A lot of websites out there are prognosticating a bad time ahead for horror films. Has there ever been a great time? The recent spate of underwhelming returns for upstanding films like Grindhouse, 28 Weeks Later, and Hostel Part II have got some horror bloggers in a swoon about the threat currently posed to our beloved genre. Lucius Gore of E-Splatter notes of the upcoming Halloween: “…if this film bombs, we can probably expect to see the genre sink into the moribund direct-to-video-only mess that it was in throughout the first half of the 1990s.”

That’s pretty unfair, since the first half of the nineties gave us Dead/Alive, The People Under the Stairs, Misery, New Nightmare, In the Mouth of Madness, Candyman, Misery, Arachnophobia, Gremlins 2, Jacob’s Ladder, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Interview with the Vampire, and Species. Not a bad streak.  Not too many down-n-dirty horror flicks, but, hell, the eighties got pretty crazy there for a while.  I mean, have you seen Society?

However, he’s right about Hostel, Weeks, and Grindhouse not doing big business. However, does this indicate that interest in horror has waned? Ponder the following:

Grindhouse was based on an experience that none of our generation really got a chance to witness. As a result, none of us had the nostalgia that we could invest in such a project. The film performed well among horror fans eager to have that experience. For wide audiences, it was meaningless, and an hour too long. This all without going into the tricky area of explaining exactly why Tarantino and Rodriguez needed ninety million bucks to evoke no-budget sleaze.

28 Weeks Later opened to strong reviews and reasonable box office. If it tripled the budget of the original film, it still made its money back. Considering the original wasn’t a big hit ($45 million in 2003), these numbers are neither surprising, nor disappointing. Remember: horror films don’t operate on the same principles as big-budget films. Most are made with return-on-investment in mind, not sheer numbers.

And as for Hostel Part II, let it be said that the original was not embraced heavily outside our adorable little horror commune. Additionally, the first film had the advantage of opening in January, where there’s virtually no competition for an original idea. The second film opened against minimalist drama Ocean’s 13. Should we treat this as an indication of viewer interest or a result of poor planning?

Horror historically is most successful when released in the first and third quarters of the year. That way, their small ad budgets are swallowed up by behemoths like Spider-Man 3. Remember White Noise? Yeah, it wasn’t that great, but it opened in January and passed $60 million clams. Remember George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead? A pedigree like that struggled to twenty million in the summer of 2005.

Even so, I doubt many of you were wringing your hands, full of anxiety over predictions of the doom of horror, thinking, “But Jim, what if you‘re wrong? Dear God, what if you‘re wrong?” Instead, I predict most of you are wondering what screening of 1408 you’ll be scoping out this week, and which Masters of Horror episode is next on your plate. You’re also feeling a little guilty, because your Netflixed copy of The Body Snatcher is still on top of your TV. And, because you’re a horror fan, you think all this slump talk is overdramatic, because you’re used to getting your hands dirty while you dig for those rare jewels.