50 Fun Facts About Modern Horror Movie

Which director broke through with Saw (2004) and later created The Conjuring Universe?

James Wan. He and writer Leigh Whannell filmed one trap scene as a short and sent it out on DVD with the script, which won the backing to shoot the feature in just 18 days.

Paranormal Activity (2007) was originally shot for roughly how much money?

$15,000. Oren Peli shot it in his own home, and its return is often cited as the highest of any film, passing The Blair Witch Project, though such sums leave out marketing costs.

In The Conjuring (2013), the Warrens help which family in a Rhode Island farmhouse?

The Perrons. The film sent so many trespassers to the real Rhode Island farmhouse that its later owners sued Warner Bros. in 2015; the case was dismissed two years later.

Which doll, introduced in The Conjuring's opening scene, went on to headline spin-off films of her own?

Annabelle. The films' cracked porcelain figure is an invention: the doll the Warrens kept in a display case at their Connecticut museum is a soft Raggedy Ann.

The demon nun of The Conjuring 2 and The Nun is an incarnation of which entity?

Valak. The nun did not exist until about three months before The Conjuring 2 opened: reshoots swapped out a horned, winged demon for Bonnie Aarons in a habit.

In Insidious (2010), what is the name of the spirit realm where Dalton is trapped?

The Further. The Lamberts move house to escape the haunting, only for it to follow them, because the spirits want Dalton's empty body, not the building.

Which Academy Award did Get Out win at the 2018 ceremony?

Best Original Screenplay. The ending Jordan Peele first shot had police arrest Chris; after a test audience deflated, he reshot it as the more hopeful rescue.

What sound does Missy Armitage use as a hypnotic trigger in Get Out?

A spoon stirring a teacup. The clink drops Chris into what Missy calls the sunken place, a dark void where he is awake but cannot move a muscle.

What are the doppelgängers called in Jordan Peele's Us (2019)?

The Tethered. Abandoned in tunnels beneath the country, they surface in a mass uprising and join hands in a human chain, a dark replay of 1986's Hands Across America.

In Us, young Adelaide first meets her double in 1986 at a funhouse on which beach boardwalk?

Santa Cruz. The Lost Boys was filmed on that same boardwalk in the summer of 1986, the year the prologue is set, and Peele counts it among the 1980s nods he planted on purpose.

In Nope (2022), Jupe's childhood sitcom starred a chimpanzee with what name?

Gordy. Bursting balloons sent the chimp into a rampage on set, and the grown-up Jupe has turned the tragedy into a sideline, charging fans to see his hidden room of memorabilia.

Which company released Hereditary (2018), the first feature from writer-director Ari Aster?

A24. Aster pitched it to studios as a family tragedy, careful not to call it horror, and it became the company's highest-grossing film worldwide at the time.

Midsommar is set at a festival in rural Sweden, but in which country was most of it filmed?

Hungary. Ari Aster said he could not afford to shoot in Sweden, so the commune's village was built in an empty field outside Budapest and dressed to look Swedish.

In It (2017), Pennywise preys on the children of which fictional Maine town created by Stephen King?

Derry. King moved his family to Bangor, Maine, to write the novel, walked the town collecting its stories, and has said Derry is his portrait of the place.

Who played Pennywise in It (2017)?

Bill Skarsgård. He built Pennywise's physical behaviour from wildlife programmes, borrowing the restless energy of hyenas and the lower-lip scowl of bears.

Who directed A Quiet Place (2018), also co-starring alongside Emily Blunt?

John Krasinski. He refused to cast a hearing actress as the deaf daughter and hired Millicent Simmonds, who is deaf, wanting someone who lives it and could teach him.

The Babadook (2014) was made in which country?

Australia. Jennifer Kent shot it in Adelaide and shielded her six-year-old lead by telling him a gentler version of the story, one in which young Samuel is the hero.

In It Follows (2014), how is the pursuing entity passed from one person to the next?

