10 Awesome 2023 Horror Movies That Didn't Deserve To Flop
4. It Lives Inside
Bishal Dutta's feature debut It Lives Inside looked destined for box office glory when the first trailer dropped.
Between its culturally specific throughline, the much-ballyhooed involvement of Get Out producer Sean McKittrick, and both trailers racking up more than 10 million views on YouTube pre-release, it seemed like Neon had an easy commercial win on their hands here.
Now, It Lives Inside didn't go below a million dollars like many movies on this list, but it did settle for a rather dim $6.8 million globally - an especially disappointing result given that Neon released it on 2,005 screens in North America.
Given how many horror films about demons are pumped out every single year, to see one taking the angle of Indian demonic mythology ensured that, despite its storytelling flaws elsewhere, this was a welcome fresh take on the subgenre.
Even if it wasn't a Talk to Me-level success, there was at least a reasonable expectation that it could gross $20-30 million theatrically on that many screens, rather than being received with utter indifference by audiences.