'28 Days Haunted' - The Worst Thing Netflix Has Ever Made?

'28 Days Haunted' dropped on Netflix ahead of Halloween and within days stormed the streaming platform's top 10 list, but despite this the show has been heavily criticised on review sites. One online reviewer wrote, "being possessed by a demon and getting dragged to the depths of hell would be more fun than watching this show," but is '28 Days Haunted' really "the worst thing Netflix has ever made?"

We actually thought the six-part series was a pretty good induction into the genre of paranormal reality for the potentially uninitiated subscribers of Netflix, who might not be your typical paranormal show viewer, but someone looking for some chills and thrills as Halloween approached.

The Netflix series follows eight paranormal investigators spread across America and locked down for four weeks inside of three allegedly haunted locations. During this time they were part of an experiment designed to test prolonged exposure to a haunted location based on a theory proposed by Ed and Lorraine Warren, the late husband-and-wife investigation team that inspired 'The Conjuring' movie series.

The show is currently hanging on to a 3.2 out of 10 rating on IMDb, with over a third of viewers giving the show just 1 out of 10.

In the breakdown, the show takes a real hit from male viewers who average a score of just 2 out of 10 for the 18 to 29 age group. While the score peaks at a more respectable 4.7 for female viewers of the same age range. The show is also a little more popular with over-45s, who average a rating of 3.9 across all demographics.

But it's in the reviews that the show really takes a beating with more than 60% being deeply scathing at the time of writing this. One Netflix subscriber who made it through the series wrote, "I usually really enjoy these types of shows, but I had to force myself to finish this."

Described as cheesy and "fake to the highest degree" the onslaught on the show continues with reviews like "when I watched the first episode of this disaster, I didn't feel fear, I just cringed." Another reads "it is an abomination of our society and despairing for any rational human being that this show entered the top 10 on Netflix."

So is the show the worst Netflix series of all time? Currently, no. But it's not far off. '28 Days Haunted' currently occupies the third spot behind the 2015 series 'Richie Rich', and a show also released this year about social media influencers called 'Hype House', which currently has an average score of just 2.1 out of 10.

There are a handful of glowing reviews for '28 Days Haunted', nine in fact. In general these positive comments knock other reviewers for their unexpectedly harsh comments. One reviewer wrote, "super entertaining from beginning to end," while another suggested "I would love to see all of these users giving bad reviews to be thrown into a haunted location for 28 days as well."

Paranormal investigator, Sean Austin, was praised for his involvement in the show by several reviewers. One commended Sean for his "calm and respectful techniques and ability to help those spirits willing to communicate with him."

Although the reviews are damning, the show is riding high on Netflix at the moment and shows no sign of slowing down. Only time will tell if the series gets picked up for a second season. 

The show's host, Aaron Sagers, a familiar face in the paranormal world having previously appeared on the US version of 'Paranormal Caught On Camera', ended the final episode of the season by saying, "of course, one experiment is not enough to prove a theory, if we're truly going to change paranormal investigations forever, we need to do this again, and there's no shortage of ghosts to connect with or haunted locations to explore. I can't wait to see what happens on the next 28 days."