Quietly, one of the biggest box-office success stories last weekend was a continuation of an almost 19-year-old, 10-film-long horror franchise.

Saw X, which sees series antagonist Jigsaw (played by Tobin Bell) travel to Mexico for a risky medical procedure, earned $18.3 million in North American ticket sales. That's not terribly impressive on paper, but coupled with its $11.3 million in international receipts, Saw X performed well enough to recoup its widely reported $13 million production budget, along with its prints and advertising cost, in its first weekend, while landing in the second-to-top spot at this weekend's domestic box office.

Revenue from subsequent TVOD, SVOD and FAST windows will further incentivize studio distributor Lionsgate to narratively ensure tormenter Jigsaw’s survival from his cancer scare, and commission Australian filmmakers Australian filmmakers James Wan and Leigh Whannell to shoot Saw XI.

Indeed, as we're shown every October in an era when the domestic box office remains in steep secular decline, the horror genre is as enduring as Jigsaw.  

The annual theatrical “screamfest” will continue this coming weekend with the premiere of Exorcist: Believer, the first Exorcist film made by Universal Pictures and prolific and acclaimed horror producer Jason Blum following a $400 million deal for rights to shoot three new series installments. 

With Blum calling it the riskiest move of his career, the buzz entering Exorcist: Believer's first weekend isn't great, with Rotten Tomatoes aggregating the film at 22%, so who knows if the risky gambit will pay off for Universal and parent company Comcast. 

But even outside the pre-Halloween release window, horror franchises have continue to deliver predictably solid performances at the domestic box office without the need of movie-critic sanctioning. 

Consider that Warner Bros.’s The Nun II just grossed $233.6 million worldwide globally in September, while leading the domestic box office for three consecutive weekends, with an aggregated reviews score of 52%.

In July, the latest installment of yet another Blumhouse horror franchise Insidious — which was also originally created by Saw impressario Whannell — also led the weekend domestic box office. Insidious: The Red Door went on to gross $188.6 million globally with critics aggregation of only 38%. 

And in March, the premiere of Paramount's Scream VI led North American theaters with $113.6 million in receipts on the way to a global haul of nearly $169 million. 

Mathias Clasen, director of the Recreational Fear Lab and associate professor at Aarhus University in Denmark, believes horror's endurance ties directly to the emotional engagement of the audience. 

“Horror appeals to us because it simulates dangers that humans have evolved to attend to,” Clasen wrote her 2017 book Why Horror Seduces. “The idea here is that evolution has wired our reward system to activate in response to experiences that allow us to learn threatening information.” 

In short, scary movies cater to our hardwired, primal fears — sharp teeth, long claws and murderous men.

According to a 2019 study published by Margie Kerr, author of Scream: Chilling Adventures in the Science of Fear, our bodies release hormones when scared by things like horror films. “When you look at the brain of someone who is screaming, it looks very similar to someone who just watched somebody scream … Horror movies do allow us to connect with these different types of characters, and in doing so, think about who we are.”

And it works in favor of the traditional theatrical release window that people — particularly those age 18-34 — like to experience these films in groups rather than alone on the couch watching Netflix. 

“Where else can you be with hundreds of strangers in a room all having the same exact experience?” Marc Weinstock, Paramount’s worldwide marketing and distribution president, said in an interview with CNN last year. “You’re not distracted, you’re just sitting there and you have no idea what’s going to happen next. You can only experience in a theater.”

Horror is especially popular among young people, with a study by Movio revealing that the genre’s audience skews 11% younger than the film industry average. Considering the Global Cinema Advertising Association’s findings that more than half of movie theater visits come from the 14-to-35-year-old demographic, capturing a young audience is critical to the industry’s success.

Blumhouse Television will develop and produce eight horror-themed movies for Epix as part of a new partnership reached between the two parties. 

The first film as part of the new deal, A House on the Bayou -- from writer/director Alex McAulay (Don’t Tell A Soul) -- will debut in December, with the remaining slate of films premiering in 2022, said network officials. The deal follows an earlier collaboration between the two companies for Fall River, a four-part docuseries debuting May 16 on Epix that follows a series of chilling murders tied to sex and satanic cults in the 1980s. 

For Blumhouse Television, the deal extends its reach into the traditional television/streaming world, following its current movie slate deal with Amazon and its Into The Dark anthology series with Hulu. 

