Are we in a golden age of horror? Even if the Terrifier franchise is still kickin’? A flood of low-budget horror movies like Barbarian and Obsession have dominated your friends’ Letterboxd reviews over the last few years and brought viewers back to theaters in droves. With the genre scaring up success at the box office, it’s a great time to have a sick and twisted little script.
How did we get to such a scary place?Horror movies have historically been one of the most profitable genres in film. That’s in part because it’s relatively cheap to churn out a decent scary movie. Based on data from 1996 to 2016, the horror genre had the highest likelihood of profit of any genre, according to the American Film Market, with over half of all horror movies making at least $1.
- The horror genre is also full of shoestring-budget films that went on to dominate the box office. Take 2007’s Paranormal Activity, which made $193 million on a $15,000 budget and spawned an entire franchise (and now a Broadway play).
- More recently, 2022’s Barbarian grossed ten times its $4.5 million budget. That same year, Smile snagged $217 million at the box office on a $17 million budget, and execs subsequently green-lit two sequels. This year’s favorite indie, Obsession, made with just a $750,000 budget, became the first wide-release horror film to make more money in its second weekend in theaters than its first.
- Horror fans seem to show up no matter the broader film environment. The genre was the most consistent driver of box-office sales during the pandemic, even if it meant fans had to go to the drive-in. Their success is sometimes even considered a recession indicator.
Can the genre survive the horror that is AI? Despite horror films starting to dip their toes into AI (and receiving pretty immediate pushback), recent horror movies have been embracing good old-fashioned practical effects—so, maybe Hollywood won’t screw this up. The 2000s loved CGI, but more recent films like The Substance, Evil Dead: Burn, and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma relied on painstakingly built, painted, and bloodied up sets.—MM
