Horry Hyisteria

Horror Hysteria. Tastes in media content ebb and flow as we respond to the shifting external forces affecting our lives. In recent years we’ve seen a boom in life-affirming, comforting feel-good content as the bleakness of the pandemic took hold.

Now, there’s a new - and perhaps more surprising - type of content that audiences are craving - horror. The horror genre’s share of the US box office has increased more than fivefold since 2014, overtaking comedy, drama and thrillers. The psychological comfort of watching horror through a screen can be liberating for audiences, and we can anticipate a swathe more content in 2023.

Wildly popular production company A24 has leapt into its Gen-Z focused horrors, with MaXXXine and I Saw The TV Glow hotly anticipated for release next year, and Netflix have announced plans for more serial killer shows following the haunting but captivating Dahmer - Monster. Horror’s creep into high-budget spoken word audio has also been signalled with the launch of Quiet Part Loud, the first fictional audio series from Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions..