A historic correlation between horror movie popularity and falling social mood bears terrifying fruit.
I don’t like scary. The one time I successfully watched a horror movie from beginning to end was when I played an extra in it. This was 27 years ago, and I write all about it in the November 2024 Socionomist cover story “Social Mood Drives Horror Movies to New Frights: O, Mickey, Where Art Thou?”
But as I make terrifyingly clear in that piece, horror movies today are killing it at the box office. These charts from the November issue show that, for the last decade-plus, demand for on-screen scream-inducing scenes has been off the (torture-chamber) chain:
And then, it got a whole lot worse. The November Socionomist:
While researching this piece, I encountered various abhorrent themes, from scalping sociopaths to possessed children to tourist-kidnapping surgeons who perform unspeakable acts of torture.
But with all that said, none were more disturbing than the string of horror movies released in recent years, based on …
… Beloved. Disney. Characters
Which begs the question, why?
You may recall the famous line from that 1979 horror movie, “The call is coming from inside the house.” Well, the call for more horror in art and entertainment has been coming from inside the house of negative social mood. This chart of World Equities Priced in Real Money captures the sustained erosion in social mood since peaking with stocks in 2000. It’s a perfect inverse image of total horror movies produced over that same period.
The November Socionomist widens the lens:
Historically, a rising preference for horror has been a clear and consistent benchmark
of negative social mood since the very first movie designated as “horror” debuted in 1896.
As Halloween approaches, I recommend sitting down with a hot cup of pumpkin cider, turning on all the lights, and reading “Social Mood Drives Horror Movies to New Frights: O, Mickey, Where Art Thou?” today. Just make sure you’re not alone!
The full November Socionomist also includes an important contribution from author Matt Lampert, in which he substantiates whether stock prices can anticipate the outcome of Presidential elections – just ahead of November 5. Along with “On Our Radar” updates on Boeing’s bearish turbulence, drone surveillance, and the new sugar mania.
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