By sexual intercourse. Writer-director David Robert Mitchell took the slow, never-stopping follower from a recurring nightmare of his youth, which he links to his parents' divorce.

What is the name of the family's billy goat in The Witch (2015)?

Black Phillip. He was played by a goat named Charlie, so unruly that director Robert Eggers credits the editor with piecing the performance together from what little footage was usable.

Who plays the junior keeper opposite Willem Dafoe in The Lighthouse (2019)?

Robert Pattinson. The film's nearly square frame began as a tease: the cinematographer joked that 1.19:1, a shape used briefly at the dawn of sound, would suit the director, who took him at his word.

A 2020 Broadband Choices study measured heart rates and named which film the scariest ever made?

Sinister. It began as a nightmare: after watching The Ring, co-writer C. Robert Cargill dreamt of finding a box of Super 8 reels in his attic that showed a whole family being hanged.

Who wrote Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later (2002)?

Alex Garland. The novelist behind The Beach took his opening, a man waking in a deserted hospital, from John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids, as director Danny Boyle has said.

The Spanish found-footage hit REC (2007) was remade in America the following year under what title?

Quarantine. The remake swaps the cause: the Spanish outbreak traces to a possessed girl studied for the Vatican, the American one to a mutated rabies stolen by a doomsday cult.

Who directed The Cabin in the Woods (2011), co-writing it with Joss Whedon in his own directorial debut?

Drew Goddard. Filmed in 2009, his debut then sat on a shelf for almost three years while MGM sorted out its finances, until another studio bought it and released it in 2012.

In Talk to Me (2022), what object do the teenagers use to contact spirits?

An embalmed severed hand. A player grips it and says 'talk to me', then 'I let you in' to be possessed, and friends must break the hold within 90 seconds or the spirit may stay.

Which Get Out star plays Gemma, the roboticist who builds the killer doll in M3GAN?

Allison Williams. The doll took two performers: Amie Donald, a young competitive dancer from New Zealand, played the body and co-choreographed the viral dance, while Jenna Davis gave the voice.

Smile (2022) was promoted with a stunt that planted unblinking, grinning actors in the crowd at what kind of events?

Major League Baseball games. Actors holding the film's fixed grin sat behind home plate, in view of the TV cameras, at Yankees, Mets and Dodgers games the weekend before release.

In Barbarian (2022), Tess discovers a dark secret in a Detroit house she booked through which service?

Airbnb. Zach Cregger began with a writing exercise, not a film: one scene packed with the small red flags a self-help book warns women about, which led him to a double-booked rental at night.

The directing team Radio Silence made which 2019 horror-comedy about a bride hunted by her wealthy new in-laws?

Ready or Not. The bride draws the hide-and-seek card, and her in-laws believe they must sacrifice her before dawn or die themselves, the price of a pact behind the family fortune.

What is the name of the silent killer in Terrifier 2 (2022)?

Art the Clown. Fans paid to see more of him: director Damien Leone asked for $50,000 online to stage one practical-effects scene, doubled it in a day and finished with several times the goal.

Who played the title serial killer in Longlegs (2024)?

Nicolas Cage. The trailers and posters never showed his face; the only taste on offer was his voice, whispering threats to anyone who rang a number printed on Los Angeles billboards.

In 2024, Longlegs became which distributor's highest-grossing release in the US?

Neon. Longlegs passed its Oscar winner Parasite at the US box office after a campaign that hid the star's look in the trailers and teased the film with a coded newspaper advert and a billboard phone line.

The Substance (2024) premiered at, and won a screenwriting prize from, which film festival?

Cannes. Universal, the studio it was made for, walked away before release, and director Coralie Fargeat calls being left without a distributor her scariest moment on the film.

Robert Eggers' Nosferatu (2024) was filmed primarily at Barrandov Studios in which city?

