10 90s Horror Movie Flops That Shouldve Been Hits | ScreenRant – Screen Rant

These 90s horror movies weren't exactly raking in the dough, but maybe they should have been.

The 90s were an unusual period for the horror genre. Horror movies tended to go bigger and more meta, as opposed to the low-budget slasher scares of the 80s. A lot of mindblowing scary movies were made in the 90s, but not all of them received the box office success they might have hoped for or deserved. Others might have deserved their fate.

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Whether it's because their budgets were too high or no one saw them, many horror films didn't do well. They should have been hits thanks to their intriguing premises and casts.

Cube is one of the most fascinating horror movies of any era. This 1998 movie begins with a number of strangers waking up locked inside a giant cube. Trap doors and jump scares lie behind every door.

Relative to its budget, the film did very well. It cost just under a million dollars to produce and made over $9 million at the box office. Still, that was peanuts compared to most films at the time. That didn't stop the film from spawning several sequels, of varying quality.

Horror tends not to do well with bigger budgets. The inability to show the Alien tends to work in the movie's favor. A case in point is The Haunting, a 1999 supernatural thriller with a big name cast that cost $80 million to produce.

Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Luke Wilson could only muster $180 million in box office receipts. Factoring in marketing costs, this movie took a loss. Not everyone likes this remake of the 1963 classic, but it has its fans.

Troll 2 is a movie that horror fans might have seen recently on Comet TV. It's had a long run on cable and home media despite its initial failure in 1990. The movie did so bad on the initial release that figures are not readily available.

It's generally considered one of the worst horror movies ever made due to how cheap it looks (and oh, there are no trolls in the movie), but that has actually worked in its favor. A healthy cult following developed around the cheesy film and propelled it to some notoriety.

Braindead is one of several early Peter Jackson comedy-horror films that left some confused when he was announced as director for Lord of the Rings. His excessive style was on full display in this movie, which was a throwback to earlier 80s splatter flicks with a healthy dose of fun.

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Unfortunately, it was a huge failure. The movie cost over $3 million to make but grossed less than $250,000 at the domestic box office. Jackson would go on to do all right for himself though.

Cronos is easily one of the best debut films by a horror director, in this case, Guillermo del Toro. This dark, moody independent film cost $2 million to make but flopped pretty hard at the box office.

It grossed just over $600,000. Still, it got del Toro's foot in the door and has gone on to become one of his most beloved and studied films. The movie features actor Ron Perlman, who would go on to star as Hellboy in another of del Toro's great but not as successful films.

Jamie Lee Curtis is no stranger to the horror genre. This 1999 movie crosses over into sci-fi territory that focuses on an alien being that tries to enslave humanity through a kind of virus.

The movie bombed pretty hard. Virus cost $75 million to produce but made only $30 million at the box office. It hasn't found a cult audience the way many other horror movies have since, though it does boast a pretty good cast and is often so bad that it's actually kind of good.

Jacob's Ladder is a dark, psychological horror movie with deep themes that didn't find an audience in 1990. The movie took years to get off the ground and might have missed its moment.

It cost $25 million to make and only made $26 million at the box office. Despite its failure in theaters, the movie was very well-received by critics. It eventually found a respectable following on cable and on home media, and a remake of the film was released in 2019.

Another Peter Jackson cult classic that didn't get the attention it deserved was The Frighteners. This 1996 horror-comedy starring Michael J. Fox was meant to be the director's big move into Hollywood after his acclaimed Heavenly Creatures, one of his best films, but things didn't quite work out the way that anybody planned.

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The movie cost $26 million but made only $29 million at the box office. Still, it was a lot of goofy sometimes scary fun, and it's found a nice following since. A television series based on the film had been in the works but was abandoned due to rights issues.

Event Horizon was a classic sci-fi horror mashup common to the 90s. This movie followed a crew as they traveled to Neptune to explore the disappearance of another vessel. Outright horror ensued.

There were a lot of surface similarities to Hellraiser, which might have explained its lack of appreciation at the box office. The movie cost $60 million to produce but made a middling $26 million. It's an intriguing film though with a very good cast, including Sam Neill.

The People Under The Stairs is a very underrated movie from director Wes Craven, and easily one of his best films. The film was unusual at the time for focusing on a mostly African-American cast and lead, as well as diving into race and class concerns.

The movie didn't do great by the box office standards of 1991 - making only $31 million - but it did exceed its budget.Poindexter "Fool" Williams is one of the most interesting protagonists in the genre and this movie is only more relevant now.

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Darby Harn is a contributor for Screenrant, CBR.com, The Things, Star Wars News Net, and Movie News Net. His sci-fi superhero novel EVER THE HERO debuted in January. His short fiction appears in Strange Horizons, Interzone, Shimmer, and other venues.

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10 90s Horror Movie Flops That Shouldve Been Hits | ScreenRant - Screen Rant