It’s been a great year for horror, but it’s not the big-name franchise revivals that are making bank at the box office and getting rave reviews. Smile, a psychological slasher that’s like It Follows but with a mental illness-related twist, made $22 million in its opening weekend. Barbarian, which stars Justin Long and centers on a rundown house with an unimaginably dark and disturbing secret, grossed $41 million against a $4 million budget. Scott Derrickson’s The Black Phone, which sees a young boy attempt to escape the clutches of a serial killer with help from the ghosts of his previous victims, made over $100 million against a budget of $18 million. Terrifer 2, a blood-soaked slasher about a killer clown, grossed over $5,400,000 million against a pretty small budget of just $250,000.
