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Indianapolis Star Top grossers March 19, 2006
Moviegoers -- especially the younger ones -- are flocking to horror flicks these days like gulls to Tippi Hedren in "The Birds." But you won't find too many flicks like those tame Alfred Hitchcock classics or movies starring Dracula, Frankenstein and the Werewolf. Many newer horror films, including "Saw II" and "Hostel," come splattered with blood and guts. Flicks that revel in dead teenagers, rollercoaster crashes, serial killers, creepy things in the woods/town/building and finger-lickin' cannibals are becoming common fare at multiplexes. And while filmmakers are doing their best to gross out fans of the genre, Hollywood is raking in some hefty box-office grosses. Lionsgate's bloody and brutal "Saw II" took in $87 million domestically in 2005 ($131.4 million worldwide), making it the top-grossing horror film of the year. That's more than the Academy Awards best-picture winner "Crash" took in, which ended its domestic run with $53.4 million. At least 22 horror films made the list of the Top 250 grossing films of 2005, compiled by Variety. And more than a dozen are yet to come this year, including "The Grudge 2," "Saw III" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning." Purdue University Professor of Communication Glenn Sparks, who studies the effects of mass media, offers a reason why people enjoy scary movies: "The feeling of fear generates a lot of physiological response." Sparks said studies have found that watching horror movies causes the skin to release moisture and increases a person's heart and respiration rates. "People come out of these films oftentimes feeling a sense of euphoria," he said. But not everyone has the same reaction. "Those who have lingering cognitive fear responses tend not to be repeat horror film audiences," Sparks added. People who watch a lot of horror movies also tend to become desensitized by the violence, he said, which is why moviemakers have upped the level of blood, graphic violence and special effects. Marc Weinstock, executive vice president of marketing for Screen Gems/TriStar, calls horror movies a "communal experience. When you have 300 people all being scared at the same time, there's a lot of energy in the room." Screen Gems' "When a Stranger Calls," a milder horror film about a teenage girl who gets phone calls from a psycho while she's baby-sitting, landed a PG-13 rating. In five weeks of release, it has taken in more than $47 million. Some creative marketing helped generate buzz. And, Weinstock said, everybody can relate to a baby sitter. "Our poster (for the movie) was a hand holding a cell phone. On the cell phone we put this phone number. We wrote 'toll free.' If you called the number you could hear her phone call with the stranger. We got 450,000 calls." Studios don't like to talk about movie budgets (many recent horror films have been reported to be in the $4 million to $7 million range), but Weinstock said, generally, horror movies are cheaper to make "because the star is the story. You don't need a Tom Cruise . . . to make it successful. It doesn't need to be a huge, special-effects-laden epic. You can have a room and it can be scary." Indiana filmmaker Zack Parker, 27, can relate. He made his horror movie "Inexchange" for about $12,500, shooting much of it in a dorm at Ball State University and his hometown of Richmond. Shot on digital video, "Inexchange," about a nerdy college student who consorts with a cloaked "stranger" to seek revenge, has received some positive press, including mentions in Fangoria magazine. Released Feb. 14 on DVD, it's available through video stores, Amazon.com and Netflix. The inspiration for "Inexchange" was Parker's first film at Ball State called "Sanity," about a paranoid schizophrenic. The main character could "see" characters that symbolized the lighter and darker sides of his personality. "I elaborated on it in 'Inexchange.' I pushed it more towards the horror genre because I knew it would be the best genre for my first feature film," Parker said. "The horror genre is the most marketable genre in the world. You know if you're not going to be able to get a lot of money and you're not going to get some celebrities attached to your film, the horror genre is the safest." Steve Gilula, chief operating officer of Fox Searchlight Pictures, said many recent horror movies have been "very popular on home video and the ancillary markets. Every studio is doing a certain number of horror films." Sometimes bypassing critics -- as "When a Stranger Calls" did -- studios are using Internet sites to publicize horror films and cutting back on more traditional forms of advertising. On March 9, Fox Searchlight Pictures took over all advertising for the day on MySpace.com, an Internet site boasting more than 60 million members, to promote "The Hills Have Eyes," (tourists wander into cannibal territory), which opened March 10. The strategy worked. "The Hills Have Eyes" had a third-place $15.5 million opening weekend, not far behind "The Shaggy Dog" with $16 million.
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