The Horror Boom: Breaking Down the Genre’s Biggest Trends with Stephen Follows

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Hello and welcome to a special Halloween episode of On Production brought to you by Wrapbook. Today I'm thrilled to host Stephen Follows, a film industry data researcher. Stephen latest project is detailed on horror movie report.com and it offers really fresh insights into the horror genre that are invaluable for filmmakers. Join me as we dive into his latest findings and discover the trends that define today's horror cinema. Stephen, welcome. Thanks so much. Thanks for inviting me on the podcast. Yeah, it's my pleasure. I mean, let's jump right in. Can you start by telling us about the current surge in horror film production. What do you think is driving this unprecedented boom? You're absolutely right. It's crazy. How many films? Because we all know that more films are being made over the last couple of decades of all genres, because it's easier to shoot a film, there's more distribution methods. Also, information is much more available as well. So there's already a trend of movies exploding in production, but horror is also gaining market share. So in this already exploding share, where exploding market so let's say, 20 years ago, about 5% 6% of films were horror films. Now it's about 12% so in this already growing market, there's already an increase in horror so we're seeing over one and a half 1000 horror movies made every year, which is, I mean, you couldn't watch them. I mean, you wouldn't want to watch a lot of them, I can imagine, but it is fascinating. And I think it's a few things, I think you know certainly, that it's easier to make a film than ever before. You can make a 4k film on the smartphone, and I went to film school in around 2000 I remember the pain of buying and processing film just to get anything on the screen. And then there's more ways of distributing stuff. There's more information about what films are. You don't really need to pay for film school. Film School achieves certain things, but it's more to do with the human interactions and social networking, things like that, rather than locked away information. But also within horror itself, there is a certain Well, first of all, it already supports low budget. It is the genre that is most made on low budget. So if we see a boom in low budget films, which is what we're seeing, then we're going to see a boom in horror. But also, I think there's an acceptance, like, if you think about the 1980s like, you know, video nasties, like VHS copies with these, like illicit films, almost, and like, it just felt sort of shame. But those people who loved those films have grown up and created more films, and as those people now run studios, and this shame has sort of morphed into pride, where people are like, Yeah, I love horror, or it's great fun and it, you know, it entertains the audience and all that sort of stuff. So I think there's a number of factors at play. I guess I'm really also curious, you know, so I was able to see a bit of a preview of your report, and one of the statements I believe it makes is that the American film industry is dominating horror production. How do you see this influencing global film markets. Well, I mean, yeah, you're absolutely right. Horror is, is about three quarters of all horror movies ever made. But that is shifting slowly, slowly, but it is shifting. So, for example, we've seen a lot more horror out of South Asia as well. So Indonesia has gone from almost having no horror films 20 years ago to now maybe a quarter of their films are horror films. So I think it's fantastic because you get to see completely different types of horror. You know, if you look at the ring, the Japanese version from towards the end of last century, and then you look at the American remake, it's a good remake, but it's also got to make changes based on how what we think of this as the supernatural, you know, what we respect, what we fear? And a lot of horror films are showing some a lot about people's culture. I mean, look at get out things like that, or us, or whatever these. These are films are by by design, reflecting the society. So when you get films from different countries and different places, not only do you get the joy of a film, that's great, but you also learn about another way of living in the world, another culture, like it's really you get thrown head first into it, and it's really exciting. That's so interesting. Stephen, so, like, I actually have a an interesting question on the inverse of that. So if what you're saying is true, that we can sort of see cultural mirrors as to what brings people horror, have you seen any correlation in differences in what brings different film cultures, joy, different like and it's not exactly it's a little bit off of the mark of us talking exclusively about horror, but I'm curious if the inverse is true, related to unique joys of certain cultures in their film crop. That's such a great question. I love it. What I would say is that in the past, I had a question. All my best questions come from my readers or from someone I chat to at a film festival or and someone said to me, do films with happy endings? Make more money than films with saddened and I really thought about it, and I tried to study it, and there's functional problems there, because what is a happy ending? You know, the end of Gladiator, both the villain and the hero die, but he's also in heaven, but with the wife and children that burn to death. I don't know if that's a happy ending, but also I.

