Welcome to the Blumhouse returns for a second year with four new Amazon original horror movies produced by Blumhouse premiering on Prime Video: Bingo Hell and Black as Night on October 1, and Madres and The Manor on October 8. To celebrate the return, horror producer extraordinaire Jason Blum (Halloween, Get Out, Paranormal Activity) welcomed me to his (virtual) house to discuss the new batch of films, spoilers in trailers, and more.
Bingo Hell, directed by Gigi Saul Guerrero (Culture Shock), is a horror-comedy in which the elderly fight back against a diabolical businessman trying to gentrify their bingo hall. Black as Night, directed by Maritte Lee Go (Phobias), follows a teen who leads an infiltration of a vampire faction in New Orleans. Madres, directed by Ryan Zaragoza, centers on a pregnant Mexican-American couple at a 1970s migrant farming community. The Manor, directed by Axelle Carolyn (Tales of Halloween), finds a supernatural presence preying on nursing home residents.
After receiving criticism for the lack of female directors in Blumhouse's repertoire in the past, Blum is visibly proud to be backing new and diverse voices with this year's films. “It makes for stories we wouldn’t have expected," he explains. "All four of [the new Welcome to the Blumhouse films] are about people who are marginalized in some way or another, and I don’t think that would have happened if it hadn’t been for working with underrepresented filmmakers.”
“I think we all learn and grow from understanding other peoples’ experiences in the world," he continues. “When you see stories about people that are having those experiences [you haven’t had], I think it makes you more empathetic and better rounded people and better citizens of the world as a result.”
Welcome to the Blumhouse's streaming model also allows Blum to take risks he may otherwise be unable to explore with theatrical releases. “The lane is much wider for streaming movies. Theatrical movies have to really check certain boxes to be able to be marketed and play theatrically. We can be more playful with what we choose."
"We see a lot of scripts on the movie side of the company that we love but don’t have the opportunity to make, and the Welcome to the Blumhouse partnership with Amazon has given us a venue to make these movies," he adds. "Horror-comedy, for instance, is an example that just doesn’t work theatrically. Edgar Wright can pull it off sometimes, maybe, but no one else seems to be able to do it! But it works great for streaming. And two of the four movies, there’s a lot of funny things in them. So it allows us to get behind movies that are more different and left-of-center than we can in our theatrical business.”
One thing you won't see in a Blumhouse production is the pandemic. “Anything about a pandemic turns me off. I’ve been living through a pandemic; I don’t want to make a movie about the pandemic!" Beyond that, he doesn't want to repeat himself. “I built the company on trying not to repeat what we’ve done before. I’m not always successful. Some of our movies feel like the movies in the past, but I try and do new things. I don’t want to make, like, ‘This is the new Friday the 13th, not called Friday the 13th.’ They already made Friday the 13th; I don’t want the 'new' Friday the 13th.”
On the subject of spoilers in trailers, Blum admits, “I differ from my dear brothers and sisters, my directors. I think that it is extraordinarily difficult to break through with anything - with a movie, a show, Welcome to the Blumhouse. People have so many choices now. It’s very hard to get them to focus on what you want them to focus on. I think the only way to do that is to show the best parts of your movie or your show. The directors always say, ‘The audience gets mad!’ You know what? Very rarely do you come out like, ‘God, I would have enjoyed the movie if there was less in the trailer,’ or not see the movie because of the trailer."
"We get complaints about it all the time. People are always mad at us for doing it. I’d rather people complained and saw my movie than didn’t see the film, and I really think that’s the choice. I think a lot of the people who come out saying, ‘I saw this in the trailer,’ they never would have seen the movie if they hadn’t seen that in the trailer. That’s my feeling, but in the filmmaking community that makes me deeply unpopular," he chuckles.
Welcome to the Blumhouse has not yet been renewed for a third installment, but Blum is optimistic about its future. “There’s no official plans to extend the series, but I don’t see why we wouldn’t. It’s worked out great for Blumhouse. I think Amazon has been very happy about the performance of the movies. I hope to make it an October tradition.”
When you're done watching the four new Welcome to the Blumhouse films, Blum has another recommendation for your Halloween viewing: “I think Hush is a great movie. It’s Mike Flanagan's movie. It’s been seen online, but if you haven’t seen it, go check out Hush!”
