SCREAMBOX

[Giganticface]

Hi all,

Some of you know I’m a software developer, and I’ve been busy this year working on a project that I’d soon announce. Well, I can finally announce it, and it happens to be relevant to this forum.

Since about March this year, I've been the project lead for a brand new horror movie streaming service: SCREAMBOX.



My company was hired to design the their brand and the web experience, and develop the website. I led the team, wrote a majority of the code, and being the horror enthusiast that I am, consulted on devising the horror categorization scheme.

It was a fun project, and I think a pretty good service. They have a decent mix of:

• Modern classics (Evil Dead, Hellraiser I & II)
• 70s exploitation (The Hills Have Eyes, Basket Case)
• Some good Asian horror (Gozu, Shutter, Ab-Normal Beauty, Carved, etc.)
• A few modern popular films (Hatchet, Cold Prey, Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh, Suck, Chillerama)
• 80s fun stuff (C.H.U.D., Silent Night Deadly Night, House)
• All the Masters of Horror series, including Takashi Miike’s banned “Imprint"
• Some lesser-known gems (The Lost, The Devil’s Rock)
• And a whole bunch of stuff ranging from pretty bad to pretty decent, depending on your tastes.

While you can watch online through the website (which is also mobile-friendly), they also have Roku, Samsung TV, Android and (I think) iPad apps, and soon will have Xbox, Playstation, FireTV, Kindle Fire, and Chromecast apps.

They launched with around 250+ titles, but plan to secure a lot more (and better) content in the future. They hope to, at some point, be considered the “the Netflix for horror.” It's a paid service -- $3.99/mo -- the first month is free, and you can easily cancel before it ends.

Check it out and tell me what you think.

Oh, here's a little hidden Easter egg. If you add ?bg=1 to the end of the URL (where the "1" is anything between 1 and 9), you can see a variety of background imagery that's normally randomly selected per-user. For instance: https://www.screambox.com/?bg=2

[MichaelMyers]

So, sell this to me over SyFy, Chiller,TCM etc...

[Giganticface]

Originally Posted by MichaelMyers

So, sell this to me over SyFy, Chiller,TCM etc...

It's a different model. SyFy, Chiller and TCM are all cable channels that you'd get with a cable package. Screambox is more like Hulu, Netflix or Amazon Streaming -- some folks (the cable-cutters) might get it instead of paying for cable. Others might get it in addition to cable.

As far as content goes, Screambox is uncut (unlike SyFy) and, in general, more modern (unlike TCM). I don't have Chiller, so can't compare the catalogues.

Me, personally, I'm someone that pays for *both* cable and streaming internet services (Netflix, Amazon) to get a wide variety of content. I watch a lot of TCM, IFC and MGM, but also watch a lot of horror on Netflix, especially indie stuff. I don't watch much SyFy because it's edited.

(As an interesting sidenote, the programming director of Screambox used to be a programming director at SyFy, and helped bring together all those Sharktopus type movies. He's a cool guy, Ray Canella. Also, once FearNET was on it's way out, Screambox hired one of their programming managers. They're definitely swinging for the fences.)

[neverending]

Sounds like a cool project. I wish you well, and will probably subscribe at some point.

I hated FearNet though, so I hope you don't emulate them too much.


Why not through some classic horror in there as well. for old coots like me? Since a lot of it is in public domain anyway. why not carry it? You might say, well, people could get it anywhere- but why shouldn't they get it from you, as long as they're already there?

[Sculpt]

Congratulations on completion of the project, Gigan! You should be quite proud.

Sounds like an interesting venture for this company. I agree with Never, would love to see plenty of classic horror films in their selection.

As a comparison, right now Netflix has 589 Horror films for $8 a month, as compared to 250 for $4. Difficult comparison, but $3.99 is an attractive POS aspect.

Some sites will try offering different prices to random site customers to survey how much sounds worth it to people. Did you already try that?

[Straker]

Firstly, congratulation on completion of this project and good luck with it, hope it takes off.

At first glance, you have a better horror catalogue than UK Netflix, but I'm guessing you don't/ can' stream this outside the US? I have to change my DNS code on my xbox to get US Netflix. I'd probably subscribe to this if I didn't haven't to clown around with any of that crap to watch.... Netflix UK is pretty shitty really, I wouldn't pay for it if I couldn't get access to the US catalogue.

[Giganticface]

Thanks for the congrats, everyone! I am pretty happy with how it turned out, and figured I'd share.

Originally Posted by neverending

Why not through some classic horror in there as well. for old coots like me? Since a lot of it is in public domain anyway. why not carry it? You might say, well, people could get it anywhere- but why shouldn't they get it from you, as long as they're already there?

That's a great idea! Classic horror is not represented at all in their catalog. I know they're trying to have a more modern, edgy take on their brand image, but I think it could only help to add classic content. I'll suggest that to their programming director, especially since, like you said, many great films are public domain.

Originally Posted by Sculpt

Some sites will try offering different prices to random site customers to survey how much sounds worth it to people. Did you already try that?

They did conduct a study on this. Before deciding to get funding and build the service, they started with a paid YouTube channel. They experimented with $2.99 and $3.99, and found that there was little dropoff moving up to $3.99.

Originally Posted by Straker

At first glance, you have a better horror catalogue than UK Netflix, but I'm guessing you don't/ can' stream this outside the US? I have to change my DNS code on my xbox to get US Netflix. I'd probably subscribe to this if I didn't haven't to clown around with any of that crap to watch.... Netflix UK is pretty shitty really, I wouldn't pay for it if I couldn't get access to the US catalogue.

That's correct. The content is currently only licensed in the US, and they use geoblocking to prevent delivery outside the US. I believe they have plans for extending to other countries, but I don't know the timing of that.

[alexslacks]

The bg thing is very clever haha. Good way to generate more clicks ;)

I like #7 best.

[Baron Von Marlon]

Sounds sweet. Best of luck!