Horror at the Box Office: Send Help Crushes the Competition
It’s been a dreary few weeks for new theatrical horror releases (unless you count the steamy thriller The Housemaid as horror), but we finally have our first bona fide genre hit of the year.
Sam Raimi’s latest film, Send Help, became the first 2026 horror movie to open #1 at the box office with an estimated $20 million domestic debut. It’s already earned $28 million worldwide against a production budget of $40 million. With extremely strong reviews and plenty of positive buzz, the film is virtually guaranteed to make a solid profit.
Surprisingly, this is the first horror film Raimi has directed since Drag Me to Hell in 2009. That movie grossed over $90 million on a $30 million budget. Will Send Help beat that? It’s a bit unfair to make a direct comparison because of ticket price inflation, but my guess is that Send Help will eventually outgross Drag Me to Hell.
The Housemaid made yet another weekend in the top ten, finishing eighth with an estimated $3.5 million. It’s made over $120 million in North America alone. The thriller’s staying power is incredible. It dropped only 11% from the previous weekend.
Two other holdovers continued their disappointing theatrical runs. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple grossed $1.6 million for an estimated domestic total of about $23.6 million. It finished in tenth place. In comparison, 28 Years Later (2025) grossed over $70 million in theaters. It’ll take a miracle for The Bone Temple to reach even half that.
Return to Silent Hill finished outside the top ten in its second weekend. The videogame adaptation made just under $1 million for a total of $5.1 million domestically so far. I don’t think there’s going to be another Silent Hill installment any time soon.
Up Next
The Strangers Chapter 3 creeps into theaters on February 6th. Chapter 2 was not well received last year (to put it mildly), but it performed decently commercially. I doubt there are many people excited to rush out to see the third one, but we’ll see how it does!
Send Help, on the other hand, has been very well received so far. That usually translates to a strong second weekend. Can it avoid the 50%-60% box office 2nd weekend slump that plagues so many horror movies?
Credit to Box Office Mojo for the figures cited.