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Thought, well, I'm going to study sci fi, Utopia versus dystopia. I thought, Okay, well, that's that's a narrower field. But then with every film, things go wrong. You know, Demolition Man happens in a utopia. And arguably, the utopia is pretty good. Actually. We laugh at it for being naive, perhaps, but it seems pretty happy, clean and safe, as long as the other people above ground, obviously, as with any film. So that becomes hard, but one thing I was able to measure a while back. I don't have the data with me in front of me, so forgive me if I get the numbers wrong, but I remember the message, and also we can link to it in the show notes. I did look at whether films with positive messages are more successful than those without positive messages. And so you might ask, Well, how do you how do you even know that? And it's because there are lots of parental groups that rate movies based on how much sex, drugs, violence, and some of them also measure things like capitalism, positive messages as well, which is separate to religion. It's they're often highly connected. But fundamentally, there are measures out there of of what people who are professional reviewers think of the positivity of a movie. So we're able to take them on mass and correlate them with things like box office, and, crucially, profitability, an estimate of profitability. And yes, so we found that actually, films with positive messages have do tend to make more money or be more profitable, as I suppose we're saying it, than films without positive messages. Now it might just be that there's an under supply, and so therefore, the ones that get through but I feel that. I mean, I don't. I think that the more recent Blade Runner film is absolute work of genius when it comes to art, but as a piece of entertainment that I want to watch. I mean, there's enough misery in the world, is there really? I mean, I get enough of that home. I don't need to pay someone else to make it all and so my personal as a film fan is that belief is that positive messages is where you want to go if you're making cold, calculated decisions as a studio Ed and I think the data backs it up, although there's obviously nuance within all of it. We can't say categorically that is the only answer, but I think the world would do you'd make more money if you over indexed on positive messages. That's a fascinating and then, but, you know, sort of the the classic themes or stories that we hear on the ground in the film production business is like, wow, let's go do a low budget, high production quality horror film and get 1,000x return. You know, like you do hear about that story, I think anecdotally, more often in the horror genre than on the sort of happy go lucky endings of films. Yeah, and there's a there's a few reasons. I mean, there is also the adage that if you put a puppy in a family movie, you'll make money, and that Freaky Friday as a template has done so well so often, that if you are making films, there are lots of positive templates you can take. It's just that they're less somehow filmmakers are less keen to talk about them. People wouldn't go, I made a puppy film, whereas they go, I made a horror film. So I think that's a cultural understanding of why people get into film, and also the types of people there are tend to be younger people who are more excited about running around with guns in Tarantino films and horror films with knives than they are about puppies and the goodness of the family unit. So that, I think that's a cultural thing about what we talk about, more than anything else. It's so interesting. Okay, well, going back a little bit, you know, in your research, you noted a high proportion of horror films, sort of emergent in Southeast Asian cinema. And you also mentioned that their lens of what is spooky or horror inducing are unique. I'm curious, what do these regional films bring to the horror genre? One of the things that film is so good at is taking you out of your perspective. And so whether that is as simple as you see someone of a different age, a different gender, a different background or whatever, but when you get supplanted into an entire different world, it's even more immersive, because you have to relearn certain rules about how people are respected or not, or how you achieve something. And if you want to feel powerless, there's nothing more powerless than not knowing the world you're in. So whereas some genres really struggle to translate across borders, I would argue that horror is more effective because there's even less information you have you're less comfortable, which is surely the point. And so there's lots of ways that you, I mean, if you look at things like VHS too, and things like that, they've taken them to different places around the world. And there's also a number of Indonesian horror directors that are sort of made a film called Satan slaves, which has done quite well. And so there are, these are films that are starting to find their identity and spread out there. And I'm really fascinated to see whether the government bodies are willing to back them, because in most countries, horror is underfunded when it comes to public funding, because there's, there's not a quite as proud as we, you know, we made this drama about life, where we made a film called Bio zombie like they don't tend to want to do that, but as it's reflecting their culture and it's coming from their filmmakers, we're going to have to see more of these public bodies stepping up and being like, yeah, We make horror films that entertain people, and we're proud of it, you know, let's export that to the world. That's great. So you've studied the most adapted authors in horror cinema, which I think is super interesting. How do these literary foundations shape the narratives and success of horror films today? Film comes is as a medium, I guess, is a combination.

