The Real Reason These Horror Movies Flopped

In Hollywood, it's typical to perceive the horror movie as being foolproof at the box office. After all, so many of these films, including some of the most iconic entries in the genre, are made on such tiny budgets that it's almost impossible to not make a profit. That level of thriftiness defines modern-day horror outfits like Blumhouse Productions and other producers of scary movies. Few genres combine minimal financial investment and widespread appeal as well as horror films, but no genre is entirely golden at the box office and horror titles are no exception. Over the years, several high-profile horror features have ended up coming up gravely short at the box office and even outright lost money in some extreme instances.

Given how often even widely-reviled horror movies, like "The Devil Inside," somehow manage to make money, some extreme factors tend to inform the circumstances behind the rare horror film flop. Looking at the real reasons this assortment of frightening features fizzled, one finds elements like stale brand names or lazy marketing that are truly more unnerving than any ghost story could hope to be. Prepare to be chilled to the bone by the details that can end up slaughtering a horror movie's chances at box office success.

Nobody involved in "The Haunting" could have imagined, when they were first putting the project together, that some other horror movie could surpass it. How could anything manage to overshadow an $80 million horror movie produced by Steven Spielberg and starring Liam Neeson, fresh off "Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace" earlier that summer? But there was a catch here: "The Haunting" opened in close proximity to "The Blair Witch Project" at the end of summer 1999, with the original, low-budget "found footage" faux-doc vastly surpassing the box office intake of the costly remake.

Grossing just $180.1 million worldwide, "The Haunting" was expected to earn much more with all of its big-name actors and a familiar brand name. Unforeseen bad timing wasn't the only issue "The Haunting" had to face. It also stood out like a sore thumb in the late 1990s horror landscape, which was based on fresh takes on the genre through titles like "Scream." In hindsight, "The Haunting" was ahead of the mid-2000s obsession with horror remakes like 2003's "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and 2004's "Dawn of the Dead." At the time, though, "The Haunting" was a box office disappointment whose shortcomings were made extra apparent by the concurrent surprise success of "The Blair Witch Project."

With "Paranormal Activity 4," the "Paranormal Activity" franchise saw its box office clout abruptly shrink dramatically. A series that had cleared $100 million domestically with ease one year prior with "Paranormal Activity 3" now barely collected $50 million in North America. The ultra-cheap price tags on these movies ensured that this was still a profitable venture for Paramount Pictures, but it was also clear the sheen was wearing off and audiences were possibly growing sick of "Paranormal Activity" movies. So it's no surprise the temporarily "final" installment, "Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension," brought further box office lows to the series.

"The Ghost Dimension" grossed $18.3 million in North America, not only the lowest domestic haul of any entry in the series but also smaller than the opening weekend sums of all prior "Paranormal Activity" installments. That abnormally minuscule take can be attributed to Paramount Pictures engaging in a quicker-than-usual home video release strategy that alienated enough theater chains to ensure that "The Ghost Dimension" could play in only 1,656 domestic multiplexes. Overseas grosses would take "The Ghost Dimension" to a $77.9 million worldwide total, enough to ensure Paramount didn't lose money on the $10 million feature. But this global gross was a far cry from what the "Paranormal Activity" movies had brought in just a few years earlier and made "Paranormal Activity 4" look like a barnburner by comparison.

It would be understandable for most moviegoers who saw the trailer for "Brahms: The Boy II" to respond not by shrieking in terror, but by getting puzzled and asking, "Was there a first one?" Indeed there was an original "The Boy," though it was released in January 2016 to little fanfare. While not a flop, it also wasn't the kind of movie that generated enough enthusiasm to get people hankering for another installment. But rare is the mildly profitable horror movie that doesn't inspire a sequel, so "Brahms: The Boy II" dropped into theaters in February 2020.

Debuting in this timeframe meant that "Brahms: The Boy II" had only a few weeks to make money before the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic would totally upend the entire theatrical exhibition business. But even before that crisis took hold, "Brahms: The Boy II" was a box office nonstarter and only grossed $18.9 million globally on a $10 million budget. Not only was the original "The Boy" not beloved in its theatrical run, but it was also four years old by the time a sequel arrived, an eternity when it comes to horror movie installments. Any potential revenue to be soaked up through brand-name recognition was long gone by this point, leaving an inexplicable sequel nobody asked for.

Every horror franchise has its financial low point at the box office. For the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series, this nadir came from "Wes Craven's New Nightmare," which topped out at $18 million globally. Director Wes Craven attempted something fresh with "New Nightmare," right down to delivering a new version of Freddy Krueger and attempting to deliver a meta-narrative involving the filming of a new "Nightmare on Elm Street" movie. But sites like ScreenRant have speculated that the underwhelming box office was due to the film's premise being impenetrable to mainstream audiences. 

