Serpent and the Rainbow was the easy pick for me, since it was a favorite of mine and my friends back when it was released. I had never seen Deadly Blessing until I picked up the Shout Factory blu a few months ago. I had been looking forward to finally seeing after all these years and maybe I got my expectations up a bit to high as I ended up being a bit unimpressed. It's probably something I would have enjoyed a lot more back when it first came out. I've still never seen People Under the Stairs so I'm gonna fix that and put it at the top of my Netflix list.
I really thought Blessing was a TV-movie all this time. So, my expectations were pretty low. And, even then, I wasn't impressed.
While I don't think it's the best film on this list, I find The Hills Have Eyes Part II to be Wes Craven's most "underrated" movie. From what I've read it's pretty much universally reviled and widely considered to be a cash-grab by Craven. While it's certainly not high art and obviously doesn't come close to his best work, I really enjoy its cheapjack 80's slasher vibe (the recycled Manfredini score helps on this front). I'm a bit of a slasher apologist and tend to be easy to please with the genre, so I can understand why people don't care for this movie, but I still think it's better than its reputation suggests and I always have fun with it. I also love Deadly Friend, but I feel like that particular cheesefest has built somewhat of an appreciative cult following over the years.
I don't like voting on these things till I've at least seen all the options on the poll. Invitation To Hell and Vampire in Brooklyn I've never seen and the others I don't remember well. I think it's time to re-visit a lot of Craven's work to refresh my memory. I know I don't like Hills Have Eyes 1&2, not fond of Last House on the Left and thought Cursed was a waste of time. Scream I've always been pretty "meh" about as a franchise in general. Those are films I won't be re-watching.
As this poll comes to a close it speaks to Craven's diverse body of work that there were 5 films that were between 10-20% of the vote - a very even spread. I've pretty much liked every Craven I've seen - even the bad ones, like HILLS 2, MY SHIT TO TAKE and SHOCKER are all totally enjoyable. Hail to the king.
My Soul To Take gets so much hate but I can't recall it being that bad. It was at least better than films like Cursed and The Hills Have Eyes. I watched Invitation To Hell this week and didn't think much of it and was really disappointed with Vampire In Brooklyn as it felt like they wasted Eddie Murphy by keeping his character far more serious than I was expecting.
From the person saying Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes, and Scream aren't that good... So, take with a mountain of salt.
I've always felt Scream was overrated and the others just don't do anything for me. Last House is a far, far superior film to Hills 1&2 though. Deadly Friend was one I thought was underrated back when I saw it a few years ago. I was surprised I'd never heard anyone talk about it.
Scream IS overrated. Even its classic opening is a bit wonky once the chase begins. It has a great script, but the directing could have been less blah, no offense Wes. Last House is excellent though. I prefer Hills 2 to 1, even though it's bonkers. But that's kind of why. It obtains more personality in its array of strange ideas.
