20 Huge Horror Movie Hits NOBODY Expected
Nobody saw these smash hit horror movies coming.
There's no denying that horror is one of the most reliably lucrative of all film genres, because while trends come and go, audiences have never lost their love of being terrified. And studios love the genre too, given the ease with which low-budget horror offerings without name casts can print money by offering up solid scares and maybe lashings of gore.
But there are still instances where the genre has managed to surprise us all by serving up a film that outperformed even the most optimistic of expectations. And that's absolutely true of the following 20 horror films throughout the genre's storied history, which most expected to either flop or simply perform extremely modestly.
However, fate had other plans, and each picture ended up generating colossal profits, enough that in many cases it also spawned a wider franchise.
These films are all a testament to the fact that there's always the potential for a relatively unassuming film to surprise us all and end up doing so, so much better than the pre-release hype would have you believe. And even if you thought these features would do well, nobody saw them doing quite this well.
20. Get Out
When the first trailer for Jordan Peele's Get Out dropped, few could've ever anticipated that it'd become a bona fide pop-culture phenomenon and Oscar-winning smash hit.
Given that Peele was primarily versed in comedy prior to this, few were expecting him to craft such an effective genre piece, and even when the rave reviews dropped from Sundance a month before release, it still didn't seem like a huge breakout was on the cards. Yet despite its socially conscious premise - ever a turn-off for mainstream audiences - Get Out showed up with its mere $4.5 million budget and ended up grossing a stupendous $255.4 million globally.
That's well over 50 times its cost, ensuring that Peele's film outgrossed far more high-profile releases like Alien: Covenant, Paddington 2, Baby Driver, Pitch Perfect 3, and John Wick: Chapter 2, to name just a few.
Get Out immediately established Peele as a serious force to be reckoned with, and his two subsequent features - Us and Nope - were both strong hits in their own right. A decade ago, though, one half of Key & Peele becoming an iconic horror auteur seemed completely absurd.