All signs point to this year having a blockbuster spooky season.
There is always a seasonal spike in demand for horror movies, but several indicators, including a series of recent new horror movies that have premiered with high demand, point to this being a successful October for horror content.
The average demand for horror movies in 2023 has been consistently higher than the past two years, even well before the traditional rise in demand for scary movies.
A more interesting trend that we have measured over the last three years is an earlier start to the seasonal uptick in demand for horror movies. In 2021, there was a pretty clear increase starting the first week of October. In 2022, the uptick began around mid-September. This year, the average demand for horror movies has been steadily climbing since July. The average horror movie demand as of Sept. 30 this year (2.5x the average movie demand) was the same as the average demand for horror movies at its peak at the end of last October.
The number of successful off-season horror movies in 2023 could be one factor behind the spooky season creeping up earlier. “M3GAN” came to theaters in January, “Scream VI” in March and “Evil Dead Rise” in April, and they all had box office success.
However, there is still a clear concentration of horror movies premiering in September and October. So far this year, “Saw X” has had the most in-demand premiere, peaking at 88.6 times the average movie demand in its first week. “Five Nights at Freddy’s” isn’t scheduled to premiere until Oct. 27, but three weeks out from its premiere it has higher pre-release demand than any of these other recent premieres. This bodes well for its theatrical release and also for Peacock, where it is scheduled to be released simultaneously.
In September, Amazon Prime Video had the most demand for horror movies available to stream on its platform, putting it in a good position to capitalize on the October surge in demand for this type of content. “M3GAN” and “Nope” topped the ranking of most in-demand horror movies on Amazon Prime Video last month. The two most in-demand horror movies available on Max in September were “The Nun” and “The Meg,” both of which are benefiting from increased demand from their recent sequels.
Netflix notably lags other streamers when it comes to demand for horror movies. The total demand for horror movies on Netflix was only about 60% of the total demand for horror films on Amazon Prime Video. Last month, the most in-demand horror film available to stream on Netflix in the U.S. was “Don’t Worry Darling,” more than a year old at this point.
Scary season could be an opportunity for these other streaming platforms with more horror content to lure subscribers away from Netflix.
Christofer Hamilton is an industry insights manager at Parrot Analytics, a WrapPRO partner. For more from Parrot Analytics, visit their website. For more from WrapPRO’s partners, visit the Data and Analysis Hub.
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