Immaculate And Late Night With The Devil Both Set Indie Horror Records At The Box Office

Sony had the big win at the box office over the weekend, with "Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire" taking the top spot on the charts, but additional context puts some qualifiers around that movie's win, since a $45 million opening weekend haul is a mixed bag for a film with a $100 million budget. While ghosts were being busted, though, two smaller horror movies had downright incredible weekends for their respective distributors. NEON's "Immaculate" and IFC's "Late Night with the Devil," bolstered by very strong buzz, had record-setting debuts for both labels. Put simply, horror stays winning.

Director Michael Mohan's "Immaculate" led the way with a $5.3 million debut, good enough to land at number four on the charts just above Mark Wahlberg's "Arthur the King" ($4.3 million). That represents the biggest opening weekend ever for a film released by NEON. Granted, the company behind movies like "Parasite" and "Ferrari" often opens movies on fewer screens and expands them nationwide later. Even so, the fact that Sydney Sweeney's star power was enough to carry this religious horror flick to such a relatively strong debut speaks volumes.

As for directors Colin and Cameron Cairnes' "Late Night with the Devil," it opened to $2.8 million, which also set a record for IFC. Most impressive of all? The film played on just over 1,000 screens, giving it an impressive per-screen average north of $2,700. For comparison's sake, "Immaculate" played on over 2,300 screens and averaged just shy of $2,300 per. Audiences were very actively seeking out "Late Night," even though there was a bit of a controversy over some AI used in the film. But that controversy evidently didn't turn moviegoers away. If anything, it might have helped to give the film some last-minute awareness.

Both movies should do fine in the weeks to come, but their theatrical success will undoubtedly lead to an increase in demand when they hit VOD/streaming. No question about it: Both titles received a huge profile boost from this.

"Immaculate" centers on Cecilia (Sweeney), a devout American nun who embarks on a journey to a remote convent in the Italian countryside. The trip quickly devolves into a nightmare as her new home harbors a sinister secret. The film has been met with a mixed reception (you can read /Film's review here), but that has seemingly fed into the curiosity that has driven moviegoers to seek it out. It certainly doesn't hurt that Sweeney has asserted herself as a bonafide A-list star, coming off of her hit rom-com "Anyone But You." It would be unfair to pin the shortcomings of "Madame Web" on her, as that was very much an ensemble piece. It's tough to get people out to theaters for original films, but Sweeney did just that here — and with some challenging subject matter, too.

Meanwhile, "Late Night With the Devil" focuses on a talk show host named Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian). But with ratings for his show plummeting since the death of Jack's wife, he plans a Halloween special in 1977, unaware he is about to unleash evil into the living rooms of America. Until very recently, the film held a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes, so to say that it has been well received would be a bit of an understatement. Whereas Sweeney's star power pushed "Immaculate" to success, this movie has earned the type of "too good to miss" buzz that simply can't be manufactured. In the end, there is often no substitute for a great movie.

Looking at the bigger picture, it's very good to see both NEON and IFC find such success with modestly budgeted genre films (both cost just several million to make). As more and more big media companies consolidate, the more smaller companies we have out there delivering original movies into the theatrical marketplace, the better.

We spoke about this on today's episode of the /Film Daily podcast, which you can listen to below:

"Immaculate" and "Late Night with the Devil" are in theaters now.