If you’ve opened Instagram, TikTok, X, or any other social media platform in the past couple of weeks, you’ve probably seen the face of, or at least heard about, Austin Abrams. As a dark horse for scream king of modern horror, he’s the leading contender for October’s mousy white boy of the month.
He impressed audiences in Zach Cregger’s Weapons in 2025, playing an eccentric addict who uniquely advanced the plot. Weapons notoriously struggled with filming because production began during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Abrams was the only original cast member who stuck out by holding onto his part, and in the process, formed a bond with Cregger.
Cregger’s Resident Evil was released in theaters in September 2026 and has quickly become one of the highest-grossing horror movies of the year behind Obsession and Backrooms, and Cregger’s highest-grossing movie, period.
On top of all that money, Abrams has won over the hearts of fans all over social media. He tends to avoid answering questions in his interviews, which seems to have charmed movie-watchers. He’s a very talented enigma.
Austin Abrams Career
Even before his days of horror movie stardom, Abrams has had a fantastic track record. He was in The Walking Dead and Euphoria, two iconic TV shows with dedicated fanbases. So why, with all this very current popularity, is Whalefall underperforming so horribly?
Whalefall follows a college-aged man by the name of Jay who visits home for the first time since his father’s passing and examines the process of grief through a complicated father-son relationship. Jay, while diving for his father’s remains, gets swallowed by a whale and has only 60 minutes to find a way out.
I’m an avid movie-goer, so I saw the trailer for this movie a couple of times. I’m also a huge zombie nerd and absolutely loved Abrams in The Walking Dead, so I try to see movies that he’s in. So, despite how little the trailer tells you about the movie, I decided to go see it.
I was kind of shocked by how good Whalefall is. The movie is a gorgeous metaphor for being consumed by grief and makes fantastic commentary on what forgiveness really entails. Admittedly, the movie does get a little cheesy at times, but I think that the situation calls for it. Getting stuck inside of a whale is already improbable; what’s a couple of disembodied voices of your loved ones?
Everyone I mentioned this movie to after seeing it had no idea what I was talking about. When I said, “it’s about the guy in the whale,” they got it eventually. However, the movie itself, despite taking place largely inside of a whale, is about a lot more than the whale itself.
‘Whalefall’ Performance
This disconnect between potential audiences and the content of the movie is why I think it underperformed at the box office. It grossed only $17.5 million total in its opening weekend on a reported budget of $60 million.
Whalefall came out in October 2026, almost exactly a month to the day after Resident Evil. Abrams was and continues to be talked about constantly. The marketing for Whalefall rode on the coattails of Resident Evil’s popularity instead of capitalizing on it and using it to their advantage.
I can understand not wanting to give away the entire plot of your movie in the trailer, but there certainly could have been a way to market it as the drama it is instead of strictly a thriller. There are countless different TikTok ideas or other doors opened with Abrams being such a hot topic of discussion, and the marketing for Whalefall didn’t take the opportunity for any of that.
Box office success isn’t everything. Abrams himself may have refused certain ideas, and we have no way of knowing that. Still, it’s a shame that such a beautiful movie is getting overlooked. The visual effects and score are just as beautiful as the story. It’s very well-rounded, but it’s a victim of getting lost in the constant shuffle of advertising.
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