Much has been made of the general slowdown of movie ticket sales the last few years, but there's one unexpected safe bet still in Hollywood —scary movies.
Not to say that major blockbusters like this summer's "Jurassic World" don't reward the creators, it's just that horror films have a staggering return on investment (ROI), NPR reported.
"('Jurassic World') has made $1.6 billion in profit worldwide, but it cost an estimated $300 million to produce and market. That's an ROI of roughly 533 percent," NPR's Planet Money reported recently. "By contrast, the horror hit 'Paranormal Activity 2' made $236 million but only cost $9.4 million to produce and market. That's an ROI of 2,510 percent."
According to NPR, blockbusters like "Jurassic World" are like winning in Las Vegas — sometimes a big bet means big rewards. Horror movies, on the other hand, are the Hollywood equivalent of a smart investment. In 2013, scary movies like "The Conjuring" and "Insidious Chapter 2" had bigger ROIs even than the year's major blockbusters like "Iron Man 3" or "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire."
Yet besides being relatively cheap to make, there are other reasons horror movies are enjoying renewed success from the 1970s slasher-film era: They've changed.
No longer simply blood-and-guts murder romps, many modern horror movies are designed to make their audiences think — about morality, about the value of life and what comes after death. As the Atlantic pointed out, "The Babadook" wasn't just a scary movie about a disturbed little boy, it was about the grief of the loss of a loved one and single parenthood. As the plots move away from corn-syrup blood and into real themes that matter to most people, it's easy to see why horror movies like "It Follows" are earning top film festival honors.
Email: chjohnson@deseretnews.com
Twitter: ChandraMJohnson