"Halloween": Why Horror Movies Make Victims at the Box Office



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"Horror is really the easiest sale", movie review Amy Nicholson told CNN Business. Nicholson is the host of "Halloween Unmasked" of The Ringer, a series of eight-part podcasts about the creation and cultural impact of the franchise.

"You could say," With this movie, I'm going to try to make you laugh "and it may not work for everyone, people have a different sense of humor," she said. declared. "But if you say," here's a movie that's going to make you cringe, "it's going to reach a much wider audience."

"A quiet place" in Paramount would have cost $ 17 million, but $ 334 million was raised worldwide, 19 times more than it cost. Last year, "Get Out" had cost $ 255 million worldwide with an announced budget of only $ 4.5 million. That's 56 times his budget.
None of these recent blockbusters compares to the original "Halloween", which cost only $ 300,000 in 1978 and brought in $ 60 million, or 200 times more.
"You do not need stars, you do not need huge name managers" Jeff Bock, Senior Analyst at the Exhibitor Relations Desk, told CNN Business. "There is not much risk when you talk about horror movies."

Horror is an ideal genre to watch at the theater because there is "something contagious in fear," according to Caetlin Benson-Allott, an associate professor at Georgetown University, specializing in the impact of new media on the film.

"In the academic world, we use the term" affect "to describe an emotional intensity shared by people, which is not just an internal emotion," Benson-Allott told CNN Business. "Horror movies are a perfect example of" affect "at work – when I hear other people screaming at the theater with me, that amplifies my response."

Jason Blum – the CEO of Blumhouse Productions, who has supported "Halloween", "Get Out" and "The Purge" – told CNN Business that no genre has been spared by cannibalizing the services of streaming. But "horror is certainly more immune than other genres".
& # 39; Halloween & # 39; sequel is up to his old tricks
Blum explained that filmmakers who do not usually make horror movies are suddenly eager to make a big horror movie, largely because they "know that the theatrical experience will be preserved "because" the genre works very well in cinemas ". Jordan Peele, director of "Get Out", and John Krasinski, director of "A Quiet Place," are two comic actors who have created hit horror movies in recent years.

Another reason that horror has a moment is that its fictional stories are perhaps more comforting than what happens in the real world.

"I think it's because the world is a particularly scary place.It's nice to go somewhere to see something that scares, it's not real," said Blum. "I think it's that simple."

Nicholson thinks there is a reason why "Halloween" is particularly relatable at the present time.

"Michael Myers is, in a way, one of the original angry young men, who is just angry for reasons we can not understand," she said. "It's a story we've talked a lot about in recent years in the news, why are some people just angry and how can we reach them?" Michael Myers is a man you can not reach, and it's terrifying. "

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