20 Hit Horror Movies NOBODY Saw Coming
11. The Gallows
The Gallows is a 2015 found footage film that was produced for just $100,000, but considering that found footage was in the midst of its decline in popularity at the time, few expected it to do much business at all.
Yet the film ended its run with a $43 million global cume, no matter that it received near-universal critical scorn and was swiftly forgotten. All the same, this gave it one of the highest returns-on-investment in the history of the horror genre.
Even though barely anyone talks about the movie today, The Gallows did have one big marketing hook going for it - a high school setting which made the film appeal to teenagers, who are of course the financial bedrock of any healthy filmmaking ecosystem.
This, combined with the decision to release the film wide and market the hell out of it, propelled The Gallows to absurd levels of success.
Despite this, 2019's sequel The Gallows Act II was dumped on streaming alongside a theatrical release so tiny its grosses weren't even reported.