“This partnership with Epix is an additional opportunity for us to collaborate with a great team in helping them grow their slate of genre films, while continuing to bring Blumhouse fans the kind of programming they know and love," Blumhouse Television President Chris McCumber said.

Epix President Michael Wright added, “Blumhouse’s track record of producing high-quality, audience-favorite films have made them a driving force in the horror genre renaissance, and have been top-notch partners for Epix. We can’t wait to work with [Blumhouse founder] Jason Blum and his talented team in this new capacity, and make EPIX the exclusive home of more Blumhouse content.”

From creepy robots in AMC’s Humans to masked murderers in MTV’s Scream to mentally connected freaks in Netflix’s Sense8, networks are leaning into horror flicks to scare up ratings.

Six new horror, sci-fi or supernatural series are scheduled to debut in June alone, showcasing the breadth and depth of the genre. Along with the aforementioned series, BBC America will debut on June 13 a supernatural-themed series, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, in which two magicians battle to establish dominance in 19th-century England.

Syfy will roll out two action thrillers set in space: Dark Matter (premiering June 12), in which a spaceship crew must find a way to survive after they wake up with no memories of who they are or why they’re on board; and Killjoy (June 19), which follows the exploits of three space-faring bounty hunters.

Those June premieres will join two returning genre series from TNT — the plague-themed The Last Ship, which was last year’s most-watched freshman summer series, and the final season of alien-invasion drama Falling Skies — as well as ABC Family’s Pretty Little Liars.

HOT GENRE

Horror TV has been hot for a few years now, with the success of such shows as AMC’s The Walking Dead — the most-watched series on cable — as well as Showtime’s Penny Dreadful, FX’s The Strain and American Horror Story, and Netflix’s Hemlock Grove.

MTV, which has already mined the horror genre to success with Teen Wolf, will take another stab at horror with a reimagining of the popular 1990s Scream movie franchise, senior vice president of scripted programming Mina Lefevre said. The series, which debuts June 30, will not be an extension of the movie franchise, but will feature elements of the movie with a more contemporary look and storyline.

“We have to reinvent it to where the horror and thriller genre is today, which is a little darker and more sophisticated,” she said.

Still, Lefevre said she believes the movie franchise and the genre itself remain extremely popular with MTV’s core millennial audience.

“Television right now is where we’re breaking new ground with content, so the idea of reinventing a franchise like Scream became exciting, especially for our audience,” she said. “The viewers who do watch these types of horror movies are smack in our 18-34 demo, and given where TV is at — where it’s doing so much interesting genre work — it would be great to bring it to our audience.”

The incredible pace of technological advancement has created new, horrific real-life scenarios that are resonating with millennials and younger viewers, ABC Family executive vice president of programming and development Karey Burke said.

The network’s new series Stitchers, in which a covert government agency employs a college student to tap into the memories of dead people as a way of circumventing crimes, garnered a respectable 1.2 million viewers in its June 2 debut.

“The main character is a flawed woman whose flaws actually serve as an unlikely skill set … she is a character who is [more] comfortable in technology than she is in a relationship with other human beings, which makes her unique and appealing to our millennial audience,” Burke said.

USA Network’s Mr. Robot, a psychological thriller about a cybersecurity engineer/hacker recruited by a mysterious group to destroy companies digitally, is another series that taps into the interests — and fears — of technologysavvy millennial viewers, USA Network executive vice president of original series Jackie de Crinis said.

“Mr. Robot is not a super hero … but everything in this series can [happen] and is happening today,” de Crinis said. “It’s reflective of millennial cyber-hackers of today who have the capacity to break down these systems and wreak havoc. It’s literally a new form of terror for viewers.”

ALIENS AND ROBOTS

USA will play in the traditional sci-fi/horror genre this fall with Colony, which follows residents of an alien-occupied Los Angeles.

AMC is betting that potential advancements in artificial intelligence will spur interest in its new series Humans, in which ”synths,” or sophisticated robots, are the must-have device in every home, but often with unintended consequences.

“We feel strongly there is a passionate sci-fi audience out there that is fascinated by the topic of AI and the potential impact it has on our future” AMC senior vice president of international programming Kristin Jones said, “yet we also believe the storylines in Humans will draw in broader drama fans.”