Other factors may have included a minimal marketing budget and competition from "Pulp Fiction." It also can't be ignored that in 1994, Freddy Krueger was not in his prime critically. The most recent "Nightmare on Elm Street" movies had garnered negative reviews and transformed Krueger from an intimidating foe into a predictable punchline. Even with "New Nightmare" promising something different, audiences just weren't psyched for further entries in this franchise. Given just how many issues were attached to "Wes Craven's New Nightmare," it's honestly a wonder that it managed to make the meager amount that it did globally.

Genre mashups are frequently a tough sell to audiences. Even horror-comedies have often struggled financially, let alone more complex mixtures like sci-fi/Westerns. Thus it shouldn't be a shock that the Western horror film "Ravenous," which also threw cannibalism into the mix for further subversive disruption, did not set the box office alight with success. This unusual horror title grossed just $2 million in its box office run.

Adding to the hurdles inherent in tackling a genre mash-up was that "Ravenous" was only released in 1,040 locations while the film also had no big names in its cast. The website Gothic Western also pointed out that "Ravenous" was an odd fit for a wide theatrical release and likely would have fared better years later, with more fluid release models that deliver oddball titles to niche audiences with greater ease. Of course, the saga of "Ravenous" does not begin and end with its box office run. Like many horror movies that stumbled at the box office, "Ravenous" has managed to ride a second wave of life on home video.

There were a lot of problems facing the 2018 feature film "Slender Man." Chief among these was the gruesome fact that the movie was coming on the heels of a tragedy in Wisconsin where two teenage girls attempted to murder a friend because of the perceived influence of Slender Man. The mere existence of the film "Slender Man" prompted controversy, but that wasn't the only problem. There was also the fact that, in 2018, "Slender Man" was coming out way too late to properly capitalize on the initial popularity of its titular monster.

Then there was its reported $28 million price tag, which meant that "Slender Man" cost just $7 million less than the significantly more high-profile movie "It" from 2017. On top of everything else, the producers of "Slender Man" clashed with its studio, Sony, over the film's marketing, leading the latter to consider selling the film to a streaming service. With all this, it was no surprise that "Slender Man" ended up wiping out at the box office with just $51.9 million globally, less than double its budget. That put "Slender Man" behind the worldwide grosses of noticeably cheaper 2018 horror titles like "Hereditary" and "Truth or Dare." Some movies manage to outrun their problematic pasts, but others, like "Slender Man," end up consumed by them.

Unique on this list is "Jennifer's Body," the 2009 horror-slasher-comedy directed by Karyn Kusama and written by Diablo Cody about a high school girl who's possessed by a demon to only kill boys. This film stars Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried with a supporting cast including Adam Brody, J.K. Simmons, Amy Sedaris, and Chris Pratt. "Jennifer's Body" has gained significant reappraisal within the past few years as a satirical and self-aware piece of feminist filmmaking which also has gained a place in the pantheon of both queer and bisexual cinema.

According to a Vox interview with writer Diablo Cody, she noted how the marketing team behind "Jennifer's Body" didn't do her screenplay any favor, claiming, "The movie was marketed all wrong. I'm not usually an argumentative person. In fact, I'm really passive. But that was like the one time I've gotten in a fight because I was so furious." While the film did actually get a notable female-leaning audience (which was their intention), the marketing issues were enough to cause "Jennifer's Body" to be a box office disappointment with only about $6.8 million made during its opening weekend.

"Slither" was one of director James Gunn's first big projects and, having come from the no-budget world of making Troma movies, it proved to be a major misstep in his early career. Although James Gunn is now best known for his stewardship of both the "Guardians of the Galaxy" franchise and his strong hand in overseeing the future of the DC Extended Universe with additions like "The Suicide Squad" and "Peacemaker," Gunn came from extremely humble beginnings making shlocky horror films.

One thing fans consistently seem to love about James Gunn is his sense of humor, which carries over into nearly all his films. "Slither" confused audiences at the time by mixing the genres of horror with black comedy and science fiction to make a strange story that many viewers struggled to wrap their head around. Gunn even commented on the failure of "Slither" back in 2006, telling The Hollywood Reporter that it was overwhelming for audiences. He said, "I think that because it was comedy-horror instead of pure horror is where the problem lay. It's the first comedy-horror in a long time, and maybe the marketplace just isn't ready for comedy-horror yet. It's difficult to think of other explanations."