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2025 has seen the release of two enormously popular original horror films in the form of Ryan Coogler’s jazz-era vampire music movie, “Sinners,”<\/a> and Zach Cregger’s witchcraft-in-the-suburbs flick “Weapons.” Between the pair, “Sinners” was the more expensive, costing $100 million to produce compared to a more modest $38 million for “Weapons.” All the same, they were both astonishingly successful at the box office, especially for horror films not based on any established intellectual properties. Another notable horror success from this year was Michael Chaves’ “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” which brought in nearly half a billion dollars. However, that film was both the fourth mainline entry in the “Conjuring” franchise and but one of the many movies in the broader, interconnected “Conjuring” cinematic universe.<\/p>\n One might be tempted to say that “horror is back, baby,” but really, horror has never left. It’s the one genre that remains persistent throughout Hollywood history and tends to make money for the studio. “Sinners” notwithstanding, it usually doesn’t take a lot of money to make an effective, audience-startling horror flick, and the general public is always thirsty for fear. 2025 is only an aberration in that two notable, original horror films have made so much money.<\/p>\n Jason Blum, the head honcho of the low-budget horror studio Blumhouse, has a different\u00a0\u2014\u00a0and perhaps controversial\u00a0\u2014\u00a0view on “Sinners” and “Weapons.” While their success is certainly impressive, he feels that they represent a general contraction of horror. Speaking to GQ<\/a>, Blum argued that two major horror successes in a single year is down from five or six in years past. To Blum’s eyes, there used to be a lot more cultural penetration with horror, and that “Sinners” and “Weapons,” while damn fine movies, are indicators that everything is shifting around for the worse.<\/p>\n