the story that’s unveiled in this movie, which is an original story and not from the comics where Tales from the Crypt came from, was actually pretty decent and had a lot of interesting points that kind felt underplayed and not as developed as they could have been. But hey, it had Jada Pinkett as the heroine, it didn’t get much better than that.
4. The Addiction
This was kind of an oddball vampire movie since the act of drinking blood became an addiction for Kathleen, something she couldn’t do without and was willing to go to just about anyone to get it seems. But you could argue that blood-drinking is an addiction for any vampire since they can’t survive without it. But the propensity for sex was another big difference that seems to exist in vampire movies but not quite to this degree. The fact that it was shot in black and white was a bit odd but it did render the movie a bit more interesting since there was less to pay attention to and the story stood out quite a bit more.
3. In the Mouth of Madness
Cheryl Eddy from Gizmodo strikes the nail on the head when she states that this movie isn’t about making sense. That’s the right of it one hundred percent since the moment that John Trent sets one foot down the path that will lead him to the reclusive and very much MIA author Sutter Cane it becomes a descent into the storm of maddening and somehow hidden depths of insanity that Cane has been immersed in for what seems like a very long time, or not, depending on how you want to view time in this movie since it seems to shift about of its own accord. If you’re a writer then watching this movie is a definite must to figure out the madness in your own head, if not, well….you might want to keep a light on.
2. Event Horizon
Science fiction and horror simply work when you put them together and it’s largely because of the unknown factor, as in the characters are walking into the unknown and don’t know what to make of it until it’s in their face and decides to kill them. The Event Horizon disappeared on its maiden voyage, but came back years later much to the amazement of its creator and those that are tasked with helping him figure out where it’s been. But the problem with sending a ship into the unknown is that you have no idea where it might go, or what it might bring back with it. When the ship starts reacting to the crew using hallucinations and tricks that continue to unsettle them it’s only a short sprint to the finish, and not everyone is going to make it home alive.
1. End of Days
Remember back in 1999 when the year was about to end and people thought the world was going to come to a screeching, crashing halt? This movie kind of cashed in on that idea since Jericho Cane, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, had to stop this from happening despite not fully believing in the supernatural until it was staring him in the face. The movie wasn’t that bad really though it did kind of fall short at times. It was by all means a typical Schwarzenegger flick, but with a lot of human feeling tacked on to make it just a little better. In any case it was seriously downplayed after the 2000s started.
Eventually we’ll get to talking about the underrated movies of the 2000s and up, but until then it might do to check these movies out again and remember why they’re better than people thought.
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