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U.S.|Halloween Season Is Here. Bring on the Horror.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/26/us/halloween-season-is-here-bring-on-the-horror.html
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It’s the season for scary movies. After I put my kid to bed on Friday, I plan to watch “The Shining” for the 300th time. Maybe you’re planning a “Friday the 13th” marathon. The home screen of every streaming service is full of options this week.
But for Hollywood, spooky season is a year-round affair. As the movie industry struggles to get people into theaters, horror is a bright spot. The genre has accounted for a growing share of ticket sales over the past decade. And this year, it hit a new high — 17 percent of the U.S. box office, more than drama and comedy combined.
Why is horror soaring? I asked Brooks Barnes, The Times’s chief Hollywood correspondent, to help me understand.
Tom: First, we should establish some horror bona fides. Do you have a favorite scary movie? Is there a limit to how scary you can go?
Brooks: I have a gore limit. My horror sweet spot is probably creeping dread, like when Clarice descends into the basement in “The Silence of the Lambs,” or when the cemetery Rottweilers are circling in the original “Omen.” My first horror movie was “Children of the Corn,” which I rented on VHS in secret as a fifth grader and watched alone.
You must have been terrified by yourself! People like getting scared together at the movies, right? I checked the Times archives from 1974, after “The Exorcist” came out, and we wrote that the movie was “drawing long lines at box offices from coast to coast.”