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of the circus and literary. You know, in America, you had a lot more of a kind of a history of circus and Barnum and Bailey and things like that. And in Britain, it's much more of an extension of theater and literary and stuff like that. And so that's the origins of the movie business. And so some of the lot of the early films had were adaptations of books, because that was where the, you know, that's where Gothic started. I guess also, I think when you have a really powerful idea from a book, you know, Frankenstein, Dracula, it's a very flexible thing for you to be able to create a film about because what you're creating is about the character. You know, a long novel has way too many plot points and nuance and too much insight, because you can see into people's heads. You can jump around the world than a film can ever do. That's why, quite often, books are either truncated to be movies or split into multiple movies. But when you have such a compelling idea as Frankenstein or Dracula River, it's so flexible to be used in horror comedy or, you know, a terrifying film, or to do an unusual adaptation or tell it from a different point of view, or like met, like the Julia Roberts film, Mary Raleigh, which is the Frankenstein story from a different perspective. So there's so much more you can do with it. And there have been many, many centuries of books, so we're able to pick from the best of books just to find the best ones for the early horror films that set the tone. That's great. You know, this kind of brings me back to my first questions on just like the profitability of these films, in my mind, I'm thinking about some massive winners for Young Frankenstein or Zombieland or these things that have approached the horror genre but then actually subverted it and had happy ish endings or silly endings that are just purely sort of joy inducing versus horror inducing. I mean, what are your thoughts on that? Well, I think horror, I don't know if it stands alone from other genres, but certainly it does it a lot more than other genres, which is that it's a where it's a movie. Not all films like there are horror films that are there to try and pretend. You they're to pretend they're real. By the very nature of horror, you can't genuinely believe it's really happening. Otherwise you're seeing people die, and that's horrific. And we've got to maintain a little bit of that's an actress. She's probably got an agent. She's fine. There's a sequel. And so that the other end of that spectrum is the scream, like knowing wink, like we know this is a horror film that I re watched scream recently, and I'd forgotten how much of a great horror film it is by itself. It's terrifying. It's really well put together, as well as completely breaking down and funny, yeah, exactly. And it's fun to watch. And so it somehow that navigates the in out, it's a film, it's not a film, it's a film, it's not a film. And like, that's we need that as well. I mean, 90 minutes of being terrified would be exhausting and bad for our physical health, I'm sure. And so horror manages to do that really well, in a way that drama doesn't, drama doesn't doesn't say these two aren't really married, they're not really getting divorced. It's fine, the kids are going to be okay. You don't do that. You say in that moment. And so horror lends itself to that awareness and that comedy and that element. And I think a good filmmaker can use that as part of their paintbrush of tools of working out, when is this real? I mean, great example, it's cabin in the woods, which is a great, hilarious film, yeah, wonderful. Great comedy by itself. It's a great horror by itself, and it's both. And the tempo of when it is scary and when it is genuinely funny is so well paced that it just, it's great. It just flies by. And there aren't many genres that can pull that off. I don't think one of the things that you're just having me reflect on in such an interesting and beautiful insight. But you know, when you think about the pacing and the beats of a great horror film that sort of knows itself. It is using all of the film craft to pull you in, to remove the idea of your belief that it's a film, and then it lets you back in, like, Nope, just kidding. It is a film. And then does it again with the pacing, the music, the structure of the scene, and then, Nope, just kidding. And to be able to do that act over act is really amazing, especially because we know going into this it's a lie, like you know, we know it's not real, and yet it's the genre that pulls us in the most. And there was one, one thing that I studied, and I found this out before the report, but was able to go deeper into it for this report, which really blew my mind when I found it, but then when I thought about it, it made perfect sense, which is, by the way, the perfect template for any bit of discovery, something that you didn't know, that you find out, and then you think about it, and it adds depth to what you already knew. So I looked at the average shot length, how long between cuts in all movies and different genres, and the fastest are sci fi adventure and action, where there's sort of an average about four seconds per shot across a whole movie. So that is, I mean, obviously there's some fast cutting in there, but horror is at the other end, horror is about 16 seconds on average per shot, even more so than drama. And initially I thought, no, no, that can't be right. That must be wrong. It must be within the you know, because it's visually exciting. And then the more I thought about I was like, No, it's about controlling what you see. It's about making you not look into the box or around the corner or hang on the fact that that victim is getting closer to their doom, and it's the control of what the viewer gets. And so that made perfect sense, and it was really.

