Hollywood Down, But Horror Up

That's my take on this report on the continuing sob story that is Hollywood's declining box office. The fall box office total, measured as the ten weeks following Labor Day and not including The Goblet of Fire was down considerably from the last two years. This is bad news for Hollywood, and I'm not going to try to spin it in their favor, because I think if they made more quality movies then this problem would go away to some extent. But what was interesting was that in the list of the top ten fall movies, five of them could be classified in the horror/suspense category, if you stretch it to include Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Even without that one (which I think you should include), you have Flightplan at 1, Saw II and The Exorcism of Emily Rose at 3 and 4, and then Corpse Bride at 6. That's a pretty solid showing, especially since none of these movies was likely ever considered blockbuster material. To me, this shows the steady ability of horror movies to put butts in the seats even during what is considered a down time for Hollywood movies in general.