Prime Video’s #1 Show Is A Perfect Reminder To Watch Sydney Sweeney’s R-Rated Psychological Thriller

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Prime Video’s new thriller, 56 Days, recently topped the charts on the streaming service. However, it wasn’t their first venture into this genre. That was The Voyeurs, a 2021 thriller starring Sydney Sweeney. 56 Days is based on the novel by Catherine Ryan Howard and delivers a suspenseful and surprising story.

The show centers on Oliver and Ciara, a couple whose intense 56-day romance is filled with hidden truths. As their relationship falls apart, detectives investigate a decaying body discovered in Oliver’s upscale apartment, trying to determine if it’s Oliver, Ciara, or someone else entirely.

The show’s appeal goes beyond just its mystery. 56 Days is a steamy thriller where intimate scenes are central to the story. It clearly takes inspiration from popular erotic thrillers of the 1990s, like Basic Instinct, Sliver, and Poison Ivy.

56 Days Is Prime Video’s Biggest Erotic Thriller Since 2023’s The Voyeurs

I’ve noticed something interesting about 56 Days – regular viewers seem to like it more than critics do! Right now, the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is 61%, while critics give it a 78%. It shows people are really responding to it differently than the professionals. Honestly, this isn’t a shock though; I’ve seen this happen with other psychological thrillers lately, where the audience and critics just don’t quite agree.

Netflix’s popular show Run Away and the 2025 thriller The Hunting Wives both received high praise from critics but were less popular with general audiences. Run Away earned an 81% approval rating from critics versus 41% from viewers, while The Hunting Wives scored 80% with critics and 64% with its audience. This disconnect is common with psychological thrillers, likely because of their surprising and often unexpected plot twists.

The film 56 Days also falls into the erotic thriller genre, which has historically received negative reviews from critics. Prime Video has tried to revive this genre before with another release, but that attempt wasn’t successful and quickly faded into obscurity.

Michael Mohan, the director of Immaculate, made The Voyeurs, an erotic thriller released in September 2021. The streaming service planned it as the first of several steamy “date night” movies featuring popular actors. The story centers on Pippa (Sydney Sweeney) and Thomas (Justice Smith), a young couple who develop an obsession with watching their neighbors.

The Voyeurs Was Better Than Critics Thought

Similar to the Alfred Hitchcock film Rear Window, but with more mature content, The Voyeurs offered a surprising and unpredictable storyline, culminating in a shocking twist. However, even this strong ending couldn’t improve the film’s overall reception. Despite attracting a large viewership, the movie starring Sydney Sweeney received a lukewarm 45% score on Rotten Tomatoes from both critics and audiences.

A few years later, Sweeney successfully returned to psychological thrillers with the 2025 adaptation of Freida McFadden’s The Housemaid, which was a bit of a campy hit. Despite being popular with audiences, The Voyeurs didn’t receive positive reviews from critics, and as a result, Prime Video decided not to move forward with any more movies for their ‘date night’ series after its release.

It’s unfortunate that The Voyeurs has gotten a bad rap, because it’s not nearly as terrible as people say. Like many erotic thrillers, it struggles a bit to balance sex and suspense. But the actors give good performances, and the story has a few genuinely unexpected twists.

Honestly, the biggest shock in The Voyagers is probably why a lot of people didn’t love it. The ending is really dark and harsh, and while it reminded me a little of the twist in Amy Seimetz’s Sharp Objects (which was amazing!), this movie just didn’t feel like it earned that level of darkness. Sharp Objects had the weight and depth to pull it off, but here it felt…unjustified, I guess.

The ending of The Voyeurs is surprisingly bleak, and it feels so heavy-handed that it diminishes the enjoyment of what came before. Director Michael Mohan’s next film, the horror movie Immaculate, handled its dark conclusion more effectively. That’s because Immaculate built a consistently frightening atmosphere from the start, unlike The Voyeurs, which began with a lighter, more playful tone.

Why 56 Days Succeeds Where The Voyeurs Failed

Unlike The Voyeurs, the thriller 56 Days handles its story in a completely different way. It begins with a disturbing discovery – a badly decomposed body found in Oliver’s luxurious, but empty, house. However, by altering the original book’s ending, 56 Days surprisingly delivers a cheerful conclusion.

Similar to The Housemaid, this miniseries understands that its dark and intense story needs a glimmer of hope to avoid leaving viewers feeling completely defeated. While some psychological thrillers can end on a bleak note, Prime Video’s popular erotic thriller shows that a more optimistic approach can be more effective.

However, The Voyeurs attempted a bolder direction that ultimately detracted from the earlier, more enjoyable story. By trying to emulate the dark, suspenseful ending of Se7en instead of following the lighter tone of 56 Days, The Voyeurs became unnecessarily grim and lost some of its appeal.

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2026-02-25 20:12