Horror Report

Tag: horror movies

  • We know what you marketed this summer

    We know what you marketed this summer

    Sony Pictures has been freaking people out.

    Over the July 4th weekend, beachgoers and internet sleuths alike were buzzing as eerie images began circulating online—especially on TikTok—of a mysterious figure wandering around Santa Monica and other California beaches. The figure in question? A tall person in a long overcoat, floppy hat, and yes, a hook for a hand.


    If you’re getting I Know What You Did Last Summer vibes, you’re not alone. This lookalike of the iconic slasher from the original ’90s flick has stirred up enough social media panic to rival a real crime wave. But here’s the catch (pun intended): there’s been no actual crime reported. No attacks. No missing persons. No blood-soaked sand. Just a lot of hype—and a lot of speculation.

    @gd60702 Someone dressed up as the fisherman for I know what you did last summer and chased people around. #IKnowWhatYouDidLastSummer #Movie #FilmingTVCompetition #Drama #ForYou ♬ Suspense, horror, piano and music box – takaya



    And that speculation leads us to what seems like the most likely answer: marketing.

    Sony’s remake of I Know What You Did Last Summer drops July 18th, and this beachside boogeyman feels like a viral stunt straight from the studio’s playbook. If so, well played. It worked. People are talking, videos are trending, and the hook is back in the spotlight.

    But marketing stunts like this walk a fine line. They’re fun… until they’re not. In this case, no one has been hurt (as far as we know), and the buzz has only amplified awareness for a franchise that’s already been rebooted, remade, and revisited several times over.

    So will this version finally hook a new generation? Or are we all just too jaded to care?

    In case you wanted to forget, here are the ‘I still know I know I want to know and I didn’t know” film names thus far. Maybe it just FELT like there were more than there really were?

    I Know What You Did Last SummerOctober 17, 1997
    I Still Know What You Did Last SummerNovember 13, 1998
    I’ll Always Know What You Did Last SummerAugust 15, 2006
    I Know What You Did Last SummerJuly 18, 2025THE NEW ONE!



    In the end, the question becomes how many times can we remember what we did last summer… before we just stop caring?

  • Horror Is Saving the Box Office—Whether Hollywood Likes It or Not

    Horror Is Saving the Box Office—Whether Hollywood Likes It or Not

    Let’s face it: horror movies almost never win Oscars. In fact, they’re the black sheep of the film industry—looked down on, snubbed by critics, and ignored during awards season. But here’s the twist: vampires, zombies, and masked killers might just be keeping Hollywood alive.

    According to Reuters, horror is crushing it at the box office. In fact, horror films now account for 17% of North American ticket sales, up from 11% in 2024 and just 4% a decade ago. That’s a massive leap—especially at a time when even Marvel movies are losing their sparkle and blockbusters are struggling to find footing.

    Sure, horror flicks might only enjoy a week or two of dominance before fading from the marquee—but they bring in money. Real money. Just look at the numbers: even modestly budgeted horror films like M3GAN and its upcoming sequel rake in returns. And now, with Five Nights at Freddy’s II on the horizon, Blumhouse is reportedly betting big on another hit to rescue their financial year.

    Let’s not forget: horror has always been the genre the so-called “serious” critics roll their eyes at. But those same critics might owe their careers—and their fancy premieres—to the very genre they dismiss. Without horror keeping theaters afloat, where would people even go to watch those “Oscar-worthy” art films?

    So here’s to horror: the genre that fills seats, pays the bills, and keeps the popcorn popping.

    Long live the monsters.
    Let the vampires bite.
    And may the zombies keep on rolling.

  • The Ortega-less SCREAM

    The Ortega-less SCREAM

    Deadline is splashing and exclusive about the upcoming SCREAM 7: Ortega out!

    More..

    Jenna Ortega, who was heralded to be a huge draw in getting Scream VI to the horror franchise’s best opening grosses ever at $44.4M stateside, $67M global, isn’t expected to return for the newest film..

