2017 has become the biggest year for horror movies.

ps3lover

A horror movie hitting $100 million dollars is considered a major milestone in the horror genre(unless your movie cost a lot which horror flicks rarely do), it rarely happens. This decade we’ve seen a few, Paranormal Activity 3, The Conjuring 1 & 2. Yet this year alone we’ve had 3 horror films bypass the $100 million dollar mark, Annabelle: Creation, Get Out and It. Even if you don’t consider Get Out a horror film, that’s 2 movies in one year.
So how come the last 2 years have seen major success in the horror genre? A few articles point to the return of R rated horror films as a big reason. Every $100 million dollar grosser has been rated R. Not only that but statistically 13-17 year olds have been flocking to R rated horror films more than any other genre. 19% Of Annabelle and The Conjurings audience where under 17 while Wonder Woman, Guardians Vol 2 and Rogue One had around 10% Of their audience be under 17. Hollywood have been desperately trying to win back it’s teen audience and R rated horror films are bringing them in like moths to flames.
So I guess if they keep horror at an R rating it will continue to thrive!

piplip87

They have created something really special with the Conjuring universe. The fact that it centres on the Warrens and people can then find interviews with them speaking about their real life experience with the subjects in the films really draws in people who may have interests in the paranormal but not run of the mill horror movies

El Duda

Agreed ^

I don't think the Conjuring films will age very well but I do find them impressive from a production POV. James Wan is very talented.

Harry Palmr

1974 was the biggest year in horror - The Exorcist made more money than all this years horror films put together when adjusted for inflation/actual tickets sold.

Domestic Total Adj. Gross: $921,652,400
Domestic Lifetime Adj. Gross: $987,650,600
Distributor: Warner Bros. Release Date: December 26, 1973

People really don't get just how big a film it was - the Star Wars of horror.

Sugarlumps

The Conjuring saga, pathetic attempt at horror.

JohnFalstaff

It's sort of a truism at this stage that horror films do well in periods of increased national anxiety. The Exorcist's success came at a time when the US was reeling from the extent of the Watergate scandal.

Having Trump in the White House could be having an impact on the resurgence of interest in scary movies. Jason Blum - head of Blumhouse, the studio behind Get Out, Insidious, Paranormal Activity - had this to say in a recent NY Times interview:

“The current administration’s been terrific for the scary-movie business. It’s been our best year ever. I think ‘Get Out’ did four times the business it would have done if Hillary had been president.”

shazzerman

Aesthetically, the horror film has never been in a worse position. If James "Loud Music...Now!" Wan is the standard-bearer, we're all in trouble. Even the best of recent years - It Follows, The Wailing, The Witch, The Babadook - lack that certain something - a certain something that Romero, Hooper, Craven, Tourneur, Bava etc brought to horror all those years ago.

shazzerman

shazzerman wrote: »

Aesthetically, the horror film has never been in a worse position. If James "Loud Music...Now!" Wan is the standard-bearer, we're all in trouble. Even the best of recent years - It Follows, The Wailing, The Witch, The Babadook - lack that certain something - a certain something that Romero, Hooper, Craven, Tourneur, Bava etc brought to horror all those years ago.

Agreed. I watched It Follows last night after hearing it mentioned so much. Decent enough flick, but basically lightweight. Maybe I'm older and more cynical now but I found the older horror films were much easier to get wrapped up in and really feel the fear. More depth and background to them.

Liam McPoyle

Horror is one of those genres that just won't die and is very much cyclical.

The 30s and 40s had the universal monster movies.

The 50s had creature features.

The 60s had the birth of gore movies with the likes of Herschell Gordon Lewis and George Romero leading the charge.

The 70s had the grindhouse and exploitation movie explosion.

The 80s had the slasher movie craze.

The 90s had meta movies like Scream.

The 00s had j-horror (originals and remakes).

The 10s has the found footage / supernatural angle like Paranormal Activity and The Conjuring.

Interest wanes for a while due to market saturation of similar movies then something fresh and new comes along and the cycle starts again.

Sad Professor

I've never really been a fan of mainstream horror, but I really like the current indie horror phase. More focus on story than scares which is what I like.

silverharp

ive come across theories that they can be related to economic bad times, 30's and 70's would stand out, whereas 90's horror verged on comedy and parody

Fysh

I don't tend to think of horror as a genre whose best films do gangbusters at the cinema, because while every now and again something turns up that makes ridiculous money, there have been so many utterly dreadful (IMO ) franchises which methodically bleed dry any redeeming features of their original film that it's very much the exception rather than the rule.

James Wan is a good example - I quite like the original Saw, it had a decent enough premise that I thought was both interesting in the context of thriller/horror films (moving on from Seven's downer ending to an even more downer ending) and inventively presented in terms of working around limitations of budget and a multi-perspective narrative. But where the ending would've been much better if we simply never found out anything about the killer or his reasons, instead it got franchised and about 4 billion increasingly bad sequels churned out.

For me, the standouts in the last few years have mostly been the indie horrors focusing on character and atmosphere - Under The Shadow, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, The Babadook, The Witch, American Mary, Excision, Raw, Antiviral, Let The Right One In, Byzantium, that sort of thing.