Halloween is approaching and with it its procession of pumpkins, questionable costumes and… horror films on the network, especially on streaming platforms. Formerly considered a lower quality genre reserved for teenagers hungry for thrills, horror is today mainstreamviral and above all profitable. According to Statista, the genre is particularly popular in Mexico (47% fans), Spain (41%) and the United States (39%). France is not left out: 30% of the population recognizes a guilty pleasure in trembling in front of a horrific film.
The figures confirm it. Let’s take Conjuring 4: Judgment timereleased in French cinemas on September 10. With more than a million admissions in the first week, the film with a modest budget (55 million dollars, or 47 million euros) was a hit. Barely a month later, worldwide revenues are $400 million (approximately €342 million). Meanwhile on TikTok, where disturbing or scary videos are popular, the hashtag “analog horror» exceeded 2.3 billion views in 2024.
Fear does not only concern the seventh art. Literature is also doing well. Stephen King’s horror novels regularly appear in the bestseller lists and the novel Frankenstein sells 40,000 copies each year, just for the English version.
A new therapy
In a sometimes scary world, audiences need to find a way to manage their anxiety. This is what writer Clay McLeod Chapman confirms in the lines of the Quartz media: “Real-world fears become directly or indirectly integrated into our daily lives, and escaping into metaphorical horrors seems to offer a necessary balm“. He specifies that gender diversity promotes its growth. Publishers have taken note, reissuing the classics while highlighting a new generation of authors.
Researchers from the Danish laboratory Recreational Fear are unanimous: watching a horror film is close to controlled exposure therapy. Fear is externalized through cinema, facilitating the daily management of anxiety. This is the paradox of horror: people take refuge there to comfort themselves. Other research also suggests that scary content can test one’s stress management. With the possibility, at any time, to press pause, leave the cinema or close the book.
This mechanism is not new. Iconic monsters from Universal during the Great Depression like Frankenstein, Godzilla Or The Invasion of the Defilers Rooted in Cold War paranoia, every era of crisis has seen the genre flourish. Our time is no exception, between pandemic, climate change and geopolitical instabilities, it seems logical to see horror productions multiply.
Studios like Blumhouse and A24 have managed to build veritable empires from low-budget films and perfectly honed marketing strategies. In short, fear is a profitable outlet, and it’s not stopping anytime soon.
