MINNEAPOLIS — Don’t even think about calling Ghostbusters.

Consumers have rarely been so eager to hang with supernatural spirits, as well as monsters, psychopaths, zombies and demons. Local experts think people turn to fake fears as an escape from mounting nightmares in real life.

“Horror is super hot right now,” said St. Paul-based writer Tasha Coryell, whose last novel was “Love Letters to a Serial Killer.” “I think it’s going to continue to be super hot.”

Sales of horror fiction jumped more than 24% in 2023, according to Circana BookScan, and have continued to rise ever since, thanks to novels like Grady Hendrix’s “Witchcraft for Wayward Girls” and Stephen Graham Jones’ “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter.”

Seven movies have opened at No. 1 at the box office this year, including “Black Phone 2,” “Final Destination: Bloodlines” and “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” which made $83 million its first weekend, the third biggest ever for a horror film.

In addition to scaring up big business, “Weapons” and “Sinners” have wowed critics, a rarity for a genre that generally gets about as much respect as Tyler Perry comedies. “The Silence of the Lambs” is the only horror flick to ever win the best picture Oscar.

The most watched series of the 2024-25 TV season was Netflix’s “Squid Game,” an all-too literal version of “Survivor,” while CBS’ “Ghosts,” set in a haunted house, remains one of network TV’s most popular sitcoms.

“Alien: Earth” and “It: Welcome to Derry,” two of the most buzzed about shows of the year, soon will be followed by “Crystal Lake,” a prequel to the “Friday the 13th″ films, a “Hostel” series starring Paul Giamatti and the final season of “Stranger Things.”

And don’t sleep on “The Walking Dead.” The AMC series has already inspired six spinoffs, with more on the way.

“Pluribus,” which debuts Nov. 7 on Apple TV+, turns the zombie-takeover premise on its ear. Creator Vince Gilligan, who previously gave us “Breaking Bad,” imagines a world in which an alien force seems more interested in transforming humans into super-nice robots than eating them for lunch.

“I’ve been aware for quite a while of all these postapocalyptic stories about the end of the world and how we survive,” said Gilligan, who claims to have seen every “Twilight Zone” episode at least 20 times. “I can’t help but put on my amateur sociology hat and wonder if something is in the air. Is the end really coming? You turn on TV news and it does feel that way.”

Interest in horror does seem to spike in times of turmoil. The most famous incarnations of “Dracula,” “Frankenstein” and “The Mummy” came out at the height of the Great Depression. The genre peaked in the 1970s when differences on civil rights and the Vietnam War tore the country apart.

Five of the top 25 box-office hits of that decade were horror movies, a list that includes “The Exorcist,” “Jaws” and “The Amityville Horror.” Compare that with the 1990s, when the highest-grossing horror film was Brendan Fraser’s version of “The Mummy” at No. 24.

“It’s strange,” said Joe Hart, the Edgar Award-winning writer who penned haunted thrillers like “Wyndclyffe” from his home in northern Minnesota. “We almost go toward fear and discomfort to feel safe in a way. Maybe it makes real life less scary. It’s the same principle as exposure therapy. It’s a comfort-type thing.”

The monsters in the “Alien” franchise have been “comforting” audiences since 1979. But in FX’s “Alien: Earth,” there’s a new equally daunting enemy: Tech geniuses determined to use artificial intelligence in selfish ways.

“Our series is about trying to live forever. Well, there are people doing that right now,” said New Ulm native David Rysdahl who stars in the series. “Sci and horror can be a lens to see the problems of the day and magnify the fears we’re feeling. But we also have monster scares and action sequences.”

The ‘90s weren’t a great period for the genre at the box office, but a lot of Gen Yers were taken with that era’s slasher films, particularly the “Scream” series.

Minnesota-based filmmaker Joseph Scrimshaw, who shot his creep-filled project, “Dead Media” in Minneapolis, insists there are more to those Wes Craven flicks than just teens in trouble.

“The heart of those movies is Sidney Prescott,” said Scrimshaw, referring to the protagonist played by Neve Campbell. “There’s violence and a little slashing, but it’s really about how someone in her life is betraying her. Younger people, especially young women, can relate to the idea of not knowing who you can trust.”

Horror plots can offer analogies for all kinds of issues like McCarthyism (“Invasion of the Body Snatchers”), racism (“Get Out”), sexism (“Carrie”) and homophobia (the 11th season of “American Horror Story”).

Hart’s novel, “I Become Her,” is about a woman who becomes fearful of her husband. But at a deeper level, it deals with inequalities between the two genders.

“You see a lot of metaphors in my work,” Hart said. “The bad guy in the ski mask really represents something else.”

Writer Shane Hawk lives in San Diego, but he spent enough time in Minnesota as a child to write “Anoka: A Collection of Indigenous Horror,” based in the Minneapolis suburb. His short stories often counter Hollywood stereotypes of Native Americans while shining light on issues that are important to his fellow Indigenous people like colonization, alcoholism and fighting pipelines.

“With horror, you can confront things polite society turns away from,” he said. “You can highlight the past and present with the hope that the future changes.”

But horror creators don’t limit themselves to serious matters.

Coryell adored the 2022 movies “Bodies, Bodies, Bodies,” starring Pete Davidson, and “M3GAN,” even though she admits they are both kind of “dumb.”

“I like being scared,” she said. “It takes me out of the present moment. I’m no longer thinking about the news. I’m thinking about a haunted house and who is going to survive.”

Getting spooked can be even more of a thrill in the company of others.

“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” initially wasn’t a hit, but it eventually became a cult classic thanks to events where fans dress up as their favorite characters and talk back to the screen. Three members of the original 1975 cast, including Barry Bostwick, will be on hand Friday for a 50th anniversary bash at the Orpheum Theatre.

For the past month, the Parkway Theater has been showing classics like “Psycho” and “The Omen” on a weekly basis with bonuses such as trivia and themed cocktails. For a screening of “Scream,” a staff member dressed up as Ghostface and terrorized patrons in the lobby.

“That shared experience makes it more fun and more of a cathartic release,” said Parkway co-owner Ward Johnson. “The original ‘Halloween’ terrified me to no end as a child to the point where I couldn’t even look at Michael Myers’ mask without getting the chills. But these days I love to watch it with a big audience. Hearing people scream and laugh at the cringy ’70s dialogue is a blast.”

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