    According to DEADLINE, the departure has ‘nothing to do with the fallout from Melissa Barrera‘s firing yesterday by Spyglass Media over that actress’ social media repostings on the Hamas-Israel conflict’; nor does it have to do with the actress asking for an end to her Scream contract. Ortega and Barrera played sisters in 2022’s Scream and this year’s Scream VI respectively as Tara and Sam Carpenter

    Developing.. without a star.

  • No more true believers in the Exorcist franchise

    No more true believers in the Exorcist franchise

    Well…. It flopped.

    Various sources this morning are lamenting a weak weekend release for THE EXORCIST. Despite some appealing early buzz, the movie seemingly lost its way. It will reportedly earn $27 mil this weekend in domestic runs. Keep in mind the studio purchased the rights for .. drumroll.. $400 million

    Buyers remorse as the devil is in the details.

    Reporting from DEADLINE with analysis of what went wrong:

    Universal originally had the horror theatrical release date of Friday the 13th this month before AMC’s Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour landed on that date. However, going earlier really wasn’t the problem here for Exorcist: Believer. It was always in the execution.

    Social media analytics firm RelishMix noticed online chatter that had many piling on the rhetorical issue of remakes, as they questioned, “Why re-paint the Mona Lisa of Horror?”

    While horror has been bankable during the pandemic, and this opening for Exorcist: Believer (despite coming in under tracking’s $30M projection) in the wheelhouse of other genre openings, Evil Dead ($24.5M), Smile ($22.6M), The Black Phone ($23.6M) and Nun II‘s $32.6M, many still say that this actors’ strike, and performers’ unable to promote their wares is truly weighing down on ticket sales. A studio just can’t scream these movies from the hilltops in their promotions on social media, at premieres and festivals. Consider the fact that the phenomenal results for 2018’s Halloween began when Blumhouse blasted off the movie at TIFF’s Midnight Madness.

  • HAPPY DEATH DAY director takes the lead on SCREAM 7

    HAPPY DEATH DAY director takes the lead on SCREAM 7

    BLOODY DISGUSTING first reported this news today followed by the Hollywood Reporter..

    Spyglass “has tapped Christopher Landon, a scary movie stalwart whose credits include the Happy Death Day movies as well as body-switching horror-comedy Freaky, to direct the seventh installment of the long-running franchise.” Scream and Scream VI directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (Radio Silence) will remain on board as executive producers, as will Chad Villella.

    At this point it is assumed but there is no official word yet on who will be writing Scream 7, but THR reports that Melissa Barrera and Mason Gooding are expected to return.

    Of course this is all this contingent on Hollywood actually coming back soon from a writers strike..

    Screamers gotta Scream..

  • You should really see the BLACK PHONE in a movie theater

    You should really see the BLACK PHONE in a movie theater

    This weekend’s box office number 1 is expected to be ELVIS.. the biopic audience is skewing mostly female, and mostly over the age of 55.. But BLACK PHONE is surging beyond expectations..

    Box office numbers developing.

    But we have a message about BLACK PHONE: We highly encourage anyone who has not seen this film to experience it in a theater, with an audience. This movie should be taken seriously.

    It’s not filled with cliched horror jump scares.. It doesn’t have messy dialogue but intensely realistic and gritty ‘how it really was’ style acting about this period of time in American history.

    Nostalgia lies .. sometimes things were not so pretty to be a kid in the 1970’s or 80’s when a big threat that adults didn’t seem to care much about was kidnapping.

    And finally, the ‘horror’ of Black Phone is more akin to the horror of a crime flick–though in this case the police are neither bumbling but ultimately make importantly bad mistakes.

    See it with an audience because, without revealing spoilers, it is sure fun to experience the final dramatic and traumatic scene of the movie with others who have sat through each other minute of tension with you in the same room.

