2024’s Been a Tremendous Year for Horror Movies, and There’s More to Come!
Throughout 2024, we’ve been treated to a steady stream of well-received and well-made horror movies. We seem to have emerged from the time of horrors, more or less, not being trusted at the box office and being sent directly to streaming platforms.
Now, with cinemas revamping en masse, they want the immersive, visceral, and intensity that inherently comes with a great horror or horror-thriller to create the experiences people will pay for. Horror is taking off across entertainment, and a lot of this will be spurred by the headline acts at the box office.
With several hit flicks in the books already, 2024 promises even more from the genre before the year is up.
Great movies and blockbuster hits
Between the five highest-grossing horror movies at the box office this year alone, the genre has collected over $800 million worldwide and on a combined reported budget of just $180.5 million—and that’s taking Longlegs at its maximum $10 million budget (the creators said it was made on less).
Naturally, Alien: Romulus was the most expensive to make at $80 million. While the film itself has garnered reactions ranging from franchise-best since Aliens to uninventive regurgitation of callbacks, the hype generated for its visual effects, in particular, powered it to $343 million worldwide.
A Quiet Place: Day One reinstated the setting as one of horror’s most intriguing with its $261 million return, followed by creepy indie sensation Longlegs ($102.6m), Night Swim ($54.7m), and The Strangers: Chapter 1 ($47.5m)—which is the third in the series but billed as a relaunch.
Along with these, the biggest hitters on the big screen, we saw the fitting conclusion to the hit slasher trilogy from Ti West with Maxxxine that began with X, a superb outing from Sydney Sweeney in the brutal religious horror Immaculate, and a captivatingly novel entry in the form of Late Night with the Devil.
More recently, Blumhouse’s twist on the Danish film Speak No Evil proved to be tense throughout—which was helped, in large part, by James McAvoy’s stellar outing. Then, there’s The Substance. In your face throughout, relentlessly visceral, and evokes the aesthetic of the best of 80s body horror to really hammer home its satire.
A horror renaissance for all to enjoy
We appear to be in the midst of a major renaissance or, at the very least, a trend of popularity for the horror genre in entertainment. At the box office, we’ve seen several horror hits emerge and become the talk of the town. People want productions that get their hearts racing and to delve into dark and spooky settings.
This craving goes beyond the box office, too. We can even see the horror genre remaining prominent in a form of entertainment that seemingly wouldn’t offer such an intense experience because, for the most part, it doesn’t dabble in storytelling or jump scares. This corner of the industry is that of online casino gaming.
In online slots, games live and die on the appeal of their image tiles, needing to tap into the popularity of trends and brands to earn players. Perhaps it’s because of this that at the top-ranking of the newest reviewed and verified online casinos, horror slots are so prominent.
Among all of the most popular slots, Immortal Romance II and Tome of Madness stand tall, with one based on a story of four vampires, and the other being distinctly Lovecraftian in its design. We’ve seen the same trend in video gaming, too, with indie horror hits paving the way for AAA investment in bigger games.
Even more to come for horror fans in 2024
As we move towards Christmas, more and more studios are pumping out what look to be well-backed and intriguing horror films to see in the festive season. First on the slate is Terrifier 3. The gaudy slasher movies starring Art the Clown have earned quite the following, and now, Art will go on one of his sprees at Christmas.
The next heavily-pushed film (marketing-wise) to hit cinemas will be Smile 2. The first film, released in 2022, reaped the rewards of a simply superb trailer campaign, eventually collecting $217 million at the box office. We’ll see if Smile 2 lives up to the original entry or falls by the wayside like so many horror sequels have in the past.
In November, A24 will send out Hugh Grant as a maniacal puzzle master intent on testing the faith of two unlucky visitors in Heretic. Finally, to end the year, on Christmas Day, Robert Eggers’ passion project, Nosferatu, will finally hit the big screen. It’s being given a huge push from the marketing department and looks to be a future classic.
Horror is stealing entertainment headlines across the board thanks to a slew of very well-received and popular creations. This year is proving to be a tremendous year for the genre, and that’s before the last big hitters reach the box office!
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