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The biggest jump-scare the film industry has experienced in 2025? The return of horror as a dominant force at the UK film market.

As a genre, it has notably outperformed earlier periods with a 22% year-on-year increase for the British and Irish cinemas: £83,766,086 in 2025, against £68,612,395 in 2024.

“Previously, zero horror films made £10 million in the UK or Ireland. Currently, five have surpassed that mark,” notes a cinema revenue expert.

The big hits of the year – Weapons (£11.4m), Sinners (£16.2 million), the latest Conjuring installment (£14.98 million) and 28 Years Later (£15.54 million) – have all stayed in the cinemas and in the public consciousness.

Even though much of the industry commentary highlights the singular brilliance of renowned filmmakers, their successes suggest something shifting between moviegoers and the style.

“I’ve heard people say, ‘Even if you don’t like horror this is a film you need to see,’” states a film distribution executive.

“Films like these play with genre and structure to create something completely different, and that speaks to an audience in a different way.”

But outside of artistic merit, the steady demand of spooky films this year implies they are giving cinemagoers something that’s highly necessary: emotional release.

“Right now, there’s a lot of anger, fear and division that’s being reflected in cinema,” notes 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,” says a prominent scholar of horror film history.

In the context of a global headlines featuring geopolitical strife, enforcement actions, extremist rises, and ecological disasters, ghosts, monsters, and mythical entities resonate a bit differently with audiences.

“I read somewhere that the success of vampire movies is linked to economically depressed times,” says an star 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 surge of early cinematic styles after the WWI and the chaotic atmosphere of the post-war Germany, with movies such as The Cabinet of Dr Caligari and Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror.

Subsequently came the Great Depression era and iconic horror characters.

“The classic example is Dracula: you get this invasion of Britain by someone from eastern Europe who then causes this infection that gets spread in all sorts of ways and threatens the Anglo-Saxon heroes,” says a historian.

“So it reflects a lot of anxieties around immigration.”

The specter of migration shaped the newly launched supernatural tale The Severed Sun.

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.”

“Secondly, the idea that you could be with someone you know and then suddenly they blurt out something round the dinner table or in a Facebook post and you’re like, ‘Where did that come from?’”

Perhaps, the modern period of praised, culturally aware scary films started with a clever critique launched a year after a divisive leadership period.

It introduced a new wave of visionary directors, including various prominent figures.

“Those years were remarkably vibrant,” comments a filmmaker whose project about a violent prenatal entity was one of the era’s tentpole movies.

“I think it was the beginning of an era when people were opening up to doing a really bonkers horror film which had arthouse aspirations.”

This creator, now penning a fresh horror script, notes: “During the past decade, viewers have become more receptive to such innovative approaches.”

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

Earlier this year, a nicke l venue opened in London, showing obscure movies such as a quirky horror title, The Fall of the House of Usher and the late-80s version of Dr Caligari.

The re-appreciation of this “rough and rowdy” genre is, according to the theater owner, a direct reaction to the calculated releases churned out at the theaters.

“It’s a reaction to the sanitised product that’s coming out of Hollywood. You have a film scene that’s more tepid and more predictable. A lot of the mainstream films are very similar,” he states.

“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.”

Horror films continue to upset the establishment.

“Horror possesses a dual nature, feeling both classic and current simultaneously,” says an expert.

In addition to the return of the deranged genius archetype – with two adaptations of a well-known story imminent – he forecasts we will see fright features in the coming years responding to our current anxieties: about artificial intelligence control in the coming decades and “vampires living in the Trump tower”.

At the same time, a biblical fright story a forthcoming title – which narrates the tale of Mary and Joseph’s struggles after Jesus’s birth, and features famous performers as the divine couple – is set for release soon, and will definitely send a ripple through the Christian right in the US.</