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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   2315 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 24, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Why is horror the exception to the theater recession? SW is underperforming right now but another horror movie is overperforming. It's been this way for a while, a lot of the surprise hits are A24/indie-style horror films.

That reminds me. Backrooms comes out this week, which is a big entry in the liminal space horror genre. I'm planning to buy a movie ticket for the first time since Top Gun 2.

It could be for a similar reason to the rise of indie studios in Videogames? Arguably corporatizing these "art forms" leads to a lot of optimization that audiences eventually burn out from. Indie creators do interesting and artful things.

My guess is that horror movies are in the sweet spot of being not too high budget while also being a significantly better experience when watched in one shot on a large screen in a dark room with a crowd compared to watching alone at home. Spectacle movies like Star Wars fit the latter but not the former, while comedies fit the former but only a little of the latter.

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