13 Horror Movies That Bombed at the Box Office but Became Classics After Home Video Release

Big Trouble in Little China

Synopsis: Truck driver Jack Burton arrives in Chinatown, San Francisco, and goes to the airport with his Chinese friend Wang Chi to welcome his green-eyed fiancée Miao Yin who is arriving from China. However she is kidnapped on the arrival by a Chinese street gang and Jack and Wang chase the group. Soon they learn that the powerful evil sorcerer called David Lo Pan, who has been cursed more than two thousand years ago to exist without physical body, needs to marry a woman with green eyes to retrieve his physical body and Miao is the chosen one. Jack and Wang team-up with the lawyer Gracie Law, the bus driver and sorcerer apprentice Egg Shen and their friends and embark in a great adventure in the underground of Chinatown, where they face a world of magicians and magic, monsters and martial arts fighters.

Domestic Box Office: $11 million

Budget: $25 million

Opening Weekend: #2

The Verdict: Blu-ray sales alone top $350,000, but those are Blu-ray sales exclusively. There’s no telling how many dollar signs poured in for VHS and DVD units, but you can safely bank on huge numbers, as Big Trouble in Little China is no doubt one of John Carpenter’s most popular efforts. I’mean quite comfortable in assuming VHS and DVD tallies are alarmingly high. Really, how could they not be? This is a legendary feature with hordes and hordes of fans.

You’re Next

Synopsis: Aubrey and Paul Davison welcome his family for a reunion in their isolated vacation house. Their sons Crispian comes with his girlfriend Erin; Felix with his girlfriend Zee; Drake with his wife Kelly; and their daughter Aimee comes with her boyfriend Tariq. When they are ready to have dinner, they are attacked by a stranger with a crossbow, and Drake is wounded by an arrow and Tariq dies. They discover that their cell phones are jammed and they are trapped in the house. Erin tries to protect the house, closing doors and windows, but the masked killers murder the members of the family. Are the killers lunatic? What is the motive for slaughtering the Davison family?

Domestic Box Office: $18 million

Budget: $1 million

Opening Weekend: #6

The Verdict: You’re Next has become a mandatory buy for fans of home invasion stories, and sales for this particular film have been relatively steady since arriving on DVD and Blu-ray. To date the film has sold more than $4 million worth of discs and that number will likely continue to grow. In terms of perception You’re Next was a failure, but look into the response the film drew and look at steady sales and unanimous praise and it becomes very clear that You’re Next could easily be recognized as a classic in just a few years.

Visit the next page to conclude our list of box office failures that happened to become huge genre successes!