Even in the current days of low box office returns and struggling blockbusters, there is one genre of film that consistently over-performs, and that’s horror. 2022 saw quite a few horror films make a pretty big splash with audiences and the box office alike. Movies like Paramount’s Smile, which was almost released on streaming service Paramount+ instead of to theaters, and A24’s duo of Mia Goth-starring vehicles X and Pearl, were huge, both culturally and monetarily. Even as we’ve moved into 2023, Blumhouse’s M3GAN has proved to be the first big hit of the year. Suffice to say, it’s not necessarily surprising when a horror movie does well.
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What is surprising, however, is a recent trend of horror movies that have enticed and horrified audiences in ways that few movies manage. These movies weren’t released by big studios or marketed on the strength of the names above the title. No, these films are actually independently made and for very, very little money. Low-budget horror is seeing a resurgence that hasn’t been seen since 2007 with the Paranormal Activity franchise, or even possibly with 1999’s The Blair Witch Project . What does this signal for movie theaters? Is there a rising tide of indie horror ready to take over cinemas, or is this merely a fad? Let’s look at the films that are making a splash and see what we can gather.
The One That Started It All: Terrifier 2
Bloody Disgusting
The original Terrifier film was far from a hit. Released in 2016 to some small festival acclaim and a mild cult following, the clown-centered slasher never entertained a wide audience of non-horror super fans. When it came time for the sequel to be made, director and creative madman Damien Leone opted to start an IndieGoGo campaign for the would-be second entry. What surprised all was that the campaign was a huge success, far surpassing the initial ask for $50k and raising over $250k in budget. Leone and his team were able to not only make the movie they wanted to make, but make it bigger, bolder, and bloodier than they ever could have imagined.
Terrifier 2 is what some would call an “extreme slasher” — a unique sub-genre of the slasher type that emphasizes intense gore, brutal kills, and a whole heck of a lot of blood. Under normal circumstances, a film like this would not see wide theatrical distribution, but Leone and Co. had a lot of surprises up their sleeves. What was initially meant to be a one-week limited release in October 2022 turned into multiple months, numerous expansions, and a gross of over $13 million. Terrifier 2 was the little horror film that could: made on a miniscule budget without any sort of big-league representation. Ultimately, the film proved that audiences would come out for a horror movie if nothing else — and especially one that was made by people who love horror movies as much as they do.
The One That Kept It Going: Skinamarink
Shudder
After Terrifer 2 lit the box office on fire, many were wondering what this phenomenon signaled. Would there be another Terrifier film? (Yes.) Is this upward trend of horror box office receipts sustainable? (Also yes.) What’s next, though? The answer was an even smaller film that had only premiered at one festival months before even Terrifer 2 saw release. Kyle Edward Ball was an aspiring filmmaker and YouTuber who had decided to make a microbudget feature for $15k in the house that he grew up in and called it Skinamarink. The film premiered at a festival in July 2022 and various others thereafter, which led to the film being recorded and released on the internet illegally. While disappointing to Ball and Co., as they hoped to shop the movie around a bit more to find distribution, this mass pirating of the movie actually turned out to be a good thing. People were talking about the movie a lot and sharing on social media how it was “the scariest movie ever made”. All of this good press resulted in the film getting theatrical distribution through IFC Midnight, much like how Terrifier 2 was acquired by an independent distributor. And, while it’s still early, Skinamarink seems to be following in the footsteps of Art the Clown in terms of box office receipts (via Vulture).
Skinamarink follows in the footsteps of something like The Blair Witch Project moreso than it does Terrifier, at least in how the film is constructed. Skinamarink is about two children who are abandoned and trapped in their home after their father disappears and all the doors and windows in the home disappear. It’s shot on a crummy digital camcorder and features long stretches of silence, capitalized by huge releases of tension. Sound familiar? It’s one of those movies that you could convince someone was actually real and that in part is the reason it has captivated audiences so well. The film has done so well in its first couple of weeks that its theatrical release has been expanded and extended.
The Ones to Come: The Outwaters & Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey
Altitude Film Distribution/Fathom Events
So, what’s next for these low-budget horror movies that seem to be just breaking the bank at the box office? Well, there are two more coming out in the next month or so that look to be holding up the mantle of Terrifier and Skinamarink. The first of which got theatrical distribution directly because of Terrifier 2’s breakout success, and that is the nightmare-premised Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. Cleverly circumventing copyright law due to the characters being public domain circa last year, Blood and Honey is a goofy, if not endearing, slasher take on the classic children’s story. There is no telling how the film will actually be, but it’s safe to assume it can coast by on the strength of its gimmicky premise alone. The film is seeing a one-night-only (as of now) release on February 15.
The other low-budget marvel that is seeing release soon is a film by director Robbie Banfitch called The Outwaters. Now, this film has followed a track very similar to both Terrifer 2 and Skinamarink. It premiered at a festival late last year and got a lot of buzz off of it. Shortly after the conversation started around it and after the success of Terrifier 2, The Outwaters got theatrical distribution from Cinedigm and Bloody Disgusting (the very same distributors that released Terrifier). The Outwaters looks to be a desert-centered found footage film That many are saying is a mind-bending trip through the worst nightmare imaginable. The film will see release on February 9 in select theaters, with the possibility of expansion come found success.
What Does This All Mean?
Artisan Entertainment & Summit Entertainment
In the end, all of these low-budget horror flicks signal one very important thing about the current state of movie-going: if you give people a reason to go out and see something, they’ll see it gladly. Part of the reason that this series of films has been so unexpectedly successful, and discourse heavy is because of the strength of word-of-mouth. You can only hear from your friends and colleagues so many times that Skinamarink is the scariest thing they’d ever seen before you just have to go and find out for yourself. Same with Terrifier 2 and, potentially, Blood and Honey and The Outwaters (though for different reasons). So while this trend of low-budget horror being uber-successful is new, it signals something that we already knew about movie distribution. You have to give the people what they want and what they want right now is low-budget horror.
