It’s that time of year again when you grab a tub of popcorn and settle in for a cozy evening with a familiar slasher film — a haunted house, a masked villain and the perfect jump scare that you probably already know is coming but still eagerly anticipate.
While Halloween is a celebration of all things spooky, horror films in particular have seen a significant commercial boom in recent years. Critics dubbed 2023 “the year horror went highbrow” as films like Talk to Me, Beau Is Afraid and Pearl blurred the line between arthouse cinema and mainstream fright in 2022-23.
In 2025, horror remains the highest-grossing genre, earning more than US$54 million at the box office, with Sinners, Final Destination: Bloodlines and 28 Years Later topping the charts.
