Time to pair that pumpkin spice latte with some popcorn. Spooky movie season is officially here.
Starting Friday, movie theaters will have a steady stream of jump scares, creepy monsters and gore — and that’s great news for the box office.
As Hollywood grapples with dual labor strikes that restrict promotions for big blockbuster features, horror films could be the perfect balm. Fans of the genre aren’t as preoccupied with the star power behind the films, but rather how scary and bloody – and fun – they are.
“Horror movies have been a mainstay of cinema since its inception and have never lost their appeal particularly when presented in the communal environment of a darkened movie theater,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore.
With smaller-than-average production budgets, these films are also often very lucrative for studios and don’t require massive box office receipts to be profitable.
“Horror films have an innate quality about them that doesn’t require the kind of traditional mass marketing footprint major franchises do in order to capture their target audience,” said Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at BoxOffice.com.
Already in 2023, the horror movie genre has generated more than $600 million in domestic ticket sales, representing around 10% of the total box office in the U.S. and Canada, according to data from Comscore.
Top horror films this year include:
“Today’s audiences love the thrills and escapist nature of horror films and the consistently solid box office numbers have ensured that studios and filmmakers will continue to produce a plentiful number of these films and movie theaters now and well into the future,” Dergarabedian said.
And audiences have plenty of frights to behold in theaters the coming weeks.