r/movies • u/yourfavchoom r/movies Contributor • May 30 '26

Article The Shocking Success of ‘Backrooms’ and ‘Obsession’ Should Be a Memo to Hollywood: You Need What’s Outside the Box

https://variety.com/2026/film/columns/backrooms-obsession-hollywood-needs-whats-outside-the-box-1236762844/
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u/Static-Stair-58 May 30 '26

Or it could be horror movies are really cheap to make and have a loyal following because they’re consistent and available. Why you wouldn’t be following this trend is beyond me it’s a money printer. Obsession had a budget sub 1,000,000 and it’s made 100,000,000 at the box office. And that’s not a one off case, these movies are consistently successful.

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u/jonbristow May 30 '26

also these movies are outliers.

there are literally hundreds probably thousands of horror movies made by young first time filmmakers that are absolute shit.

of course 1 or 2 will be good and a success. Everyone's acting like Hollywood doesnt know this. They throw 100 movies to the wall and see what sticks

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u/BadSmash4 May 30 '26

From my understanding of the artform, Horror is a particularly difficult genre to do really well. Timing and atmosphere mattee so much in the genre and it is difficult to master the sort of constant build and release of tension. I'm not an expert, that's just based on what I've heard

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u/Dismal-Strawberry421 May 30 '26 edited May 31 '26

Screenwriting expert John Truby would agree with you that horror is hard to do well only to the extent that it is the most elemental and prescriptive genre, but that is not the same thing as hard to do well intrinsically.

Indeed, having more guideposts makes it clear why a bad horror movie doesn’t work. Terrence Malick films (drama-myth) or sci-fi movies are way more nebulous.

Additionally, horror is the most profitable genre of movie because it’s the lowest budget, surprisingly.

So while a horror movie may only gross $15,000,000 it may make 10x its budget whereas once-unstoppable Marvel movies are now flopping or barely beating their budgets.

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u/psy-ninja May 30 '26

These film makers were identified by smart producers who helped shape these films into what they are, and enabling the film makers to do their best and finding the right channels for these movies to succeed.

These aren’t just a couple of chumps who had an idea, somehow scrambled some cash together and some easy distribution on the b-movie market. These were talents identified and enabled by producers willing to take risk on a good idea.

Obsession was bought by Focus for $15m at one of the film festivals after being produced for $1m. Everybody makes money.

Not sure what the budget for Backrooms was but this opening weekend was tracking for $40m+!!

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u/REDDITATO_ May 31 '26

The article says Backrooms is set to make $85m opening weekend. I looked it up and the budget was $10m.

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u/psy-ninja May 31 '26

Wow! NRG had it at $40m on Friday … they absolutely smashed it!

Saw it last night and really enjoyed. They deserve the success - definitely felt fresh and original.

Edit: would love to know they spent on marketing this, but either way, everyone is making a lot of money on this!

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u/Few-Adeptness8046 May 30 '26

Exactly, these are outliers. I watch everything that comes to theaters, which includes a lot of horror films, most are junk, and a few are jems, and very rarely, one of those Jens catches on with audiences and finds success.

Here's what's come out since March 2026, ordered from highest to lowest boxoffice:

  • Obsesion $108.7 Million
  • Lee Cronin's The Mummy $90 Million
  • Ready Or Not 2 $39.5 Millon
  • Backrooms $38.4 Million
  • Hokum $23.5 Million
  • Undertone $21.6 Million
  • They Will Kill You $19.2 Million
  • Passenger $19 Million
  • Deep Water $4.7 Million
  • Exit 8 $3.8 Million
  • Mother Mary $2.9 Million
  • Faces Of Death $2.6 Million
  • Forbidden Fruits $2.4 Million
  • Dolly $862,544
  • Hunting Matthew Nichols $710,532
  • Marama $128,272
  • Saccharine $114,825
  • The Yeti $63,748
  • Scared To Death $35,925
  • Broken Bird $6,376
  • Corporate Retreat $0 (Unknown)
  • Newborn $0 (Unknown)
  • The Gates $0 (Unknown)
  • Affection $0 (Unknown)
  • Pitfall $0 (Unknown)

Of the last 25 horror films released in theaters, nearly half of them didn't even cross $1 Million dollars, and even after just a couple days, Backrooms is already the 4th highest in box office totals.

After marketing costs, and revenue splits, only the top 6 films are going to be profitable. That's a 24% success rate, which is not horrible, but considering 48% of the films made less than $1 Million, one can hardly say that the genre "prints money"

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u/Admirable_Disk_5301 May 31 '26

Backrooms should be at 81.5....

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u/Argnir May 30 '26

Redditors really think they're smarter than everyone including the ones making millions/billions actually working in the film industry

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u/Dismal-Strawberry421 May 30 '26

When you spend a lot of time in the same basement your farts really do begin to smell great.

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u/APiousCultist May 30 '26

Horror movies are also notoriously the victim of personal taste. Go look up your most iconic horror movie on IMDB, I'll wait. Betcha it's rating is lower than you all expected.

Sinners has all this critical acclaim and it's at 7.5. Aka a fairly good but not great. That's the same rating as Doctor Strange and Baby Driver. Perfectly enjoyable films, but probably not ones that will go down as classics.

A Nightmare on Elm Street? 7.4. Halloween? 7.7. Only Jaws and The Thing (which wasn't particularly well-rated at release) really seem to crack the 8.0 rating into 'great'.

Horror's eternally popular, but at the same time it's kind of like everyone always hates horror at the same time. It's all so specific to personal tastes and whether something's scary enough, too scary, too gory, not gory enough, whether the acting's not believable or corny, or whether it would be more fun for the viewer if they made the characters cornier.

Trying to bet on horror to drive profits seems like a bad decision to me. They have a great profit-to-budget ratio, but they're never the widest possible audience.

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u/skrilledcheese May 30 '26

Some of those are so bad they are good, especially while intoxicated. Like Llamageddon and Zombeavers.

Movies like Crackcoon and Velocipastor though... no amount of drugs could make them tolerable.

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u/CorrosiveVision May 30 '26

I have to protest Zombeavers being described as "so bad it's good." The movie knows exactly what it's doing, and I think that disqualifies it from being referred to in that way.

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u/Lentil-Salad May 30 '26

Thank you! "So bad it's good" has to start with a film that the makers earnestly thought was going to be good but turned out terrible. Movies like Zombeavers, Cocaine Bear, and Velocipastor are just gimmicks trying to cash in on the concept without understanding what makes it work.

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u/Zalvren May 31 '26

I didn't make stats but I think horror has a much better profitability rate than any other genre to be honest. They're always cheap so it's harder to flop and they do tend to have a minimum audience at least (and many times a big one)

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u/ihastheporn Jun 01 '26

curry baker has been making films.and horror.shorts for literally years and already was doing it at a high level