Why Horror Dominates Theaters But Dies On Streaming

One of Albert Einstein’s most mind-bending insights is that the faster you move, the more time slows down. This is known as an inverse relationship, which is a phenomenon where two variables move in opposite directions. Believe it or not, the same inverse relationship exists in entertainment: the faster horror films dominate theaters, the slower they tend to perform on streaming.

In the last decade, there’s a strong case to be made that the normally lower-budgeted horror genre generates the most consistent return on investment of any theatrical movie category. Put another way: horror has a knack for turning a profit. One would think that means their popularity translates across viewing experiences. And yet, we have ample evidence from the past five years that horror films do not perform as well on streaming as other genres. 

Why do audiences clearly enjoy the genre in one medium but not the other? And how do 2025’s five highest-grossing horror films match up with this trend? 

The chart below shows Greenlight Analytics’ Intent Conversion scores, or the percentage of respondents who said they planned to see the film in theaters divided by the percentage of those who were aware of the film, among this year’s top domestic horror grossers. This score is a strong indicator of how efficiently each title converts awareness into consumer action. (Note: While a higher Intent Conversion score reflects stronger conversion among those aware of a film, it does not automatically translate into a larger box office opening. Lower awareness films, such as Nosferatu, can post higher conversion rates but still open smaller than widely known titles, such as Final Destination: Bloodlines). Ideally, marketing campaigns are producing scores around 1. But regardless, in each film’s case, audiences showed up in theaters overall. 

Audiences are incentivized to see horror films in-person because the scares and thrills lend themselves to a communal experience. The spell of tension can’t be broken by pausing the movie to go to the bathroom, make a snack, or play on your phone (unless you’re one of those people in a theater). It’s a carefully constructed environment that does not carry over to our couches.  

Sinners was watched by a healthy 1.4 million U.S. households in its first weekend of availability on HBO Max, according to Samba TV. Hitting the service across the July 4th holiday weekend, its 9.25 million hours of viewership, per Nielsen, was well above the 5 million hour floor a film needs to break in its streaming debut to avoid the dreaded flop brand. So far, its generated 22.4 million hours of total U.S. viewership in its first three weeks of streaming availability. 

Final Destination: Bloodlines only arrived on HBO Max on August 1, so we’ll have to wait a few more weeks for Nielsen data. What we do know from Samba TV is that 268,000 U.S. households watched it in its first five days of VOD availability. This is behind non-horror films such as A Minecraft Movie (471,000), Thunderbolts* (449,000), How to Train Your Dragon (423,000), and Ballerina (344,000) in the same timeframe. 28 Years Later performed a bit better with 360,000 unique views in its first five days on VOD. It should arrive on Netflix sometime this fall, when we’ll get more data. 

Nosferatu hit Peacock on February 21st and only made the Nielsen charts for one week at a lowly 3.2 million hours before falling off. It arrived on Amazon Prime Video on June 27 yet hasn’t made the Nielsen charts again. (Weapons is still in theaters as of this writing). 

While more data is needed, this snapshot suggests that this year’s most bankable horror films are following the same trend. Outside of Sinners(which happens to be my favorite movie of the year thus far), they are struggling to consistently break through at-home. 

Studios must be keenly aware of the strengths and limitations of horror when developing a theatrical slate and planning for streaming acquisition and retention. For pure-play streamers like Netflix, the challenge is even more urgent: crack the code, and you’ve unlocked a genre goldmine. Fail, and horror might just remain a theater-first experience.

Horror’s biggest scares may be reserved for studio executives—at least when it comes to streaming. Einstein cracked the secrets of time. Now it’s up to Netflix to decode the secrets of horror at home.