These are the 20 highest-grossing horror movies of the last five years:
The Ring (2002): $129.1m
The Village (2004): $114.2m
The Grudge (2004): $110.4m
Red Dragon (2002): $92.1m
Saw II (2005): $87.0m
Freddy vs. Jason (2003): $82.6m
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003): $80.6m
Saw III (2006): $80.2m
The Ring Two (2005): $76.2m
The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005): $75.1m
The Amityville Horror (2005): $65.2m
Gothika (2003): $59.7m
Dawn of the Dead (2004): $59.0m
1408 (2007): $58.8m (so far)
White Noise (2005): $56.4m
Saw (2004): $55.2m
The Omen (2006): $54.6m
Final Destination 3 (2006): $54.1m
Hide and Seek (2005): $51.1m
The Skeleton Key (2005): $47.9m
I'm not counting sci-fi terror tales like Signs or War of the Worlds or action/horror hybrids like Resident Evil or Ghost Rider. What this means is that the most popular horror movies are ghost stories (7 titles) followed by slashers (3), gore movies (3), devil/possession movies (2), and the rest (zombies, voodoo, monsters in the woods, etc.)
In other words: there is no epidemic of torture movies plaguing theaters, despite what the lazy bluenoses would have everyone think.
(Oh yeah, and I would only call six of these twenty good movies - numbers 1, 3, 6, 13, 14, and 18.)
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7 comments:
White Noise! I had no idea. Never saw it, but it got awful reviews and seemed to be regarded as a flop. It seems to be forgotten. And yet, it made comparable $ to Saw -- though I'm sure it cost a whole lot more to make.
Just proves that "hit" is relative when it comes to horror. A mega-grosser like The Exorcist doesn't come along very often, and it's easier to make a profit when the budgets are relatively low.
I'm quibbling, but Red Dragon could be deemed a hybrid as well; it's as much a police procedural as it is a slasher film. (It's also a piece of shit.)
(btw, it would be easier to tell which ones you liked if you put the numbers in front of the titles.)
I'd love to see the highest grossing horror films of all-time (possibly adjusted for inflation) and your personal faves. Anyone second this idea?
In the interest of reducing global levels of crypticness: the six movies on this list I would categorize as 'good' are (more or less in quality order): The Ring, Dawn of the Dead, 1408, Final Destination 3, Freddy vs. Jason, and The Grudge. The rest are all mediocre to bad, except for Hide and Seek, which I never saw.
Freddy vs Jason? No kidding? Not that I saw it.
1408 sorta worked, before it became an an onslaught of effects set-pieces. I generally agree with your review. It quit being scary to me when the too-literal, Disneyfied ghost-holograms appeared. See-through people are a step above sheets with eyeholes for me.
The Grudge (I assume you mean the original Ju-On) had some very original creepy imagery, but then it devolved into scare, rinse, repeat.
Freddy vs Jason? No kidding? Not that I saw it.
1408 sorta worked, before it became an an onslaught of effects set-pieces. I generally agree with your review. It quit being scary to me when the too-literal, Disneyfied ghost-holograms appeared. See-through people are a step above sheets with eyeholes for me.
The Grudge (I assume you mean the original Ju-On) had some very original creepy imagery, but then it devolved into scare, rinse, repeat.
Doppleganger-posts scare me. Can you put a stake through one of 'em?
No dice, you wrote it, live with it.
1408 worked worked well enough as a scare-ride to make the cut for me. Ditto Freddy vs. Jason, which has some dumb moments (they spend too much time trying to characterize the teens caught in the middle) but also some great stuff, like a flashback to Jason as a child at Crystal Lake being tormented.
And I actually mean the remake of The Grudge, which is less good than its predecessors, but in those movies, 'scare, rinse repeat' works fine for me - it's a simple formula that allows for an almost abstract distillation of haunted house tropes. (Hope that doesn't sound too pretentious).
well my friend this list is a few weird, but you put some movies that are so pathetic like dawn of the dead or land of the dead to me are pure crap.
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