Will this streak last forever?
The Big Picture The COVID-19 pandemic has upended everything about the entertainment industry. Combining this ongoing global health crisis with the way massive corporations refuse to pay artists proper wages, instability has gripped the modern world of film. Everybody is looking for a “surefire thing” in the middle of a hurricane of uncertainty. In the middle of all this chaos, one genre has emerged as a rare source of reliable box office success: horror.
In 2013, though, one title emerged that suggested just how broadly appealing modern horror could be. The Conjuring dropped in July 2013, a month usually reserved for big blockbusters, and managed to blow away the competition. Exceeding $135 million in North America alone, Hollywood suddenly saw how big horror movies could be. From here, a renaissance, both in terms of quality and box office, for horror features began to brew.
Meanwhile, horror movies are also a rare film genre that streaming services just can’t replicate or even successfully emulate. Streaming horror titles like Run Sweetheart Run, Eli, and others totally exist, but they never leave much of a mark on pop culture. It’s just difficult to mimic the experience of watching a scary feature in the dark in public. There’s a communal quality to horror fare that Netflix and Hulu can’t duplicate.