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Be pleasing to discover that. But also it goes back to what you were just saying, which is in the So then you've got that technique. You've got that ability to control what people see and hear and understand. How do you use it in the hands of someone who's really talented, you know, Wes crazon, or Joss Whedon or whomever else it can just take you somewhere that you'd struggle to do with most other types of movies, that's fantastic. So one of the things I saw in the report that I thought was interesting is that remakes saw a peak in the 2000s I'm curious, what do you believe caused the surge, and why do you think we've seen a decline in remakes since then? Well, I think, I mean, a lot of these things are cyclical. I mean, the third horror film ever made was a remake. So, like, it is as old as the genre. There was a haunted castle film, which I think was made in French first, and then it was just, obviously just a short, but then it was remade as a English language one. And so the idea of a remake is as old as time, but yeah, you're right. We saw a peak in the 2000s of films based on on previous movies that really rare, and that was coming up to sort of 8% of horror films were based on some previous movie. But the thing is, if we think about what that is, is like a remake or a reboot, one thing that has not declined since the 2000s is the idea of being a sequel or part of a series. And in fact, actually the peak for that was the 1940s because there were so many of these that were in the sort of x versus y, you know, or even you know, Alba versus Costello, whatever album, Costello Meet whoever, or this versus that. And it is, and we would now call it the Marvel Cinematic Universe model, where you have connected films, but they're not necessarily in the in the same thing, but they are part of a series. And so we shifted away from reboots into part of a bigger universe, and like conjuring or whatever it would be. And as for why, I don't know all the answers, and I'm not 100% certain, but I do think it was about a time where those people from their 1980s and 1990s who grew up with horror, who weren't ashamed of horror, started to say, Okay, let's really go for it. And they started to pick up old franchises and say, Okay, we're going to reboot these as a keen audience. So then there was this, oh my god, there's all of the in the same way that when DVD came out, the first thing they did was re release all the old movies on DVD. And so then they have this boom of selling loads of DVDs because they remastered them, or no. Then after that, we getting a bit tired of that. But also some of those reboots produced franchises that continue, and so we don't need to do as many remakes. Not only have we remade a lot of them, so there isn't as much property lying around there, but also we can continue to make a derivative which I don't mean in a pejorative sense. I don't mean that's a bad thing. It's just by definition, they're not original screenplays. We can make more derivative films from those reboots. So I would see it as a sort of resurgence and a receding of the landscape, rather than because audiences hated them or anything like that. Here's an interesting question I saw in sort of looking at the preview of the report. I'm curious, can you discuss the trend of declining horror sequels but increasing box office revenue? What does this say about audience preferences? It's so interesting that you've asked me that in the framing of the audience, because there's two ways of looking at it. One is the audience, and the other is in the behind the scenes. Let's say the people that green light and market movies, and I don't know which is right, because it's into play the two. Obviously the people selling movies are trying to get the people buying movies to buy them. However, the people that buy them can only buy the ones that are offered. And crucially, we all know how powerful marketing is so it's a self sustaining loop where you need the people selling the movies and making and selling, I'm using here loosely, to have confidence in something, and then they push it to the exclusion of everything else, and then people buy it. So yeah, we're seeing, although there's a decline in sequels, the box office is well over 50% in the last few years of the horror box office theatrical worldwide that has gone to films that are sequels in some way. There's an obvious answer that people who commission films do so out of fear professionally. I'm not saying anything bad about them, but they've got a commission, they've got to put invest a lot of money and a lot of their own reputation in something, and they have very little upfront to know what's going to work or not. So when you have A or B, and A is a wholly original thing that you need to believe in, and B is something that worked before. And let's put a third factor in here. C is that your kids are at school and the fees are due like and this is a job for you, rather than a passion or purely a passion, you're going to take this what you think of as the safer option, given that it's all not safe anyway. So I think there's a certain amount of fear in the commissioning, but I also think that audiences do want the same but different. You know that old adage, when I watch a movie, very rarely do I not know the emotional experience I'm going to have a film festival will be the exception where someone says, oh, this film, you know you can and the film hasn't been seen by anyone, there's no reviews, and they're like, oh, go see this. And you're like, all right, but normally, and for the most experience, of most people watching a movie, you have already calculated in the emotional experience you're going to have. This is going to lift you up. It's going to terrify you. It's going to be familiar. It's the 50th time you've watched the office through so you know the episodes, whatever it is. And in the world where we're emotionally exhausted and surprised, constantly having.

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Bit of familiarity. And that's why kids like watching the same episode of Sesame Street 20 times, because there is something familiar. And so the what's the newest, most familiar thing? It's a sequel. You could watch the original, or you can watch basically the original, but with, you know, a new spin on it. And so there is a certain amount that that's what people want. I'm not sure it's the best for art, but that's another side conversation. Like it doesn't it is a spiral of derivativeness, which could lead to the squeezing out of original ideas. So I'm not making the case that it's a good thing, but I can understand on both sides, the selling and buying of movies, why people make unforgiving of the way they make the decisions to push sequels and to pay for sequels, that's a fascinating thing. And you can you mentioned a market cycle here. I mean, there could be a time where audiences feel fatigued from the same thematics or genres, and then that's an opportunity for a breakout story. And I would imagine there's times where the world is feeling fatigued by real life events, and they want the familiar comfort of genres that they've known. That actually brings me to a couple of funny questions from when I study report, you know, I believe your data shows an interesting trend in clown based horror films.