Prague. For the gatehouse and courtyard of Orlok's castle, Eggers picked the Czech castle of Pernštejn without realising Werner Herzog had used the same one for his 1979 Nosferatu.

What are the nicknames of the twin brothers Michael B. Jordan plays in Sinners (2025)?

Smoke and Stack. The twins come home to Mississippi with money stolen from Chicago gangsters and sink it into an old sawmill, which they turn into a juke joint for the Black community.

Which director's vampire film Sinners received a record 16 Oscar nominations in 2026?

Ryan Coogler. He made studios bid on unusual terms: the film's rights revert to him after 25 years, which he says mattered because the story itself is about Black ownership.

Weapons director Zach Cregger was a founding member of which comedy troupe?

The Whitest Kids U' Know. Cregger wrote Weapons out of grief after the 2021 death of Trevor Moore, his close friend and fellow founder of the troupe, and calls the film a way of living with that loss.

In Weapons (2025), what is the name of the aunt who arrives to care for Alex's parents?

Gladys. Amy Madigan's turn as the aunt won her the supporting actress Oscar, 40 years after her first nomination, and in 2026 a prequel with the working title Gladys went into development.

Which producer founded the low-budget horror studio behind Paranormal Activity, Get Out and M3GAN?

Jason Blum. His company rejects the blockbuster model: it makes many films on tiny budgets, gives directors creative control, and lets the misses slip quietly to video while the hits pay for everything.

Which 2023 release overtook Split (2016) as the highest-grossing film worldwide from the studio behind Get Out?

Five Nights at Freddy's. It took the record despite a handicap most hits avoid: in the US it could be streamed at home from the very day it opened in cinemas.

Halloween (2018) broke which 1996 movie's record as the highest-grossing slasher film?

Its $76.2 million debut was then the biggest opening in Blumhouse's history.

Which Academy Award did Godzilla Minus One win at the 2024 ceremony?

Best Visual Effects. Director Takashi Yamazaki supervised the effects himself with a team of only 35 artists, and gave the 70-year-old Godzilla series its first Academy Award.

The 2020 lockdown horror film Host takes place entirely on which video-call app?

Zoom. It grew out of a prank: director Rob Savage scared his friends on a group call by pretending to investigate noises in his attic, and the clip went viral before he made the film.

Shaun of the Dead (2004) opens which Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg trilogy, named after an ice cream?

Cornetto. Each film shows a different flavour to match its genre: strawberry red for the zombie gore, the blue original for Hot Fuzz's police and mint green for the aliens of The World's End.

Which British actress plays the foster mother in the Philippou brothers' Bring Her Back (2025)?

Sally Hawkins. Her Laura is a former counsellor who fosters the two step-siblings as part of a ritual, hoping to bring back the daughter she lost to drowning.

28 Years Later (2025) was primarily shot on what?

An iPhone 15 Pro Max. Director Danny Boyle built rigs holding up to 20 of the phones at once, which he calls 'a poor man's bullet time', echoing the consumer camcorders that shot the first film.

With Titane (2021), Julia Ducournau became only the second female director to win which award?

Palme d'Or. Jury president Spike Lee spoiled the night: asked for the 'first prize' at the start of the ceremony, he took it to mean first place and named Titane before any other award.

In Heretic (2024), which actor plays the eccentric Mr. Reed who traps two Mormon missionaries?

Hugh Grant. The directors thought of him after watching him play six different characters in Cloud Atlas, and the part let a famously charming leading man play against type.

Final Destination (2000) began life as a spec script for an episode of which TV series?

The X-Files. Jeffrey Reddick took the idea from a story he read about a woman whose mother's bad feeling made her switch flights before the plane she left crashed, then wrote it up to win an agent.

Which filmmaker behind Oculus, Hush and Doctor Sleep created Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House?

Mike Flanagan. With Doctor Sleep he set out to reconcile Stephen King's novels with Stanley Kubrick's film of The Shining, an adaptation King himself famously hated.