Why Do Horror Films Make So Much Money?

Another reason that I have elected to make a horror film is because they bring in SO MUCH MONEY. For example, The Blair Witch Project was able to garner an audience without using trailers before the movie was released, the producers of this film made up a website that described the disappearance of three college kids while working on a project for their film class on the Blair Witch. This curiosity and multiple fake news reports gathered the world’s attention. 

When it was announced that the “found footage” of the missing students would be shown in theaters, millions of people went to watch. This marketing strategy allowed the film to gross nearly 250,000,000 dollars on only a 60,000 dollar budget. This film also created a spin-off called Blair Witch which garnered another 40,000,000 dollars.

Another example to show just how much money a horror movie can garner is The Sixth Sense  M. Night Shyamalan's third film (and his highest grossing). This film gained A TON of attention when the plot twist to end all plot twists was revealed to be in this film. 

The film garnered almost 300,000,000 dollars during it's theatrical release and people are still talking about that plot twist today.  The horror film genre is definitely a relevant genre that will be able to gather people's attention. 


Citations: 
The Blair Witch Project (1999). (n.d.). Retrieved March 17, 2017, from http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=blairwitchproject.htm

The Blair Witch Project. (n.d.). Retrieved March 17, 2017, from http://www.blairwitch.com/project/main.html

M. Night Shyamalan. (n.d.). Retrieved March 17, 2017, from http://www.boxofficemojo.com/people/chart/?view=Director&id=shyamalan.htm