By Clara Stern
When walking the streets during a foggy halloween night, it isn’t unusual to see a multitude of tiny children prancing around in blue dresses and blonde, braided wings, or in Anna of Arendelle’s iconic dress and red hair. Dressing up as a Frozen character has been a staple ever since the movie premiered in 2013.
But this past Halloween, there was a dramatic costume shift. Blond wings were replaced with synthetic purple braids, and Anna’s dress was traded in for cropped demon hunter jackets and tall black boots.
The K-Pop Demon Hunters frenzy had infiltrated Halloween.
K-Pop Demon Hunters, a Sony Pictures Animation movie, premiered on Netflix on June 20th, 2025, and was met with roaring success. The movie follows a K-pop girl group, and when they’re not singing, they’re slaying demons. It garnered around 9 million views within 3 days of release, and proceeded to break Netflix streaming records. In contrast, Frozen had around 3.2 million DVD and Blu-Ray sales within its first day.
K-Pop Demon Hunters global reach was reflected in the numbers it produced 325 million views in the first 91 days, which led to a 17% jump in Netflix’s 3rd quarter revenue!
Though both movies reaped an astronomical amount of views and money, the more profound impact is actually found within communities. Companies can put out as many numbers as they want, but the only way to truly encapsulate the impact of a movie is to look into society.
Rachel McCarthy, a Main Street School student said, “When [K-Pop Demon Hunters] first came out it was really popular in my school. I talked to my friends a lot about it.” She proceeded to mention that like her, every girl she knew dressed up as Rumi for Halloween.
Frozen also had a similar impact.
“I remember dressing up as Anna, and seeing so many others in the same exact costume,” said junior Zoya Bhandari. “Walking down the streets on Halloween felt like I had stepped into the movie.”
“All I talked about in school was Frozen,” said junior Dahlia Annenberg. “It was just what everyone talked about.”
Evidently, both movies had seeped beyond the screens and into the lives of young girls, shaping society beyond the revenue they generated for big companies.
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