There’s no doubt that horror is one of the biggest genres of 2026, all thanks to two names in particular. The first, A24’s Backrooms, took a viral internet creepypasta and transformed it into a visually impressive must-watch theatrical release, which helped 20-year-old filmmaker Kane Parsons become the youngest director ever to claim the #1 spot on the North American box office charts. The second, Curry Barker‘s breakout masterpiece, Obsession, continues to be the talk of Tinseltown two months after it made its theatrical debut.
On a sub-$1 million budget, Obsession has now made over $400 million to date, and is still breaking box office records despite now proving a streaming sensation. The film’s success has led many to speculate about some future Academy recognition, especially for Inde Navarrette, whose star-making central turn inspired Collider’s Hannah Hunt to call it “one of the year’s best” in her review. But the path was paved for the dominant horror movies of the past couple of months by the big hits of early 2026, namely Send Help, which marked the thrilling return to horror for The Evil Dead director Sam Raimi after 17 years.
Starring Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien as co-workers stranded on an island following a deadly plane crash, the movie blends Triangle of Sadness and Ready or Not for a fun, furious, and brilliantly gory viewing experience. The movie is “a hell of a lot of fun with two dynamite performances,” wrote Aidan Kelley in Collider’s official review, adding, “It’s also one that, more often than not, plays to Sam Raimi’s scripts, whose previous horror hits have always been firmly in the fun-and-campy category.” Six months after it was released, Send Help is one of the most-watched movies on Hulu in the U.S., at the time of writing.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Collider Exclusive · Horror Survival Quiz Which Horror Villain Do You Have the Best Chance of Surviving? Jason Voorhees · Michael Myers · Freddy Krueger · Pennywise · Chucky
Five killers. Five completely different ways to die — if you’re not smart enough, fast enough, or self-aware enough to avoid it. Only one of them is the villain your particular set of instincts gives you a fighting chance against. Eight questions will figure out which one.
🏕️Jason
🔪Michael
💤Freddy
Advertisement
🎈Pennywise
🪆Chucky
Advertisement
01
Something feels wrong. You can’t explain it — you just know. What do you do? First instincts are the difference between the survivor and the first act casualty.
Advertisement
02
Where are you most likely to find yourself when things go wrong? Setting is everything in horror. Where you are determines which rules apply.
Advertisement
03
What is your most reliable survival asset? Every survivor has a quality the villain didn’t account for. What’s yours?
Advertisement
04
What kind of fear is hardest for you to fight through? Knowing your weakness is the first step to not dying because of it.
Advertisement
05
You’re with a group when things start going wrong. What’s your role? Horror movies are brutally clear about who survives group situations and who doesn’t.
Advertisement
06
What’s the horror movie mistake you’re most likely to make? Honest self-assessment is a survival skill. Denial is not.
Advertisement
07
What’s your best weapon against something that can’t be stopped by conventional means? Every horror villain has a weakness. The survivors are always the ones who find it.
Advertisement
08
It’s the final scene. You’re the last one standing. How did you make it? The final survivor always has a reason. What’s yours?
Advertisement
Your Survival Odds Have Been Calculated Your Best Chance Is Against…
Your instincts, your strengths, and your particular way of thinking under pressure point to one villain you actually have a fighting chance against. Everyone else — good luck.
Advertisement
Camp Crystal Lake · Friday the 13th
Jason Voorhees
Jason is relentless, but he is also predictable — and that is the gap you would exploit.
Advertisement
He moves in straight lines toward his target. He doesn’t strategise, doesn’t adapt, doesn’t outsmart. He simply pursues.
Your ability to keep moving, use the environment, and resist the panic that freezes most victims gives you a genuine edge.
The Crystal Lake survivors were always the ones who stopped running in circles and started thinking about terrain, water, and distance.
You think like that. Which means Jason, for all his indestructibility, would face someone who simply refused to be where he expected.
Haddonfield, Illinois · Halloween
Michael Myers
Michael watches before he moves. He is patient, methodical, and almost impossible to detect — until it’s too late for anyone who isn’t paying close enough attention.
Advertisement
But you are paying attention. You notice the shape in the window, the car parked slightly wrong, the silence where there should be sound.
Michael’s power lies in the invisibility of ordinary suburbia — the fact that nothing ever looks wrong until it already is.
Your spatial awareness and instinct to map every room, every exit, and every shadow before you need them is precisely the quality Laurie Strode had.
You are not a victim waiting to happen. You are someone who already suspects something is wrong — and acts on it.
Elm Street · A Nightmare on Elm Street
Freddy Krueger
Freddy wins by getting inside your head — using your own fears, your own memories, your own subconscious as weapons against you. That strategy requires a target who can be destabilised.
Advertisement
You are harder to destabilise than most. You’ve faced uncomfortable truths about yourself and you haven’t looked away.
The survivors on Elm Street were always the ones who understood what was happening and chose to face it rather than flee from it.
Freddy’s greatest weakness is that his power evaporates in the presence of someone who refuses to give him the fear he feeds on.
Your psychological resilience — the ability to stay grounded when reality itself becomes unreliable — is exactly the quality that keeps you alive here.
Derry, Maine · It
Pennywise
Pennywise is ancient, shapeshifting, and feeds on terror — but it has one critical vulnerability: it cannot function against someone who genuinely stops being afraid of it.
Advertisement
The Losers Club didn’t survive because they were braver than everyone else. They survived because they faced their fears together, and faced them honestly.
You ask the questions others avoid. You look directly at what frightens you rather than turning away.
That directness — the refusal to let fear fester in the dark — is Pennywise’s worst nightmare.
It chose the wrong target when it chose you. You are exactly the kind of person whose fear tastes like nothing at all.
Chicago · Child’s Play
Chucky
Chucky’s greatest advantage is that nobody takes him seriously until it’s already too late. He exploits the gap between how something looks and what it actually is.
Advertisement
You don’t have that gap. You take threats seriously regardless of how they present — and you never make the mistake of underestimating something because of its size or appearance.
Chucky relies on surprise, on the delay between recognition and response. You close that delay faster than almost anyone.
Your instinct to treat every unfamiliar thing with appropriate scepticism — rather than dismissing it because it seems absurd — is the exact quality that keeps you breathing.
Against Chucky, not laughing is already winning. You are very good at not laughing.
Advertisement
Was ‘Send Help’ a Box Office Hit?
Although the likes of Obsession and Backrooms have made horror the go-to box office genre of this summer, it wasn’t always the case. Earlier this year, the likes of 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple struggled to find success, despite earning rave reviews. Thankfully, Send Help proved a modest hit on Raimi’s return, earning just under $100 million worldwide against a reported production budget of around $40 million.
Send Help is one of the most-watched movies on Hulu in the U.S. Make sure to stay tuned to Collider for more streaming stories.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login