🔗 Share this article

The largest shock the cinema world has witnessed in 2025? The return of horror as a main player at the UK box office.

As a category, it has impressively outperformed earlier periods with a 22% year-on-year increase for the UK and Ireland film earnings: £83.7 million in 2025, against £68,612,395 in 2024.

“In the past year, not a single horror movie hit £10 million in UK or Irish theaters. Now, five have achieved that,” comments a box office editor.

The major successes of the year – Weapons (£11.4 million), another hit film (£16.2m), The Conjuring Last Rites (£14.98m) and 28 Years Later (£15.54 million) – have all hung about in the cinemas and in the audience's minds.

While much of the expert analysis centers on the singular brilliance of prominent auteurs, their achievements suggest something shifting between moviegoers and the category.

“Viewers often remark, ‘This is a must-see regardless of your genre preferences,’” explains a content buying lead.

“Such movies experiment with style and format to produce entirely fresh content, connecting with viewers on a new level.”

But beyond creative value, the ongoing appeal of spooky films this year indicates they are giving audiences something that’s greatly desired: therapeutic relief.

“Currently, cinema mirrors the widespread anger, fear, and societal splits,” says a film commentator.

“Scary movies excel at tapping into viewers' fears, amplifying them, allowing you to set aside daily worries and concentrate on the on-screen terror,” remarks a noted author of vampire and monster cinema.

In the context of a real-world news cycle featuring geopolitical strife, enforcement actions, extremist rises, and ecological disasters, witches, zombies and vengeful spirits resonate a bit differently with audiences.

“I read somewhere that the success of vampire movies is linked to economically depressed times,” states an actress from a recent horror hit.

“It’s the idea that capitalism sucks the life out of people.”

Since the early days of cinema, social unrest has influenced the genre.

Scholars point to the rise of German expressionism after the the Great War and the turbulent times of the early Weimar Republic, with films such as The Cabinet of Dr Caligari and a pioneering fright film.

This was followed by the 1930s depression and classic monster movies.

“Take Dracula: it depicts an Eastern European figure invading Britain, spreading a metaphorical infection that endangers local protagonists,” explains a academic.

“Therefore, it embodies concerns related to foreign influx.”

The specter of immigration influenced the newly launched supernatural tale a recent film title.

Its writer-director clarifies: “I wanted to explore ideas around the rise of populism. Firstly, slogans like ‘Let’s Make Britain Great Again’, that harken back to some fantasy time when things were ‘better’, but only if you were a rich white man.”

“Also, the concept of familiar individuals revealing surprising prejudices in casual settings.”

Perhaps, the current era of praised, culturally aware scary films began with a sharp parody released a year after a contentious political era.

It introduced a recent surge of visionary directors, including various prominent figures.

“That period was incredibly stimulating,” comments a filmmaker whose film about a deadly unborn child was one of the era’s tentpole movies.

“In my view, it marked the start of a phase where filmmakers embraced wildly creative horror with artistic ambitions.”

This creator, now penning a fresh horror script, notes: “In the last ten years, public taste has evolved to welcome bolder horror concepts.”

Concurrently, there has been a reconsideration of the genre’s less celebrated output.

Earlier this year, a new cinema opened in a major city, showing underground films such as a quirky horror title, The Fall of the House of Usher and the 1989 remake of the expressionist icon.

The renewed interest of this “gritty and loud” genre is, according to the theater owner, a straightforward answer to the formulaic productions pumped out at the box office.

“It counters the polished content from big producers. The industry has become blander and more foreseeable. Numerous blockbusters share the same traits,” he explains.

“In contrast [these alternative films] are a bit broken. It’s like they’ve erupted out of someone’s subconscious and been planted out there without corporate interference.”

Scary movies continue to disrupt conventions.

“They have this strange ability to seem old fashioned and up to the minute, both at the same time,” notes an expert.

In addition to the return of the insane researcher motif – with multiple versions of a classic novel upcoming – he anticipates we will see scary movies in the near future addressing our present fears: about tech supremacy in the near future and “monstrous metaphors in power structures”.

In the interim, a biblical fright story The Carpenter’s Son – which depicts the events of biblical parent hardships after the nativity, and includes celebrated stars as the divine couple – is scheduled to debut in the coming months, and will certainly create waves through the Christian right in the US.</