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Talking about that? Yeah, absolutely. Well, I don't hate clowns. I'm not a very anti clown, but I'm also not very positive clowns. I think most people aren't particularly bothered, and then some people really, really are. So I'm a bit worried about angering the clown lobby, mostly because if they turn up, it will be terrifying. But the studies that have been done in the world show that most people, I think it was something like 60 something percent of people, have some degree of fear of clowns, like it's there. They are fundamentally not the reassuring thing. They're sold as they are unsettling. And so we start from an unsettling place, but then there's been this sort of boom. So pre 1960s there were almost no clowns. And here I'm using clown as a proper rather than just these sort of this is the character who actually is a clown in some way, rather than just a big smile. And you know that all these things have gradations, but proper clowns, but it really was in the 2010s where we started to see so many proper clowns. And obviously we've had it come back recently. And I think it is horror likes to take something that feels safe and make it feel unsafe like that is the essence of a really good scary story is that it's you thought something was benign, or you thought it was safe, and it turns out, it's not like it's not your parents. They've been replaced. Invasion, the Body Snatchers. That's one of the most terrifying things. And so clowns are inherently sold to us as joyous, but also they're utterly terrifying. And so it's not hard to make a horror film. You know, to make sort of killer clowns, amount of space you can make that terrifying and fun. And I think that was the same killer clowns from outer space was 1988 and there was also clown house from 1989 so there was a few that kind of showed that actually. And obviously it in all its forms, TV and book. And then more recently, it's not that hard to make a terrifying film, I mean. And there are all the sub genres that horror clowns appear in within horror films torment and gore the most. There's not really been many post apocalyptic clown horror movies. But maybe there's a niche in the market. Maybe there's a gap, I don't know. Maybe it's coming. Maybe after this episode airs, an astute filmmaker will make it happen.

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Another interesting thing I saw Is it true that the role of aquatic monsters is rising in horror films, yes, and this is one of the ones where I absolutely love because there's no way we're going to figure this out, right? Let's say that I hadn't done the data, and you and I were sitting there chatting, there's no way we're actually going to figure this out ourselves. But when we start looking at the the monsters that are in monster movies. So this is within, say, all of horror as a genre, and then you look within monster movies as a sub genre of horror. I looked at the different types of monsters and I put them into the biggest categories were flying aquatic and then land based mammals. And land based mammals are the largest, although they're declining, and since around 2000 we started to see aquatic monsters really rise from about they were about 20% of monsters to about 40, coming up to 50% if we were to project forward, who knows? It's a very clear trend, and so I believe it's true, and the graphs in the in the report, but I was talking with a few people about it, because I equally found it fascinating. And one of my friends, who is a producer, she produces horror films, she said that she feels that it's because visual effects have improved and land based mammal that is a monster is is a man in a suit? I hate to break it, but it's, it's a man going Ra. But an aquatic monster needs a lot of special visual effects, right? Let me ask you a question. This is a hot take. Is Godzilla? An aquatic monster? You know you could Godzilla is everything to everyone. Because every reboot, every kind of cycle they go, there is two versions of Godzilla. Godzilla is the solution. Godzilla is the problem. And in them, we've had, we've been through this, you know, post modern, post post modern, post post post modern, where all heroes are just misunderstood. And if only we understood their childhood, we'd be fine. And then they go.

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Back to being malevolent and and that's what we've seen in all the versions of Godzilla. Godzilla definitely swims pretty damn good. I would say that he would probably in most of the Godzilla films come out as a land based mammal, but there are some where he's clearly swimming, and it's in the essence of that film, what is, what is the version that that filmmaker has decided to tell rather than there being some platonic, perfect Godzilla that we all should be tracking, that was a tremendously political non answer. Steve,

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damn it, I thought I got away with it. You know, it is funny though to ask you and to shift from aquatic sea monsters to reward events, right? So whether Godzilla is or is not an aquatic monster. There are many people that really think about Godzilla as a meditation on the horrors of World War Two and the occurrences of real events in the world that are horrific. And I was really curious, in addition to like, the example of Godzilla, and in relation to this description that you gave of horror going through cycles where sometimes consistent fantasy that is comfortable is popular, and then we become tired of that and we want novelty. Could you elaborate on how these themes of real world things like, for example, infection in horror films has evolved, particularly in relation to events like the COVID 19 pandemic. I mean, can you, can you maybe thread the needle for us between sort of fantasy horror versus horror as a meditation on real world situations? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, we have to start from, you know, every photo is a lie, every film is a lie. Everything is constructed and even documentary. But when we start making horror fiction films, we are making almost everything up. However, we are also reflecting real world. Everything is there as metaphor in some way. More More importantly, we are connecting it to the world in which we live and thinking, and horror more than endless any other genre you're thinking, how would I survive? Like the best idea for a horror film is one that you can easily understand and then walk around with even before you've seen the movie. And think about like the purge, what a great idea. One day a year, you can do whatever you want. Films like that really help, because they allow us to do one purpose of film and entertainment is which is simulation allows us to think, Well, I mean, I think that's part of the reason why Marvel movies are so successful, is because loads of people are thinking, Well, what if I become one like, I just need to do the research. In case I'm in case I can I really am a superhero. I mean, I don't think I am, but it'd be good to find out, good to be ready if I found out. And so horror does that more than most pandemics are fascinating, because the boom in pandemic based horror movies was actually around 2000s

