A long-running movie series that spends its entire existence being panned by critics has become an increasingly regular phenomenon, but in the long run it doesn’t really matter if each new installment continues to turn a handsome profit. That’s basically Paul W.S. Anderson demonic resident series in a nutshell, which made over $1.2 billion even though it was never good.

The average Rotten Tomatoes score across all six movies is just under 28 percent, and yet fans couldn’t get enough of them. To put that in context, Milla Jovovich’s Ongoing Adventures as Alice has an average user rating on the aggregation site of about 55 percent. That means the target audience actually enjoyed demonic resident Double what the critics made, but still not enough to justify the sci-fi horror saga coming anywhere near above average.

And yet, a recent Reddit thread marking a full 20 years since the opening chapter came to make back its $33 million budget three times over and then something at the box office has rose-tinted glasses firmly in place, all while gifting us with a painfully early-2000s soundtrack that featured luminaries like Mudvayne, Saliva, Static-X, Ill Nino, Five Pointe 0, and countless other nu metal bands you’ve long forgotten about. complete since you put aside your baggy jeans, with the demonic resident society reflecting on the starter’s merits in a remarkably positive way.

Much of the talk focuses on the laser room scene, which still stands as a suitably twisted example of body horror goodness, even if the CGI hasn’t aged all that well. Given that reset Welcome to Raccoon City tanked at the box office and Netflix’s episodic adaptation was hated by stalwarts and canceled after one season, perhaps time will continue to be even kinder to the OG demonic resident.