This year has proven what many prognosticators have been saying for a while now: the next big filmmaker will come from the world of YouTube and TikTok. Last week, Curry Barker‘s Obsession shattered box-office expectations with a $17 million opening weekend haul. It was released only a few months after Markiplier‘s Iron Lung, which opened to $18 million. A couple of weeks from now, we will see the release of Kane Parsons‘ Backrooms, which is expected to gross more than both those movies in its opening weekend. The three filmmakers, each of whom started out on YouTube, will no doubt have bright careers. They will, however, have to continue proving themselves in a genre that has already crowned the next generation of stalwarts — Jordan Peele, Zach Cregger, and Ari Aster.
Cregger’s latest film, Weapons, defied box-office expectations when it grossed nearly $300 million worldwide in 2025. It received excellent reviews, and ended up winning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Amy Madigan. Cregger started out in the comedy genre over a decade ago, and even co-directed a poorly reviewed feature that holds a 5% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Unsurprisingly, he has largely disowned it, and has declared his breakout 2022 feature as his real debut. The movie in question is currently streaming on Netflix in the United Kingdom and other territories, but it’ll leave the platform soon.
Your Best Chance Is Against…
Your instincts, your strengths, and your particular way of thinking under pressure point to one villain you actually have a fighting chance against. Everyone else — good luck.
Jason is relentless, but he is also predictable — and that is the gap you would exploit.
- He moves in straight lines toward his target. He doesn’t strategise, doesn’t adapt, doesn’t outsmart. He simply pursues.
- Your ability to keep moving, use the environment, and resist the panic that freezes most victims gives you a genuine edge.
- The Crystal Lake survivors were always the ones who stopped running in circles and started thinking about terrain, water, and distance.
- You think like that. Which means Jason, for all his indestructibility, would face someone who simply refused to be where he expected.
Michael watches before he moves. He is patient, methodical, and almost impossible to detect — until it’s too late for anyone who isn’t paying close enough attention.
- But you are paying attention. You notice the shape in the window, the car parked slightly wrong, the silence where there should be sound.
- Michael’s power lies in the invisibility of ordinary suburbia — the fact that nothing ever looks wrong until it already is.
- Your spatial awareness and instinct to map every room, every exit, and every shadow before you need them is precisely the quality Laurie Strode had.
- You are not a victim waiting to happen. You are someone who already suspects something is wrong — and acts on it.
Freddy wins by getting inside your head — using your own fears, your own memories, your own subconscious as weapons against you. That strategy requires a target who can be destabilised.
- You are harder to destabilise than most. You’ve faced uncomfortable truths about yourself and you haven’t looked away.
- The survivors on Elm Street were always the ones who understood what was happening and chose to face it rather than flee from it.
- Freddy’s greatest weakness is that his power evaporates in the presence of someone who refuses to give him the fear he feeds on.
- Your psychological resilience — the ability to stay grounded when reality itself becomes unreliable — is exactly the quality that keeps you alive here.
Pennywise is ancient, shapeshifting, and feeds on terror — but it has one critical vulnerability: it cannot function against someone who genuinely stops being afraid of it.
- The Losers Club didn’t survive because they were braver than everyone else. They survived because they faced their fears together, and faced them honestly.
- You ask the questions others avoid. You look directly at what frightens you rather than turning away.
- That directness — the refusal to let fear fester in the dark — is Pennywise’s worst nightmare.
- It chose the wrong target when it chose you. You are exactly the kind of person whose fear tastes like nothing at all.
Chucky’s greatest advantage is that nobody takes him seriously until it’s already too late. He exploits the gap between how something looks and what it actually is.
- You don’t have that gap. You take threats seriously regardless of how they present — and you never make the mistake of underestimating something because of its size or appearance.
- Chucky relies on surprise, on the delay between recognition and response. You close that delay faster than almost anyone.
- Your instinct to treat every unfamiliar thing with appropriate scepticism — rather than dismissing it because it seems absurd — is the exact quality that keeps you breathing.
- Against Chucky, not laughing is already winning. You are very good at not laughing.
Here’s How Long You Have Left to Watch Zach Cregger’s Breakout Movie on Netflix UK
We’re talking, of course, about Barbarian, which has to be one of the most ambitious horror movies of the last decade. The film begins unassumingly, setting up a tense situation for a young woman who feels creeped out in her Airbnb. But it takes a wild left turn 30 minutes later, and then delivers another twist in the final act. Barbarian grossed nearly $50 million worldwide against a reported budget of $4 million, and now holds a “Certified Fresh” 92% score on Rotten Tomatoes. The aggregator website’s consensus reads, “Smart, darkly humorous, and above all scary, Barbarian offers a chilling and consistently unpredictable thrill ride for horror fans.” The movie is available on Netflix UK until June 14. Cregger is gearing up for the release of his third horror film, a reboot of Resident Evil. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
- Release Date
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September 9, 2022
- Runtime
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102 minutes
- Producers
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Arnon Milchan, Roy Lee, J.D. Lifshitz, Raphael Margules