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so 28 days later, really kicked off. It's not great film, and on so many levels, it's a great film, but it's also shot on a lower budget and did really interesting things. And it's sort of it's not quite patient zero, but it is a film which did kick off loads of other pandemic based films. And so the boom in pandemic based films is pre COVID 19, which is fascinating, because it means that, I don't know if you remember the beginning of lockdown, things like contagion and things like that, were doing fantastic. Was like the number one film on the Apple Store and stuff like that, because people were like, they couldn't get from the news or from the politicians or from the doctors. What does this mean? Because we didn't know, but we could go through simulation, and when there were a few movies that had enough points that overlapped with what we were hearing on the news, it felt relevant. I mean, it's not relevant because, I mean, some films are going to be accurate, some are not, but it felt relevant. And there was a really fascinating film that was just, it was a good film, but it was also just the craziest timing. There was a film called the pink cloud from a Brazilian filmmaker, and she made a film she shot it before the pandemic, and it was about this mysterious pink cloud that goes over the city, and it's in the air with an infection, so everyone basically goes into lockdown. And she made and shot this film before the pandemic, but it came out in the 2020, Sundance selection. And it's so interesting because it it's only a fiction film. There are loads of fiction films we talked about. There are 1000s of horror films. This film practically has no relevance any more than any other film. However, it felt so timely. It felt so relevant. It felt so important to watch that it was appreciated, and went far further because of it, which is, you know, great one. Well, that's wonderful. So film has that way of being able to do that. But I mean talking about real life events, I so one of the side gigs I do is that I work for Guinness World Records, adjudicating movie records, but usually stupid movie records, like well, ones with data or whatever. And I have recently, in fact, this might be the first airing of it. This is an exclusive new world record that's been created that you're hearing about for the first time on this podcast. And this has been accepted and will be in the book that we're writing that's going to come out in 2025 that will be called the 2026 book, which is the least realistic genre, has gone to rom com.

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Yeah, and my explanation as to why is because it is the genre that is least based on real life events. And which is fascinating, because I found it out during this doing the research for horror films, I thought horror would be the least based on real events, given what's in horror films. But no, there are lots of horror films that now here's the crucial word, claim to be based on real life events. And so that became a really interesting conversation, because you can imagine myself and lots of other people that work at Guinness are just nerds who love talking about like, well, is that actually based on a real live event? And if you say that there is the devil has possessed this woman in 1980 and we've made a film about it, you might be true in saying we made a film about the Accu you know, the claims that this happened, or even that this woman existed, but given that I personally don't believe the devil existed or actually possessed someone, is it based on a real life event? I don't know. And so is the country real of The Exorcism of Emily Rose? And also, people lie as well, like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre says it's based on real life event. It's really not. It's based on a person, but it's horror sometimes. I mean, nice Fargo as well. It's just, as I was just gonna say, the Coen brothers were geniuses for saying at the very beginning of the film that it was based on true events. Utter genius, because the whole like, it's so funny that we believe that they wouldn't lie to us, even though we're watching a fiction film written by people to entertain us. But yeah, so horror is not the genre with the most based on real life, but it's more than you think. I love that. You know, there's a classic sort of observation by magicians that, like people, are very astute when it comes to you lying to them on its face, but if you lie twice or three times, but the the underlying premise is a lie, but then you give all these other details and you let them in that it's a lie. But this one is like, they'll believe it like it was just, it's the lot. It's like holding on to the facts is very difficult for people. I've got a friend who works in production, and I'll keep the things fake, so I'm not causing a problem. But there is a very well known magician that has done TV things, and I know this person quite well. So I said, not the magician, but the crew member. And I said, so how do they do it? Because I know that's true and that's true and that's true, and they didn't say anything. They just looked at me with these dry eyes of like, come on and what in through their lack of information, I picked up, oh my god, they're just lying.

