Obsession And Backrooms Dominate Box Office As YouTuber Horror Boom Reigns

Unless your name happens to be Din Djarin or Grogu, this past weekend's box office takings should put a smile on your face — even if it is two horror movies making the big bucks right now. Yes, the great YouTuber horror boom continues to reign victorious at cinemas near and far. Curry Barker's monkey's paw joint Obsession has just crossed the $148 million mark as it continues to, er, obsess cinemagoers in its third week since release, while Kane Parsons' liminal nightmare Backrooms has racked up an almighty $118 million globally in its opening weekend — the biggest ever open for an A24 movie. And the good news doesn't stop there, either.

Since Danny and Michael Philippou — aka RackaRacka — rocked up on the scene with cursed hand chiller Talk To Me in 2023, the YouTuber-turned-horror-filmmaker pipeline has proven particularly fruitful at the box office, with the likes of Chris Stuckmann's Shelby Oaks, Mark Fischbach's Iron Lung, and the the Philippous' sophomore feature Bring Her Back all reaping the rewards of passionate fan bases, relatively meagre budgets, and Gen Z enthusiasm for the genre. With Obsession and Backrooms though, both of which have opened against — and handsomely beaten — the first new Star Wars movie in seven years (The Mandalorian And Grogu), it feels like a watershed moment has arrived. Backrooms, directed by 20-year-old genre wunderkind Kane Parsons and generally garnering rave reviews, has enjoyed the third biggest opening weekend for a horror movie in US history on a budget of just $10 million. Obsession on the other hand has achieved a feat unseen since E.T The Extraterrestrial, experiencing an increase in ticket sales in its second and third weekends, proving in the process that this horror bubble — far from bursting — is only growing, with plenty of space for all comers.

Now, as more major YouTubers start to realise the potential of harnessing their legions of supporters and cut-price content creation nous to enter the cinema sphere, it seems we could be in for a radical new generation of filmmakers — just like the Movie Brats, Super 8, and Film School generations before them. Irish YouTube megastar JackSepticEye is already on board to produce and tackle a Bloodborne animated movie, Parsons is already thinking about Backrooms sequels, and Barker has expressed interest in seeing what other dreams the 'One Wish Willow' can turn into all-too-real nightmares. All of which is to say, watch this space! (And if PewDiePie fancies making a Star War, now may be the perfect time...)