The Surprise Success Of ‘Skinamarink’ And The Resurrection Of The ‘Evil Dead’ Franchise Prove That The Horror Genre Continues To Defy Death
deadline.comSo far in 2023 we’ve had the sixth installment of the Scream franchise and a fifth Evil Dead movie in Evil Dead Rise. Both did surprisingly well at the box office, given that the failure of the 13th iteration of Halloween suggested that horror fatigue might be setting in.
But for genre crowds, the real story this year was a Canadian film, shot entirely in the director’s family home, that cost just $15,000 and freaked out audiences with close-ups of a creepy Fischer-Price toy telephone.
Given a speciality theatrical release in January, Kyle Edward Ball’s Skinamarink brought in a worldwide gross of $2 million, even though it was set to appear on streaming service Shudder less than three weeks later.
Skinamarink followed Zach Cregger’s fall 2022 release Barbarian by becoming a genuine word-of-mouth hit, but where Cregger’s movie caused a stir for its outlandish bait-and-switch slasher-movie plotting, Skinamarink stood out for its near-total lack of plot, being the nightmarish tale of two unseen children facing a deadly dream demon.
Read more on deadline.com
