Five Spooky Facts about the Horror Genre

Okay, there are more than 5, but they’re grouped around 5 main themes.

Feb 2

1. Horror is the best bang for your buck.

It’s unlikely that a horror film will ever reach the heights of Avatar or Avengers at the box office. However, most people don’t take their spouse and kids to see The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, so perhaps horror is at a bit of a disadvantage there.

Even so, horror is incredibly profitable, with a higher average return on investment than any other genre. The most extreme example of this is Paranormal Activity (2007), which earned close to $200M on a $15,000 budget.

Data viz from Stephen Follows

Data viz from FiveThirtyEight

Perhaps unsurprisingly, found footage is the type of horror movie that is most likely to beat its budget. It doesn’t take much money to tell a spooky story that captures the imagination and haunts the nightmares of millions.

Data viz from Stephen Follows

Incredibly, horror holds the ROI crown despite the fact that the average horror movie spends less time at the cinema than the average movie from any other genre.

Data viz from Stephen Follows

2. Horror is getting more popular.

It certainly seems like a lot of great horror films have come out recently. Many of the classic franchises have released remakes or sequels in the past few years, and a slew of originals have filled theaters.

When looking at percentage of market share at the box office, horror’s best years on record were in 2020 and 2021. When the world was scary, people were seeking out scary movies.

Graph pulled from www.the-numbers.com

Recent years have been especially kind to horror, but the genre has been on the rise for decades.

Data viz from r/dataisbeautiful

3. Horror audiences are young and diverse.

One of the strongest predictors of horror fandom is age. Young people, especially teens, love a good scare. That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of older horror fans, but the genre is much more popular among younger generations.

Data viz from Movio.com

Horror audiences might skew young, but they are pretty diverse — perhaps more diverse than any other genre.

Percentage of adults who have a favorable attitude toward each genre. Data viz from Statista.

4. Mexico Really Loves Horror

While the US does love the horror genre, it doesn’t hold a candle to Mexico. South Korea and Russia also come out above the US when it comes to horror’s popularity. I’m not sure I’ve seen a Russian horror film, but South Korea has put out some great horror films.

Data viz from Stephen Follows.

I was pretty surprised by the low popularity in Japan. After all, J-Horror is some of the best the genre has to offer.

The low popularity in China is likely due to censoring. Films focusing on ghosts and other supernatural themes are typically prohibited in China, though they’re known to approve certain films despite having these themes.

Alright, that’s film, but what about books?

Mexico comes out on top there, too.

Data viz from studyinginswitzerland.com

5. Horror Puts Women Front and Center.

As I mentioned in a previous post, horror fans have been unfairly maligned by critics for years. Famous movie critic Roger Ebert claimed that fans of slashers didn’t seem to like women very much. His claim stemmed from the fact that women are often the victims in slasher films.

But of course, the victim in a horror film is often the protagonist.

In fact, this trope is so common in horror that it’s been given a name: the Final Girl. Carol Clover argues is her wonderfully titled book, Men, Women, and Chain Saws, that many horror films actually encourage the audience to empathize with the Final Girl. The final girl is victimized, but she’s also the hero.

This gets pretty clear if you ask someone to name some horror movie characters (aside from the killer). You won’t get many men’s names here. Instead, you’re likely to hear names like Laurie Strode, Sidney Prescott, Nancy Thompson, or Ellen Ripley.

You’ll hear these names because women get a lot of screen time in horror movies. In fact, women get more screen time in horror than men, and they get more screen time in horror than they do in romantic comedies — or any other genre.