    (from left) The Grabber (Ethan Hawke) and Finney Shaw (Mason Thames) in The Black Phone, directed by Scott Derrickson.

    The release is amazing–the ability that this film had to deeply disturb your soul but also calm it at the end is amazing.

    Ethan Hawke was plain out horrifying in this movie. Exceptionally creepy.. Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw carried the entire movie so well.

    The acting is amazing.. the story line was incredible.. and that mask? That awful creepy mask?

    A new Halloween costume has been born..

    This movie is great. . There is just about nothing to criticize with Black Phone..

  • Winnie the Cruel

    Winnie the Cruel

    First let’s report what Variety has splashed across the Internet yesterday:

    A.A. Milne’s original “Winnie the Pooh” stories only lapsed into the public domain five months ago, but the tubby little cubby has already made his foray into slasher films.
    “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” wrapped earlier this month, and the first stills showing a demonic Pooh and Piglet about to pounce on a scantily-clad young woman relaxing in a hot tub have already set the internet on fire.
    In an interview with Variety, director Rhys Waterfield, who is in post-production on four other films including “Firenado” and “Demonic Christmas Tree,” said the response to the stills has been “absolutely crazy.”
    “Because of all the press and stuff, we’re just going to start expediting the edit and getting it through post production as fast as we can,” said Waterfield. “But also, making sure it’s still good. It’s gonna be a high priority”

    We get it.. due to licensing changes anyone can use Winnie the Pooh now in whatever way they want… But does something seems a little bit creepy about this at this time, doesn’t it?


    Maybe it’s the notion that we just got through another mass shooting, with this crime spree injuring and killing children.

    And now one of the last vestiges of innocence, Winnie the Pooh himself, is being turned into a blood curdling, murderous rampaging monster.

    Nothing is sacred in Hollywood anyway. But it’s just that something seems to be a little off kilter with announcing this news this week.

    Perhaps we are just getting old, gray, and a little more melancholy.. But .. let Winnie just be the Pooh.. (PS, we know the movie will suck anyway)

  • Nostalgia vault: When horror movie VHS’ haunted children across America!

    Nostalgia vault: When horror movie VHS’ haunted children across America!

    It was the decade of the Satanic Panic!! And movies, we were told, were going to destroy children!

    Or at least that is what the main stream media was telling us..

    ABC News’ 2020 took an in depth 1987 style look at VHS horror movies for rent–and how children across America were falling prey to their relentless atrocities..

    Boy oh boy.. if only Barbara Walters was able to see what the future held when she introduced this segment on that fateful Friday night..

    For some reason I feel that I, as a young child, watched this 20/20 special.. and then afterwards turned on Rhonda Shear’s UP all Night on USA NETWORK as she segwayed into a Friday the 13th or other horror movie…

  • SCREAM IS A HIT!

    SCREAM IS A HIT!

    Children of the parents of the SCREAM generation have gone to the movies this weekend..

    The newest installment in the SCREAM films is a hit..

    Estimates now in, and the horror film will take the number one spot on the box office charts from “Spider-Man: No Way Home” as it meets pre-release projections with a $30.6 million 3-day/$35 million 4-day opening from 3,664 theaters on Martin Luther King weekend…

    The return on investment will be decent too: SCREAM 5 was cheap to make. . It only cost $24 mil–which means it is already making profit.

    Martin Luther King weekend seems to be a strong weekend for horror releases at the box office..

    “Scream” is set to top the $32.6 million of Andy Muschietti’s “Mama” in 2013 while settling below the $46.5 million opening of M. Night Shyamalan’s “Glass” in 2019.

  • SCREAM GLEAMS

    SCREAM GLEAMS

    Paramount’s Scream is doing strong business in its box office opening, earning $13.4 million on Friday from 3,664 theaters for a projected weekend debut north of $30 million, based on early projections.

    The horror franchise created by the late Wes Craven should gross roughly $31 million for the three-day weekend and as much as $36 million for the four-day Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend ..