'Five Nights at Freddy's 2' Icon Matthew Lillard's Cult Classic 2000s Horror Film Haunts Free Streaming Charts

With the Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande-led Wicked: For Good and the smash-hit animated sequel Zootopia 2 flying high at the box office, last weekend saw the latest big-name arrival, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, fight off tough competition and come out victorious. Finishing top of the domestic box office rankings, the Josh Hutcherson and Mckenna Grace-led horror sequel has already earned an impressive $125 million worldwide. At the same time, a forgotten Matthew Lillard horror flick is proving popular on streaming, with fans of the actor enjoying a double dose of frightful Lillard film fun.

At the time of writing, the 2001 chiller Thirteen Ghosts is one of the ten most-streamed movies on Tubi in the U.S. A remake of William Castle’s 1960 effort, Thirteen Ghosts stars Lillard alongside the likes of Tony Shalhoub and F. Murray Abraham, under the directorial eye of Steve Beck on his feature debut. The film grossed just $68 million from a reported $42 million budget, becoming a relative flop, no doubt unhelped by a terrible critical response. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has just 19% from critics, with the consensus reading, “The production design is first-rate, but 13 Ghosts is distinctly lacking in scares.” A synopsis for the movie reads:

“A state-of-the-art remake of the classic William Castle horror film about a family that inherits a spectacular old house from an eccentric uncle. There’s just one problem: the house seems to have a dangerous agenda all its own. Trapped in their new home by strangely shifting walls, the family encounters powerful and vengeful entities that threaten to annihilate anyone in their path.”

Is ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s 2’ a Hit?

As many might’ve expected, the Five Nights at Freddy’s sequel has split critics and audiences down the middle, with the former delivering often scathing reviews, and the latter awarding glowing and positive responses. In his review for Collider, Aidan Kelley gave the sequel a middling 6/10, writing:

“The core issues of the first Five Nights at Freddy’s can all be traced back to one defining problem: It’s just kind of boring, with no real attempts to be truly scary and with a plot that takes itself far too seriously for its own good. Those two things were the biggest aspects needed for a course correction, and thankfully, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 does exactly that.”

Thirteen Ghosts is a streaming hit on Tubi. Make sure to stay tuned to Collider for the latest streaming stories.