Buzz
A variety of elements determine a movie’s box office performance, such as the script's quality, the director and cast's skill, the cinematography's excellence, the contributions of other team members, the movie's marketing efforts, and both critical and public reception, to name a few.
An often overlooked factor in a movie's financial success is the core idea, observation, or personal experience that inspired the story. As of this writing, the ten horror films featured here have grossed more than any others in the genre. Let's explore the inspirations behind them.
10. Van Helsing
Stephen Sommers’s 2004 film Van Helsing, starring Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale, is the tenth-top-grossing horror movie of all time, having earned $300.25 million. It features a number of monsters from the Universal horror movies of the 1930s and 1940s as monster hunter Gabriel Van Helsing pursues not only Dracula but also Mr. Hyde and the Wolf Man. Van Helsing is based on the character of the same surname who appears in Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula as the vampire’s nemesis.
Other sources of inspiration for Van Helsing include Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein, Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novel Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and The Wolf Man, a 1941 movie written by Curt Siodmak, directed by George Waggner, and starring Lon Chaney, Jr.
Because of the presence of so many monsters’ familiar faces, movie reviewer Todd McCarthy characterized Van Helsing as “a monster mash on steroids” and suggested its success or failure would depend on such factors as the viewer’s age and “respect for genre tradition.” Judging by its box office receipts, the audience was old enough, in general, to respect the tradition.
9. The Conjuring
In The Conjuring, director James Wan conjured up a tremendous success. The 2013 movie brought in $318 million at the box office. Starring Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, it recounts a paranormal investigation of the alleged haunting of the Perron family in Rhode Island, who lived in a farmhouse outside Harrisville.
Andrea Perron, one of the daughters of the family and the author of the 2011 book House of Darkness House of Light, which recounts her family's ordeal, reveals that the movie is inspired by the actual case files of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. The Perron family backed the film, and Lorraine herself consulted with director James Wan during its production.
The film’s most chilling apparition was that of the supposed witch Bathsheba Sherman, who lived next door to the Perrons in the 19th century. After a baby under her care died from a fatal wound inflicted by a large sewing needle at the base of the skull, Sherman was accused of sacrificing the child to the Devil. Although she was acquitted due to insufficient evidence, her reputation was irreparably damaged. Upon learning that Andrea’s mother, Carolyn, had also been mysteriously stabbed in the calf by what seemed to be a sewing needle, the Warrens theorized that Sherman’s vengeful ghost was responsible, bringing the needle along to the afterlife.
Before the Perrons moved into the farmhouse, the Arnold family had lived there for eight generations. According to Andrea, public records reveal a horrific history during the Arnolds’ occupancy: Two people hanged themselves, one committed suicide by poison, 11-year-old Prudence Arnold was brutally raped and murdered by a farmhand, two drowned, and four froze to death. Every inhabitant of the house has reported experiencing some form of paranormal activity.
8. The Conjuring 2
In The Conjuring 2, the Warrens travel to London to investigate disturbing poltergeist activity. Two sisters, Margaret and Janet Hodgson, aged 12 and 11, who share a bedroom, are believed to possibly be under the Devil's influence. Released in 2016, the film earned $320.2 million.
The real-life Hodgson family claims to have experienced strange voices, witnessed objects and even furniture levitating and moving on their own, and felt unsettling “cold breezes.” A newspaper hired the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), which sent paranormal investigator Maurice Grosse, who reported witnessing over 2,000 supernatural occurrences during his time at the house. Janet described events like “furniture flipping over, cups filled with water, fires starting, voices, levitation,” and most frighteningly, a curtain that “wrapped itself around [her] neck.” Eventually, the house began speaking, using Janet’s own vocal cords.
Skeptics argue that the girls' accounts are fabrications. SPR investigators questioned Janet’s “rough voice,” and the girls were seen bending spoons. Janet later admitted that she and her siblings staged some of the events, although she maintained that 98 percent of the occurrences were authentic.
In the film, Grosse’s role in the investigation is minimized to that of a consultant, while the Warrens take center stage. In reality, however, the opposite was true, with the Warrens having a smaller role compared to Grosse’s involvement.
7. Se7en
The streets of New York City, along with films like Klute and The French Connection, influenced the creation of the 1995 movie Se7en, which grossed $327.3 million. Directed by David Fincher, the film follows Detectives David Mills (Brad Pitt) and William Sommerset (Morgan Freeman) as they pursue a serial killer whose crimes are based on the seven deadly sins.
While the Catholic Church’s teachings on the seven deadly sins provided the basis for the killer's motivations, the film’s dark atmosphere was equally shaped by its cinematography. Darius Khondji, the film's cinematographer, recalled how Fincher showed him Klute and The French Connection to inspire the raw, gritty aesthetic they wanted for the movie.
Khondji shared that the emotions he felt while walking through New York City also played a role in shaping the film's visuals. He described the streets as always evoking a sense of insecurity, making him feel both lost in the crowd and simultaneously fascinated by the places that both attracted and scared him.
6. Hannibal
Director Ridley Scott’s 2001 film Hannibal, based on Thomas Harris's novel, grossed $351.6 million. Starring Sir Anthony Hopkins and Julianne Moore, it is a sequel to Jonathan Demme’s 1991 Oscar-winning film The Silence of the Lambs, with Hopkins and Jodie Foster reprising their roles. While the novel is the main source for Hannibal, the character of Dr. Hannibal Lecter is inspired by a Mexican doctor, Dr. Alfredo Balli Trevino.
