Horror cinema has one of the widest gaps in quality of any genre. From the bad to the good to the so bad it’s good, audiences seem to be showing up for just about any kind of horror film. What is it about scary movies that bring in the big returns and how doesTerrifier 2so perfectly signify the genre’s success?
Released in the US in early October,Terrifier 2is a rare sleeper hit. Its extremely modest theatrical run gradually gave way to more locations and screenings with asurprisingly substantial $7.9 millionreturn. Given that the film cost $250,000 to make, received no major marketing, and came as the sequel to a slasher that came out six years ago to middling reviews, its performance was a surprise.
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Damien Leone’sTerrifiercame out in 2016, introducing many horror fans to up-and-coming slasher villain Art the Clown. The character debuted inThe 9th Circle, a low-budget short film that later made itsway into an anthologycalledAll Hallows' Eve. Another short in that anthology was entitled “Terrifier,” and Leone selected that brief run as the basis for a full-length feature. The 2016 film had a tough time reaching audiences at first, premiering at a couple of horror-themed film festivals before its brief theatrical run. It’s been on and off a ton of different streaming services. Before the sequel premiered, most people probably only knew it as a familiar thumbnail they’d scrolled past a dozen times. Reviews were mixed, but a hardcore cult fanbase did develop, mostly thanks toDavid Howard Thornton’s performance as Art. This paved the way for the sequel to succeed.
Terrifier 2is seen by fans and critics as a substantial improvement over its predecessors. Its status as a hit shocked many, but it would not have surprised fans. The film was partially crowdfunded by a small army of loyal devotees. Though Leone requested only $50K to pay for a particularly effects-heavy scene, he received $250K by the end of the campaign. Though it wasn’t a huge story, the film clearly had a hardcore base ready to turn up and support it. This level of built-in fandom, however, isn’t enough to rack up almost $8 million at the box office. The general audience’s perception of the franchise, the director,and the trademark villainwas either negative or nonexistent. Something had to contribute to the film’s success.
People often refer to action blockbusters and superheromovies as theme park rides, some with more derision intended than others. There are quite a few ways in which fans who bristle at that suggestion could retort, but blockbuster cinema differs in experience from roller coasters in positive and negative ways. Most notably, you don’t have to watch the first few rides to get the full experience out of the newest one. Walking unbidden into a multiplex and sitting down to a multi-million dollar blockbuster will likely leave a viewer somewhat confused. Modern blockbusters need to sellthemselves as individual puzzle pieces. More and more, if fans aren’t at least somewhat in on the larger franchise, one project might fail to stand out. Horror movies, on the other hand, can sell themselves very much like thrill rides.
To sell an audience member on a comedy, the trailer has to convince the audience that it will be funny. To sell an audience member on a drama, the trailer has to tell them that it’ll be tense and moving. All a horror film has to do isconvince any given viewer that they’ll be terrified. Horror movie crowds love their franchises, but fans of the genre will turn up for anything that convinces them of its suitable spooky cred.Terrifier 2didn’t need a fancy trailer or celebrity testimonials. It needed a bunch of people on Twitter to rave about how scary it is, and that’s just what it got. New fans didn’t have to take in twenty tie-in projects to jump in on this franchise. They saw a movie about a scary clown, some friends or critics on social media, and that’s all they needed.
Terrifier 2worked at the box office for the same reason that most horror films have an easy time. Low barrier to entry, an extremely easy marketing pitch, and a never-ending supply of people who want to cover their eyes and scream at the movie theater. This is why the Blumhouse model works. Put out loads of horror, some of it good, some of it great, some of it terrible, and a few big hits willcompletely cover the flopsregardless of quality. Horror cinema can operate on a totally different business strategy than the rest of the industry, and that has almost always resulted in more interesting developments in the genre.Terrifier 2might not be a masterpiece, but its sleeper hit status is a monument to what’s so powerful about scary movies.
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