10 Great Horror Movies That Bombed At The Box Office

Not every great movie is recognized upon its initial release, as proven by these 10 great horror movies that bombed at the box office. Sometimes, it takes time for a classic movie to win over its audience. When director Stanley Kubrick’s take on Stephen King’s The Shining was released in 1980, it was seen as a middling effort by critics. Decades later, The Shining is viewed as one of the most important and influential pieces of horror filmmaking in cinema history. However, The Shining at least made back its budget (and a tidy profit) when the adaptation arrived in cinemas.

Unfortunately, much like some great sci-fi movies bomb at the box office, some horror classics lost a lot of money when they were first released. The mixed reviews of Beau Is Afraid mean that it will be a while before critics can decide whether director Ari Aster’s latest effort fits in this camp. However, the fact that Beau Is Afraid has only earned $6 million on a budget of $35 million three weeks into its release bodes well for the cult potential of Aster’s movie. If the horror movie is eventually re-evaluated as an unseen cult classic, Beau Is Afraid will join an impressive lineup.

10 Braindead

Released in 1992, director Peter Jackson’s Braindead is a goofy, incredibly gory zombie comedy about Lionel, a mild-mannered young man who lives with his overbearing mother, Vera. When Vera is bitten by a Sumatran rat monkey, all hell breaks loose as Lionel’s small New Zealand hometown becomes overrun with grotesque zombies. Despite positive reviews upon its release, Braindead was a massive financial failure, earning only $242, 623 in the US. With a budget of $3 million, this was a disaster for the director although, fortunately, Peter Jackson’s horror movies were only the start of his screen career.

9 Green Room

Director Jeremy Saulnier’s tense real-time thriller Green Room didn’t impress audiences when the movie was released in 2015. Green Room tells the disarmingly simple story of a punk band who are forced to hide out in the titular green room of a Neo-Nazi bar when they accidentally stumble onto a crime scene. With an incredible ensemble cast including Imogen Poots, Alia Shawkat, Patrick Stewart, and the late, great Anton Yelchin, Green Room is one of the best and harshest horrors of the mid-‘10s. Brutal, bleak, and unbearably tense from beginning to end, Green Room deserved to do better (even if it is easy to see why audiences were scared off).

8 Bones

The phrase “Snoop Dogg’s first horror movie” does not necessarily inspire confidence. As such, it is not a major shock that 2001’s Blaxploitation homage/supernatural horror mashup Bones was not a hit. However, the stylish, clever Bones was far better than that descriptor makes it sound, with the rapper putting in a solid performance as the titular numbers runner who rises from the grave for revenge. Director Ernest Dickerson gave viewers the best Tales From the Crypt movie Demon Knight, so it is no surprise to see that Bones bring as much visual verve, black humor, and fast-paced, twisty storytelling to the table as that hit.

Related: 10 Underrated 2000s Horror Movies That Deserve A Reboot

7 The Thing

Legendary horror director John Carpenter’s 1982 masterpiece The Thing was trounced at the box office by Spielberg’s softer alien movie ET: The Extra-Terrestrial. However, despite its financial underperformance, The Thing is arguably the greatest sci-fi horror movie of all time, fusing some world-class special effects from Rob Bottin with a tense, paranoid atmosphere and one of the most unsettling ambiguous endings ever. Stellar performances from Kurt Russell, Keith David, and the rest of the ensemble elevate The Thing to greatness, while Ennio Morricone’s underrated score delivers suitably terrifying musical accompaniment.

6 Slither

James Gunn may be one of Hollywood’s biggest hit makers now but, back in 2006, he was a Troma graduate who lost millions by betting on a small-town horror comedy that audiences ignored. This was a shame since Slither is a classic horror-comedy whose gross-out humor doesn’t detract from its scary moments and surprisingly poignant ending. Subtly referenced in Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Slither was Gunn’s first opportunity to prove that he could bring his unique brand of zany humor to a Hollywood-sized project. Fortunately, its financial failure didn’t stop him from trying again.

5 Annihilation

2018’s Annihilation was a trippy sci-fi horror from director Alex Garland. Based on Jeff VanDeMeer’s novel of the same name, this methodically paced horror saw Natalie Portman’s heroine and a troop of tough veterans venture into a strange containment zone filled with bizarre creatures and biological anomalies. Strange and unsettling, Annihilation was admittedly not for everyone. This was proven when Annihilation’s psychedelic thrills didn’t connect with a mainstream audience. However, unlike Garland’s lesser horror movie Men, Annihilation deserved to be a bigger hit.

Related: 25 Best PG-13 Horror Movies (& Where To Stream Them)

4 Near Dark

Direct Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark is a strange fusion of neo-Western and vampire horror. Near Dark stars Bill Paxton as a farm boy who becomes a vampire and joins a group of lawless undead drifters. The tone of Near Dark is surprisingly self-serious, lacking the campy, self-aware humor that viewers might expect from the premise. However, for viewers who can get behind the conceit, the vampire Western is dramatic, romantic, dark, scary, and surprisingly beautiful to look at.

3 A Cure For Wellness

Director Gore Verbinski’s weird, underrated nightmare A Cure For Wellness is a slick, strange tour de force. Inspired by Thomas Mann’s novel The Magic Mountain, this surreal odyssey sees a young executive sent to a remote retreat in the Alps to retrieve his employer. Once he arrives, he realizes nothing is as it seems in a story that fuses Scorsese’s twisty Shutter Island with Lovecraft. However, mainstream viewers had no interest in the movie’s gothic charms, and A Cure For Wellness learned only $26.6 million on a $40 million budget.

2 The Relic

1997’s The Relic is a straightforward creature feature from the great genre journeyman Peter Hyams. While it lacks the humor of Lake Placid or the campy absurdity of Anaconda, The Relic more than makes up for this with an incredibly impressive practical effects monster. The plot, wherein a police officer and a biologist team up to find the monster responsible for gruesome killings in a museum, is run-of-the-mill. However, The Relic’s monster is a truly creepy creation from the last days before CGI largely replaced practical special effects.

1 Grindhouse

The ’90s enfants terrible Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez bet big and lost big on 2007’s double-bill Grindhouse. However, both of their contributions to the project have stood the test of time. Admittedly, Tarantino’s Death Proof is more interesting than scary. However, Rodriguez’s supremely silly and laughably gross Planet Terror more than makes up for Death Proof’s shortcomings with its gruesome, inventive small-town zombie horror movie premise.