Harris met Dr. Trevino during a visit to Monterrey, Mexico, where he was interviewing an American prisoner accused of murder. As a journalist, Harris was following up on a magazine article he had written about Dykes Askew Simmons, an inmate from Nuevo Leon State Prison, who was set to be executed for the murder of three people.
Simmons had bribed a guard to unlock his door and give him a pistol to facilitate his escape, but the guard betrayed him. After taking Simmons’s money, the guard locked the door again and shot the prisoner. Dr. Trevino, a physician, intervened and saved Simmons's life. Harris was eager to learn how the doctor treated Simmons’s injuries, but after the interview, Harris discovered that Trevino wasn’t actually a prison doctor—he was one of its most infamous inmates. Diagnosed as incurably insane, Trevino would never leave the prison alive, a guard told Harris.
While writing his novel, Harris was looking for a character who would have a unique insight into the criminal mind. Trevino became his inspiration for this role.
5. Signs
M. Night Shyamalan’s 2002 horror hit Signs, where a former priest, Graham Hess (Mel Gibson), faces an extraterrestrial invasion, grossed a total of $408.2 million.
Film critic Corey Atad believes that M. Night Shyamalan’s movie draws inspiration, at least in part, from H. G. Wells’s 1987 serialized novel The War of the Worlds. In Wells’s tale, Martian invaders meet their end at the hands of bacteria. However, in Shyamalan’s film, the extraterrestrial antagonist is defeated by water, which acts like acid on the creature’s form.
4. The Exorcist
William Peter Blatty’s 1971 novel The Exorcist was inspired by a real-life incident of supposed demonic possession. The subject of this event was a teenage boy known as “Roland Doe,” a German Lutheran from Cottage City, Maryland. The exorcism’s journal, written by Father Raymond Bishop, documented this unsettling case.
The possession reportedly began after Roland Doe used an Ouija board to attempt to communicate with his late Aunt Harriet, a spiritualist who had first introduced him to the board. Many of the strange events depicted in the film were said to mirror those that took place during the boy’s possession. Just like Regan MacNeil in the movie, Doe was observed by both medical professionals and psychiatrists, yet none could explain his strange behavior. With the Church's approval, Reverend William S. Bowdern, along with Father Walter Halloran and Reverend William Van Roo, performed the exorcism, and Bowdern documented it in his personal journal.
The 1973 film adaptation, also written by Blatty and directed by William Friedkin, featured Linda Blair as Regan, Max von Sydow as Father Lankester Merrin (the fictionalized counterpart of Father Bowdern), and Jason Miller as Father Damien Karras. As the fourth-highest-grossing horror film ever, The Exorcist earned a staggering $441.3 million in ticket sales.
3. The Sixth Sense
Currently holding the title for the highest-grossing horror film of all time is M. Night Shyamalan’s 1999 thriller The Sixth Sense, featuring Bruce Willis. The film achieved a remarkable $672.8 million in earnings, making it the biggest blockbuster in the genre's history.
While it was once speculated that the Nickelodeon series Are You Afraid of the Dark? might have inspired the film, Shyamalan himself has refuted this claim, stating that he had never even heard of the show.
Shyamalan explained that the idea for the film came from an experience he had at a funeral wake. As the adults conversed and ate, he noticed a young boy sitting on a staircase, conversing with someone invisible. This sight intrigued Shyamalan, who wondered what the boy might be feeling and to whom he was speaking. It dawned on him that perhaps the boy was communicating with the deceased.
2. IT
Stephen King has revealed that his 1986 novel, IT, was inspired by a folktale, which also became the basis for the 2017 film adaptation of the same name. Directed by Andy Muschietti and starring Jaeden Lieberher and Bill Skarsgard, IT currently stands as the second-highest-grossing horror film ever, grossing $555.6 million as of October 1.
King recounts an experience from 1978 when he was heading to retrieve his car, which had “dropped its transmission—literally” on a street in Boulder, Colorado. As he walked toward the dealership on the town’s outskirts, twilight fell, and he came upon a “narrow, unlit road.” Halfway to his destination, he crossed an arched wooden bridge spanning a stream. The sound of his bootheels on the bridge reminded him of the line from the tale “Three Billy Goats Gruff”: “Who is trip-trapping upon my bridge?” This moment inspired him to write “a novel about a real troll under a real bridge.”
The bridge in King’s story became symbolic of both the town and the connection between the adult and children’s sections of the town library. It also came to represent the transition between childhood and adulthood, while the troll transformed into It, the shape-shifting creature that haunts the city’s sewers.
1. Jaws
A series of attacks in 1916, often cited as the inspiration for Peter Benchley’s novel *Jaws*, were not the true source of his idea, as the author himself clarifies.
Instead, it was a 1964 newspaper article about Frank Mundus, a fisherman who caught a 2,040-kilogram (4,500 lb) great white shark off Long Island, that inspired Benchley’s 1974 novel. After reading the story, Benchley, who had been fascinated by these predators since childhood, pondered, 'Lord! What would happen if one of those monsters came into a resort community and wouldn’t go away?'
This question sparked the plot of the novel, which was later adapted into the 1975 film *Jaws*, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss. Robert Shaw, who portrayed the shark hunter Quint, drew inspiration for his character from Mundus. *Jaws* went on to earn $470.6 million, becoming the third-highest-grossing horror film of all time.
