Tirdad Derakhshani

The Philadelphia Inquirer



It has been a year of big-budget busts at the multiplex as gigantanormous pics such as “Ghostbusters,” “Ben-Hur,” “X-Men: Apocalypse,” and Steven Spielberg’s “The BFG” barely broke even — if that. The epic disaster “Ben-Hur” cost $100 million to make and has returned an embarrassing $26 million.

Let studio execs, Wall Street investors, and superstar directors fret and feel the angst. Serves ‘em right, say we few, we proud, we horror geeks.

Things are different on the side of the demons.

“Don’t Breathe,” the brilliant sophomore effort by Fede Alvarez (“Evil Dead”) cost a mere $9.9 million and returned $75 million in domestic receipts to become the 25th best-grossing film of the year.

Two other horror films are now in the Top 25 for the year — “The Purge: Election Year” (No. 23, grossing $79 million) and “The Conjuring 2” (No. 19, bringing in $102 million).

With Halloween just around the corner, I think 2016’s best-performing bloodcurdlers are still to come, including two eagerly awaited sequels: “Rings” (Feb. 3), the latest entry in the mother of all Japanese-horror-inspired franchises; and the more old-fashioned séance sequel “Ouija: Origin of Evil” (Oct. 21) from one of horror’s top new auteurs, Mike Flanagan (“Hush,” “Before I Wake”).

This year, even a horror flick that underperforms can tank better than a star-studded romcom, as the found-footage-sequel “Blair Witch” proved last month, besting one of the year’s most-anticipated romcoms, “Bridget Jones’s Baby.”

Director Adam Wingard’s $5 million witchy sequel made $10 million on its opening weekend to land at No. 2 on the box office charts, and the $35 million comedy featuring Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth and Patrick Dempsey opened with an anemic $8.6 million.

It’s just the latest sign that horror officially owns the year.

And that’s just the money side of the Hollywood equation. Creatively, it’s also been a banner year for the genre, with a crop of entries that are more sophisticated, smarter and more beautiful (as it were) than ever.

In addition to the immensely inventive “Don’t Breathe,” 2016’s horror highlights include Robert Eggers’ remarkable, literate, historic chiller “The Witch,” the claustrophobic paranoia poem “10 Cloverfield Lane” and the unbelievably raw social satire “The Invitation.”

There’s also filmmaker Danny Perez’s seriously gross freakout, “Antibirth.” It’s one of my favorites, with a stunning turn by Natasha Lyonne as a stoner who becomes pregnant with an alien baby.

What’s driving the hordes toward the blood and the dread, and away from the chariot racers and misunderstood diarists? This year’s best screamfests have captured viewers’ imagination by going back to basics.

Both the home-invasion cautionary tale “Don’t Breathe” and the supernatural thriller “Lights Out” plunge into that most-elemental, visceral cause of fear: darkness.

“Don’t Breathe” traps three young burglars inside the home of a vicious, blind war veteran (Stephen Lang). It’s set almost entirely in the vet’s claustrophobic, labyrinthine — and pitch-black — house.

The impressively cast “Lights Out,” which stars Maria Bello and Teresa Palmer, is about a murderous female creature — she has long, dark hair, claws, and eyes that burn like fire — that exists in darkness, feeding on darkness itself.

Psychologically, it doesn’t get more basic than “10 Cloverfield Lane,” which generates intense anxiety and paranoia by staging a confrontation among three people locked in an underground bunker.

Indeed, more and more horror films are using acclaimed actors, including Ethan Hawke and James Ransone (“Sinister”), Radha Mitchell and Rupert Graves (“The Sacrifice”), and Elle Fanning (“The Neon Demon”).

Morris Chestnut and Regina Hall bring class to the recent surrogate pregnancy shocker “When the Bough Breaks,” about a young woman (Jaz Sinclair) who goes all “Fatal Attraction” on a couple after agreeing to bear their child.

A superb cast — Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Frances O’Connor, and Franka Potente — also powered “The Conjuring 2” to its great big box office haul.

“The Conjuring” franchise is the glaring exception to the less-is-more rule: Directed by James Wan, of the “Saw” films, it takes a page from Marvel’s superhero flicks. This year’s entry was the second in a projected series of movies and spin-offs set in an elaborate mythical world populated by ghost hunters, mediums, ghosts and demons.

I guess blockbusters did have something to teach horror.