A24’s Groundbreaking New Horror Movie Sends ‘The Bride!’ Reeling in Early Box Office Battle

After a brief but bombastic detour into relatively big-budget territory with films such as Civil War and Marty Supreme, A24 returned to its genre roots this week with a new horror movie that’s scaring the living daylights out of audiences. The movie combines the whip-smart marketing techniques that propelled Paranormal Activity and Longlegs to major box-office success, and is already exceeding expectations thanks, in part, to a Friday the 13th release. It premiered at the Fantasia International Film Festival last year, where it was picked up for domestic distribution by A24. The film received positive early reviews, with particular praise going to its sound design. The movie follows a paranormal podcaster who learns the hard way that she might want to rethink her skepticism.

The film’s tagline declares it to be “the scariest movie you’ll ever hear.” Paranormal Activity had a similar release strategy around two decades ago; that movie, in turn, emulated The Blair Witch Project‘s path to success. It was produced on a reported budget of around $15,000, with Paramount spending an additional $200,000 to refine it after picking up distribution rights. Paranormal Activity ended up grossing nearly $200 million worldwide and is often cited as the most successful movie ever made in terms of return-on-investment. Longlegs, on the other hand, scored a phenomenal debut on the back of an arresting marketing campaign a couple of years ago. It grossed $22 million in its opening weekend, and ultimately concluded its global run with around $130 million.

Strap on Your Hockey Masks; It’s Friday the 13th — The Collider Movie Quiz!

Because today is Friday the 13th, let’s march our way through the iconic slasher franchise. Ch-ch-ch-ch. Ha-ha-ha-ha.

Here’s How Much A24’s New Horror Movie Is Expected to Gross this Weekend

A24’s new film won’t hit those numbers, but it’s performing in the same range as the Hugh Grant hit Heretic, which made nearly $70 million worldwide. The movie in question is Undertone; it grossed more than $4 million on opening day, and is currently looking at an opening weekend haul between $9 million and $10 million. It’s handily outpacing last week’s big-budget bomb The Bride!, which will drop out of the top five this weekend. Directed by Ian Tuason and starring Nina Kiri, Undertone was produced on a reported budget of just $500,000. It currently holds a “Certified Fresh” 75% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics’ consensus reads, “Masterfully using negative space and unsettling audio to build its creeping dread, Undertone erupts as a diabolically immersive aural nightmare.” In his review, Collider’s Ross Bonaime wrote, “Tuason has created one of the few horror films that’s even more horrifying to hear than it is to see.” You can watch Undertone in theaters, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.