After all the tabloid drama, Don’t Worry, Darling finally hit theaters this weekend and took in $30 million worldwide. Not bad. But it’s also not the film story that’s most interesting to me. That award goes to Barbarian, a Skarsgård-starring horror pic from 20th Century Studios that has also generated just over $30 million globally, over two weeks, but at a fraction of the production cost. Now the film is expanding in its third week into 500 additional theaters in the U.S. And its week-over-week decline hovered at around 29 percent this weekend—that’s not just good, it’s exceptional. 

Barbarian’s lowkey success speaks to the enduring power of the horror genre in the streaming age. Demand share for horror movies, both in theaters and via streaming, hovered around 16 percent in the U.S. during the past 18 months, demonstrating a consistent increase each month within that period of time, according to data from Parrot Analytics, where I work as director of strategy. New films like The Black Phone, Scream, and Nope have all grossed more than $140 million at the global box office.