2 New Horror Movies Impressively Avoid Box Office Curse Despite Rotten RT Scores

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Both The Strangers: Chapter 3 and Dracula have managed to avoid the typical box office slump often seen with horror movie sequels and remakes.

Renny Harlin’s The Strangers: Chapter 3 and Luc Besson’s Dracula both came out on February 6th. The Strangers: Chapter 3 is the final film in Harlin’s recent trilogy, though it’s actually the fifth Strangers movie overall. Dracula is a fresh take on the famous Bram Stoker novel, with Caleb Landry Jones playing the lead role.

According to Box Office Mojo, The Strangers: Chapter 3 is expected to earn $2.3 million this weekend, placing it at number 11 in theaters. Importantly, this represents a small drop of only 34.5% from its opening weekend. Dracula is projected to earn $3 million, landing at number 10, with an even smaller decline of 31.8% from its debut.

Neither of the new 2026 horror films is a huge box office success, but what’s really unusual is how much their audience numbers dropped in their second weekend. Horror movies typically lose viewers quickly, but these films experienced drops that are almost unheard of for the genre. Usually, horror films fall by over 50%, often between 60% and 70%.

Interestingly, while only one horror film appears on Box Office Mojo’s list of movies with the smallest second-week drops in ticket sales, a full six horror films are on the list of those with the biggest second-week drops.

Surprisingly, both films managed to succeed despite receiving poor reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. While Dracula received a so-so 53% rating, The Strangers: Chapter 3 was critically panned, earning a very low 18%.

A likely reason both films saw significant declines in their second week is that the Valentine’s Day holiday occurred during that time. Romantic movies like Wuthering Heights and Solo Mio did particularly well, landing at No. 1 and No. 5, and it’s possible that people going on dates to see a movie helped those films, while impacting the performance of these two.

It’s still uncertain how well The Strangers: Chapter 3 and Dracula will do in their third weeks of release. However, if they keep attracting similar-sized audiences, they could surprisingly become hits domestically. Dracula faces a bigger challenge though, as it cost around $52 million to make.

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2026-02-15 22:18