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Yes, like, that's exactly what I was like. Because I was like, Well, we know he didn't do this. And, like, Uh huh. Who told you that? I'm like, oh yes, shit, sorry, right? Of course, yes, my homo sapien brain is subject to being easily fooled. Yes,

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32:41  

hilarious. Okay, shifting a bit from your data, Stephen, what have you found to be the most critical factor in the profitability of horror films? So what I mean by this question is just brass tacks. If you're a filmmaker listening to this podcast, maybe you've done some films before. Never horror. You're thinking about it. What do you think are just like first principles, thinking around best practice related to profitability in the horror film genre? Well, I mean, I try not to stray too much within to the creative realm, because I genuinely want filmmakers to make their own films. I don't want to make them from a formula thing that would be bad for them and also bad for the world. So I kind of, I'm trying not to step too much into the realm of, here's a story you should tell that said, I do think horror, the best horrors do tend to have a premise that is easily transmitted as a sort of social contagion. It's got to be an idea that you could that fully lives within the head of the audience. And so some of the ones that I really like, like, for example, teeth or Provenge, which are both fascinating horror films that you can

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absolutely like. Walk around with it in your own head, and then you want to see how the filmmakers did it, or the purge, as I described earlier on. So there's got to be a visceral social contagion of the idea through ideally the title, although, let's be honest, it's probably going to be a sentence or two after that, this film is about x and Blumhouse has done fantastically well to to come up with films that have that, but then they put a star into it, because a star isn't going to save anything like it's not just going to be good enough to have someone famous in it. This isn't a genre that will support that on its own, but it can be an accelerant to an idea. So it needs to have a thing about it that makes people go, ah, and then it stays in their head. It can't be something that you have to feed them. And so there's that, I think also, you have to make a very clear promise to the audience of the as I said, the emotional experience they're going to have. So terrifier Three is currently doing great guns, and that their promise, their promise is, can you survive? Can you? Can you watch this and like that is so powerful. It doesn't appeal to me. I never seen that movie, but I get that. I might even recommend it to people. I may never see it, but it's such a powerful, clear pitch that I would be able to pitch it to friends of mine who I think might enjoy it. And so if you can go through people who are never seeing your movie and still use them as advocates, that.

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35:00  

A powerful idea. So, I mean, that's, that's a great point. I mean, for me, like the saw series had sort of that underlying premise, which is, like, can you get through this? And if you can, can you get through 23456,

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35:12  

and seven? You know,

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35:15  

it'll never end. And I think that's what's so good. It's a perfect franchise material as well, because it's not about this individual character that you want to see survive the way that you might for other series or whatever. This is fundamentally about the experience it's it's so franchisable and also so repeatable you're enjoying. I mean, final destination is another great example of that, where you just can keep printing them because you are delivering them, you're not just delivering the same thing. It's not recycled. It's just a new variation of the same thing. So I would say that that is on the creative realm, a powerful idea, easily communicated, that lives in people's heads. That would be very powerful when it comes a bit more to the production side of things. Obviously, it's almost asinine to say the lowest you can make it, the more money you're gonna, you know, make, the lower the bar for profitability is how and horror does more than any other genre, thrive on low budget. Poor picture quality, maybe not sound. Sound is incredibly important, but poor picture quality can add to something the way it might not be able to in others, and also not quite janky effects, but the audience are much more forgiving of something visually if it's emotionally working. So you've got audience on your side, but you also do have to make sure that you are delivering a full experience. And I think there is a slight myth in the industry that you can make a film on any budget, because you physically can. You can make 90 minutes of material, but whether you can properly deliver it and get it within the professional world, where you've got contracts, you've got completion bonds, you've got, you know, the relied the full chain of title and fully filled sound that can be distributed. I mean, I'm producer. Friends of mine tell me, sort of a million is sort of the level where you could probably keep making films, whereas below that, it's something else. It's just calling card. It's a showcase, at which point I would suggest making a short film. Make a very, very deep, but short in length version of it. I mean, smile came from a short film and was hugely successful. So you don't need much of it, but it needs to be the full version of it. That's fantastic. Stephen, I was wondering, did you find any correlation in the rise of the horror genre related to digital tools becoming available? Because I ask in that I've been around a lot of unscripted and reality television producers, and they directly correlate the rise of their genre to the availability of digital film tools and cameras. Did you find or do any research around that? Yeah. I mean, there's a very high correlation, but we do have to be careful about correlation not being causation, because it happened at the same time. Now it makes logical sense, because, as I said, that horror genre thrives on a low budget, and also it appeals to audiences who are more willing to watch low budget, and also to the filmmakers. The Age of filmmakers is slightly lower for horror films than the average age for other genres, and so they tend to have less resources, because you've had less time to sort of get the resources in your life. So yeah, I think it is the perfect genre for low budget, and explains some of that explosion. And also, then you have these really iconic films, whether it's Blair Witch or paranormal activity. You have availability bias. You can imagine a low budget film on a new technology that is a horror film that could thrive, whereas you don't naturally get that with sci fi, like you can make a sci fi on a handycam 15 years ago, of course you could. But it was things like monsters, which was an unusual film, in the sense that it was a low budget sci fi on more sort of monster, sorry, the Gareth Edwards film, who went on to make Godzilla, but he did it on a very low budget, couple of actors and look visual effects himself on his laptop. That is unusual for sci fi in horror, that's the template. The template is you just, I mean, when I was at film school, I was told the way you make a horror film is you get four kids, you take into the wood and chop them up, like that's all you need to do. And then it's very reductive, but it does. No one has that about other genres. You don't. You don't say that about sci fi. All you need to do is get four people, put them in a space, or, very rarely, like a film, like a film like Gattaca was, like, probably relatively low budget, phenomenal, but, like, very literary, driven, very driven by, like, interesting. That's That's really interesting. I mean, lastly, Stephen, I've got to ask, so does the data show anything related to strategies for releasing to maximize audience engagement. You talked about some of these things that are sort of happy accidents, right? Pink cloud during a time when the culture was interested in this, but just broadly across the genre, across the research. How should filmmakers strategize? I think it's have a very clear concept early on, maybe before the script. Have a very, very clear idea. And this goes back to the creative concept, and then think in two years time, when you've made it, and let's say it's the best version of that concept, how are you going to most make that live within the largest number of people? And so as we talked about Terra five, three has just come out, and they've done a terrific job in selling the can you cope with this movie? And the way they did that was that they.

