Horror’s darkest minds took over Hollywood without you even noticing

The splat pack is taking over, as under our collective noses, horror helmers are now writing, producing, and directing Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters.

Horror is a much-maligned genre. Scary movies rarely top end-of-year lists or get nominated for awards, while the creative minds behind genre fare are generally encouraged to stay in their lane.

James Cameron successfully segued from Terminator and Aliens to Titanic. Sam Raimi journeyed from Evil Dead to Spider-Man, invigorating the superhero genre in the process. While more recently, Zack Snyder made the transition, for better or worse. But they were outliers, until Summer 2024.

The biggest box office hits of the year have mainly been animated movies. But several of this season’s live-action blockbusters are made by men who cut their teeth in horror.

Horror helmers who are now the boys of summer

With a worldwide gross of nearly $570 million, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is the most successful movie in the MonsterVerse franchise. It’s also made by longtime collaborators Adam Wingard and Simon Barratt, whose previous credits include beloved genre fare like You’re Next and The Guest.

Dune: Part Two has grossed $711 million, in part thanks to visionary director Denis Villeneuve. And while he’s an arthouse darling, the Canadian auteur’s first American movies were the horrific one-two punch of Prisoners and Enemy in 2013.

The big release of last week was Trap, from M. Night Shyamalan, a writer-director who managed to move from horror to superhero movies and then back again.

While just ahead the scary specialists continue to infiltrate 2024’s silly season. This week’s major movie is an adaptation of Borderlands, co-written and directed by Eli Roth, of Hostel, Cabin Fever, and Thanksgiving fame.

Next week, the man behind Don’t Breathe and 2013’s Evil Dead is releasing his own take on a beloved blockbuster franchise. Though admittedly, Fede Alvarez directing Alien: Romulus isn’t much of a stretch. 

Why the splat pack is taking over

It comes at a time when horror movies are being marketed, positioned, and released like blockbusters, with Longlegs, MaXXXine, and A Quiet Place: Day One hitting screens at the height of summer, and pulling in huge numbers.

The same happened last year with Talk to Me, and the year before through Nope, inspiring our op-ed on horror movies being the new summer blockbusters. While also prompting studio heads to look in the same direction.

That’s because there are multiple similarities between good horror and successful summer fare. Both are all about set-up and pay-off, delivering suspense and thrills in the process. 

They’re also often structured around a series of set pieces designed to keep you on the edge of your seat. While both types of movie frequently revolve around stories that continue via sequels and spinoffs.

The big difference is that horror is largely low-budget, while blockbusters require a big spend. So by hiring a horror helmer, studios know they are working with someone who is probably thrifty, and definitely used to doing a lot with a little – which saves them money in the long run.

The Borderlands factor

As a viewer and fan, I don’t care about that bottom line, I just want to see good movies, and believe this shift to genre talent is a good thing.

That’s because horror helmers are used to taking chances on their own projects, meaning they are more likely to challenge the status quo when the big studios hire them.

Cameron famously didn’t take no for an answer on Titanic, which cost those bankrolling him a fortune, but made them even more money when the movie broke a bunch of box office records.

While Raimi injected genuine scares into Spider-Man 2 – most notably during Doc Ock’s Evil Dead-inspired transformation – and the result was the best superhero movie of all-time.

This week, Eli Roth isn’t playing by the rules when it comes to his new movie, which frequently departs from the Borderlands game. But that’s a good thing when so many game adaptations become hamstrung by staying faithful to the source material, rather than properly translating it to the new medium.

“Think of it as going to the pick’n’mix in the theater foyer and only paying out for the sweets you really like,” we wrote in our Borderlands review. 

“Roth has taken this approach to his filmmaking, cobbling together characters and shards of story from every nook and cranny in the Borderlands universe, fashioning something original in a completely separate canon. It’s a conscious choice, one that he proudly stands by… and the movie is all the better for it.”

How James Gunn is changing the game

In 2022, Warner Bros. hired James Gunn to oversee their DC properties, a man whose background is in independent movies, and more specifically micro-budget horror.

Gunn began his career working for Lloyd Kaufman at Troma, where he wrote $350k movie Tromeo and Juliet, before departing to make twisted horror movies of his own. 

Then Gunn made the movie to Marvel, where he injected new life into the MCU via a cosmic trilogy that culminated in $250 million movie Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Which made a whopping $845 million at the global box office last summer.

DC duly snapped him up, and Gunn is currently overseeing their film and television output, while also directing the studio’s tentpole movie in 2025, which is a big-budget reboot of Superman.

Making James Gunn the best example of how the horror helmers are currently taking over Hollywood, and suggesting this isn’t some flash-in-the-pan, and that those dark minds are here to stay.

For more movie coverage, check out the best new movies releasing this month, our favorite movies so far in 2024, and the biggest box office hits of the year.