Horror resurgence scares up big box office numbers for 2016
Led by The Conjuring 2, spooky genre earns $575M, marking best year since 2013
The real heroes of the 2016 box office aren’t named Dory or Deadpool.
Rather, they’re horror movies, which have spooked up a spine-tingling $575.4 million (U.S.) so far this year, according to tracking firm comScore.
Led by The Conjuring 2 ($102.5 million), Don’t Breathe ($88.6 million) and The Purge: Election Year ($79 million), the genre is enjoying its biggest year since 2013, when supernatural blockbusters World War Z ($202.4 million) and the first Conjuring ($137.4 million) helped horror numbers soar to a whopping $860 million total.
It shows no signs of stopping, either. With Halloween just around the corner, two more fright films took home treats this past weekend: Tyler Perry’s comedy Boo! A Madea Halloween ($28.5 million), which bowed at No. 1, and board game-inspired sequel Ouija: Origin of Evil ($14.1 million), which opened softer than its 2014 predecessor ($19.9 million; $50.9 million total), but still surpassed its $9-million budget.
The uptick can possibly be attributed to higher-calibre horror movies, says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for comScore.
Of this year’s 10 highest earners in the genre, six have “fresh” scores of 75 per cent or higher on review aggregate site RottenTomatoes.com. By comparison, only three did last year.
“Even if the audience didn’t read the reviews, the collective positivity around many of the horror movies this year allowed them to have playability,” Dergarabedian says. “That’s very rare, particularly in the horror genre.”
Oftentimes, “they make a lot of money really quick and then they’re gone. This year, we’re not seeing so much of that.”
With a bout of Hollywood “sequelitis” still lingering from the summer, moviegoers who aren’t typically horror fans may also be gravitating toward the genre. Some of this year’s biggest sleeper hits include Lights Out ($ 67.3 million), The Witch ($ 25.2 million) and The Forest ($26.6 million), all of which are original movies made on budgets of $10 million or less, with mostly unknown directors and actors.
“There have been so many movies this year that performed lower than expected at the box office that were either reboots or sequels,” says Brendan Morrow, a features writer for horror site BloodyDisgusting.com.
“Horror has been one of the only genres this year that has had consistently original films. We’re seeing an appetite for fresh concepts.”