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40:00  

These talker screenings with unsuspending audiences. And it turns out, from what I can understand from the outside, they did everything honestly. I don't think they literally lied to anyone, but they did manage to get audience test screening, audiences who knew they was going to see some sort of holiday film, who didn't know it was a horror film. So having people walk out and vomit is probably very exactly, is exactly what happened. And apparently the theater that was running these test screenings also didn't know that there was going to be a film that was this extreme. And so what you've then got is these stories of people, you know, eight people walked out, four people threw up, and then they've got all these footage of people going, I loved it, but I've three people next to me, couldn't take it like they knew when they were making the concept of terrifier three, what would sell in the future few years, you know, year two from there, when they finished the film and they thought, how are we going to make that fun and viral as an idea? And they delivered it. So my question, my sort of rhetorical question, to a filmmaker who's thinking of putting a horror film together, wants to do it as you said, as tactically as possible, is to say, what is the thing, or the couple of things about your film that is just going to captivate make people have to see your film specifically, and then how are you going to communicate that to the audience through whatever medium you use, whether it's social media, talking, screenings, marketing, if there's a budget, whatever it is. And if you can't describe that before you write the script, or before you commit anyone's money, you're not ready. You're just not ready. And you can do this for other genres, but it's a lot more nuanced. Like for drama, you have to think about what the trailer might be. Can you boil the story down to be a compelling question? But for horror, it's so much simpler. It's a conversation. But if you are an investor and you are thinking putting money into a horror film, you should be able to, in a couple of sentences, be able to communicate to somebody who might go and see it, what it is, and they should be excited to see it and annoyed that it's not out yet. If you can't do that, put your checkbook away because it's not ready yet. That's awesome. Well, Stephen, this has been such a wonderful and insightful conversation. Thanks for all of the spooky insights. Can you tell our listeners where can they find you? Where can they find the report? Yes, thank you for inviting me. This has been so much fun. I could do this for us. Horomoviereport.com and there's a couple there's a couple of versions of the report. There's a one for film fans, which is just the 400 odd pages of graphs and charts and stuff. And then there's a film professional version, where you can get all the data as Excel spreadsheets. There's a couple of bonus reports on film festivals and business plans how to write a business plan for horror film both at horror movie report.com and if you have any questions that aren't replied in the report or about things others to do with horror i@stephenfollows.com

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42:25  

and I, as I said, my best questions come from my audience. I would love to hear if you have a question about the industry, especially if I data might give you the answer. I love this, and any interaction that I get from the audience always makes the work better. So yeah, stephenfollows.com is probably the best place outside of the hover report, beautiful Stephen, thank you for joining me on on production. Thank you. Thanks so much.