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A version of this article originally appeared in Quartz\u2019s Obsession newsletter. <\/em> Sign up here to share our Obsessions in your inbox<\/em> <\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Horror has always been the genre of uneasy times, and 2025 is no exception. Once dismissed as schlock or teenage thrills, it has gone prestige, mainstream, and viral all at once.<\/p>\n Since its Sept. 5 release, The Conjuring: Last Rites<\/em> has grossed more than $400 million. TikTok teems with horror-core aesthetics. Horror novels from Silvia Moreno-Garcia to Rachel Harrison and Grady Hendrix routinely make bestseller lists. Meanwhile, Frankenstein<\/em> itself still sells about 40,000 copies a year, more than two centuries after its debut.<\/p>\n Why? The world feels scarier, and audiences want a way to process their fears. Psychologists say scary movies offer a form of controlled exposure therapy: You rehearse your dread in the theater so you can live with it outside. Plus, horror has one of the best risk-reward ratios in the entertainment industry \u2014 cheap to make, easy to market, and capable of creating a global sensation overnight.<\/p>\n To learn more, scroll down below \u2014 if you dare.<\/p>\n 40,000:<\/span> <\/a> Copies of Frankenstein<\/em> sold annually in English alone \u2014 which is not to count the millions of copies already in print.<\/p>\n $4.25 million:<\/span> <\/a> Budget for Talk to Me<\/em>, prestige horror house A24\u2019s best-returning film so far, which earned more than $100 million. That\u2019s a return of 2,200%+ against budget.<\/p>\n 350-400 million:<\/span> <\/a> Total books Stephen King is estimated to have sold throughout his career.<\/p>\n $402 million:<\/span> <\/a> Global box office haul for The Conjuring: Last Rites<\/em>, made on a $55 million budget. Less than a month after its release, it\u2019s the highest-grossing film of the whole franchise.<\/p>\n 2.3 billion:<\/span> <\/a> Views of content labeled as \u201canalog horror\u201d on TikTok as of last year. TikTok and YouTube have become major incubators of horror-genre innovations.<\/p>\n One paradox of horror\u2019s popularity is that people turn to it for comfort. Yes, really. Research suggests that watching scary movies helps people practice emotional regulation, testing out how they cope with fear and stress in a controlled environment. The terror comes with an off switch: You can leave the theater, close the book, swipe away.<\/p>\n This partly explains why horror thrives in eras of instability \u2014 the Great Depression (which gave us Universal\u2019s iconic monsters), the Cold War (Godzilla<\/em>, Invasion of the Body Snatchers<\/em>), the 1970s malaise (Halloween<\/em>, Texas Chainsaw Massacre<\/em>), and now our own age of plagues, climate change, AI anxiety, and political battles.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the immediate answer is the ever-applicable \u2018gestures to everything happening all around us\u2019 moment we currently find ourselves in,\u201d the horror novelist Clay McLeod Chapman<\/span> <\/a> told Quartz when asked to explain the category\u2019s exponential growth. \u201cAs real-world fears integrate themselves into our daily fabric, directly or indirectly, the escape into metaphorical horrors seems to offer a necessary salve.\u201d Chapman added that the diversity of the genre is contributing to growth, too. \u201cHorror has always been a big umbrella of subgenres,\u201d he said. \u201cNow those stories are being told by a wider range of storytellers.\u201d<\/p>\n The other explanation is commercial. Horror consistently delivers the best returns in Hollywood. Studios like Blumhouse and even more recently A24 have built empires on micro-budgets and viral marketing. Publishers have taken note, too, reviving classics while promoting a new wave of horror that blurs into literary fiction.<\/p>\n In other words, fear sells. But in selling, it also soothes.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you have the intuition that there is something which is there, but out of the reach of your physical world, art and religion are the only means to get to it.\u201d 1931:<\/span> <\/a> Frankenstein<\/em> premieres, launching Universal\u2019s monster era.<\/p>\n 1968:<\/span> <\/a> Night of the Living Dead<\/em> debuts, inventing the modern zombie.<\/p>\n 1973:<\/span> <\/a> The Exorcist<\/em> becomes the first horror film nominated for Best Picture.<\/p>\nBy the digits<\/h2>\n
Why horror feels good when the world doesn\u2019t<\/h2>\n
Quotable<\/h2>\n
\u2014<\/em> Guillermo del Toro<\/em><\/span> <\/a>, whose very own <\/em> Frankenstein<\/em><\/span> <\/a> comes out from Netflix on Nov. 1.<\/em><\/p>\nBrief history<\/h2>\n