7 Great Horror Movies that Unfairly Flopped at the Box Office

It’s not always true that the best things succeed. Sometimes a really bad movie surprisingly becomes a box office hit. This happened with films like Transformers: Age of Extinction, Ride Along 2, The Dark Tower, The Boss Baby, The Fate of the Furious , and others. Conversely, really good movies can sometimes get overlooked. They might open with low numbers and quickly be taken out of cinemas. Here are 10 horror films that fit this description, and we’ll explain the reasons why. However, we’ve stuck to straight-up horror for this list, so we haven’t included horror comedies like The Final Girls, Slither, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, or Grindhouse. The films also needed to be genuinely good, so we’ve left out things like the 2010 version of The Wolfman and Gus Van Sant’s remake of Psycho .

There’s a clear difference between a movie doing poorly and being a complete failure. A flop means a film earns significantly less than its production cost. Underperforming, however, means a movie makes a small loss or only a small profit – like Stir of Echoes and Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, which both had modest results. Generally, a film needs to earn roughly twice its production budget to be considered profitable, because that budget doesn’t include the cost of marketing. The films listed below didn’t even come close to reaching that goal.

7) Willard

Crispin Glover has appeared in many well-known and popular films, such as Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, Back to the Future, At Close Range, Wild at Heart, The Doors, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Charlie’s Angels, Beowulf, Hot Tub Time Machine, and Alice in Wonderland. However, Willard is the only major studio film where he played the main character.

Similar to his prominent role (or co-lead) in River’s Edge, Glover is ideally cast and elevates an already strong film. Just like the 1971 version, which was also inspired by Stephen Gilbert’s novel Ratman’s Notebooks, the 2003 film Willard centers around a lonely individual mistreated by his supervisor (R. Lee Ermey), who inherited the business from Willard’s father after his untimely passing. When the boss harms one of Willard’s beloved pet rats, Willard and his rat companions embark on a journey for retribution. Despite a $20 million production budget, Willard only earned $8.6 million at the box office.

Stream Willard on Kanopy.

6) Event Horizon

Despite being somewhat overlooked when it came out in the ’90s, Event Horizon is arguably the best movie from Paul W. S. Anderson, the director behind Resident Evil and Mortal Kombat. It’s surprisingly good considering the difficulties it faced during production. What were those difficulties? Paramount Pictures cut over 34 minutes of film to try and make it a more mainstream horror film. Unfortunately, this didn’t work, and the movie only earned $42 million at the box office, despite costing $60 million to make.

Luckily, Event Horizon has developed a large and dedicated fanbase, and many of them have been asking for a director’s cut for years. Unfortunately, despite Anderson’s attempts to create one, much of the removed footage is either lost or damaged. However, even in its current state, this is a genuinely effective horror film set on a spaceship from Hell.

Stream Event Horizon on Paramount+.

5) The Burning

Although The Burning didn’t quite launch a franchise like some other horror films, it arguably deserved to more than other similar movies such as Sleepaway Camp or Prom Night. The film is incredibly atmospheric, has a few genuinely frightening moments, features a disturbing soundtrack, and Cropsy – the villain – was a truly gruesome and memorable creation thanks to Tom Savini’s work.

Regarding Savini, this film explains why the renowned makeup artist didn’t return for Friday the 13th Part 2. And Friday the 13th Part 2 is largely responsible for The Burning going unnoticed, because audiences often prefer the comfort of what they already know with slasher sequels. However, it wasn’t solely Jason’s doing; The Burning was released (at number 23) on the same weekend as another original slasher, Happy Birthday to Me (which debuted at number one). Ultimately, the film couldn’t even earn back half of its small $1.5 million budget.

4) The Blob

Over the years, several filmmakers have tried to create a new version of The Blob. These weren’t always based on the 1958 film, either-Chuck Russell’s 1988 remake has become just as popular, if not more so. Rob Zombie and Simon West (director of Con Air) both took a shot at it, and now, a version directed by David Bruckner (known for Hulu’s Hellraiser) and produced by David S. Goyer is finally starting to gain traction.

It’s hard to say if the remake will be successful, though. The 1988 version was excellent, but, much like the John Carpenter alien movie remake we’ll discuss shortly, it didn’t reach a wide audience. The Blob earned just $8.25 million, debuting at number eight in the box office. It did face tough competition, however, as Big, Midnight Run, A Fish Called Wanda, Coming to America, Die Hard, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Cocktail were all still playing in theaters.

Stream The Blob on Philo.

3) Dead Alive

I have to say, Peter Jackson’s Braindead (released as Dead Alive over here) is a genuinely hilarious and brilliant take on zombie movies. Honestly, though, I’m not surprised it didn’t become a blockbuster. It’s incredibly gory, with a really dark sense of humor, and it didn’t have any big-name stars to draw in the crowds. Plus, it only played in a limited number of theaters, which definitely hurt its chances.

Even so, earning just $242,623 from a movie that cost $3 million to make is a significant financial setback. It’s possible the film performed better in its native New Zealand, but we haven’t been able to find any information about its performance there. Considering there were only 140 movie screens throughout all of New Zealand in 1992, it’s doubtful that it did significantly better.

Unfortunately, it’s not available to stream here in the U.S.

2) In the Mouth of Madness

John Carpenter’s The Thing (we’ll discuss that further shortly) demonstrated that even his strongest films weren’t always immediately well-received. Following that film’s disappointing performance, he achieved some smaller successes with Christine, Prince of Darkness, and They Live. However, these were exceptions rather than typical results.

Starman, Big Trouble in Little China, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Village of the Damned, Escape from L.A., Vampires, and Ghosts of Mars didn’t quite live up to what people hoped for. However, even though these later films aren’t as strong as his earlier work, they still have a lot of enjoyable qualities. Consider this a recommendation to check out Vampires for its entertainment value, Ghosts of Mars for its humor, the excellent beginning of Village of the Damned, and the boldness of In the Mouth of Madness.

1) The Thing

John Carpenter was on a roll after the huge success of Halloween, followed by The Fog and Escape from New York. However, that winning streak ended abruptly with the release of The Thing. While this film was packed with impressive special effects, it wasn’t initially well-received by critics or moviegoers. Thankfully, both groups have since greatly changed their opinions and now appreciate it.

The Thing is a must-see for anyone who enjoys horror, and honestly, for pretty much any movie lover. It’s consistently excellent from beginning to end. The directing is flawless, the acting is spot-on, the practical effects are arguably the greatest ever seen in a horror film, and the mystery of “who is the Thing?” is so cleverly done that the movie actually *improves* with multiple watches. Interestingly, when it was first released, critics didn’t like much of anything about it – they found the special effects too disturbing and the characters underdeveloped.

Regarding the film’s box office performance, there was a good reason why audiences didn’t immediately flock to it. The Thing was released in June, a month already packed with popular movies. It opened in eighth place, behind the fourth week of Poltergeist and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, the sixth week of Annie, the fifth week of Rocky III, the second weekend of Firefox, the opening weekend of Blade Runner (which also wasn’t very successful), and the third weekend of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which continued to do extremely well for an entire year, earning $359.2 million. In contrast, The Thing only made a little over $20 million.

Stream The Thing on Peacock.

https://comicbook.com/movies/news/horror-directors-started-in-comedy-jordan-peele-john-krasinski/embed/#

2025-10-02 00:45