Movies
‘The Blumhouse Of Horrors’ Haunted House Officially Announced!
Earlier in the week we got wind of the news that Jason Blum and Blumhouse were opening a haunted house, now we have the official word!
Blumhouse Productions, the multi-media production company behind highly-successful and terrifying movies like the Paranormal Activity franchise, Insidious and the upcoming Sinister, announced today (The Blumhouse Of Horrors), an innovative and frightening haunted house experience in the heart of downtown Los Angeles.
Blumhouse’s Los Angeles-based movie production team is using its expertise in horror film production, storytelling, and movie set design to transform the Variety Arts Theater into a fully-immersive and chillingly intense Halloween attraction. The Blumhouse of Horrors will be open to the public Thursday through Saturday throughout October, and the entire week of Halloween.
Jason Blum, founder and CEO of Blumhouse said: “Blumhouse is passionate about telling scary stories in entirely new ways and we are taking everything we have learned from our film production experience to create a one-of-a-kind Haunted House in downtown L.A. We are excited to kick-off October with The Blumhouse of Horrors.”
Head inside for full details – including ticket prices and hours! Also, you can follow the Blumhouse Facebook and Twitter for more news!
In addition to The Blumhouse of Horrors, premiering later that month from Blumhouse are Sinister, directed and co-written by Scott Derrickson and starring Ethan Hawke for Lionsgate/Summit on October 5th, and Paranormal Activity 4 on October 19th for Paramount Pictures.
Visitors will tour the twisting corridors of an eerily haunted theater whose stage was home to one of the world’s most deranged, dark art magicians during the heyday of 1920s vaudeville. That is, until one tragic performance when his assistant climbed into a magical box and vanished forever. The theater was shut down instantly and permanently closed to the public … until now.
Filled with terrifying sights, sounds and smells, The Blumhouse of Horrors will bring visitors face-to-face with the ghostly spirits of the magician and his disciples -all of whom continue to hone their craft, on the lookout for volunteers for tricks that could end in disappearance or death.
The Blumhouse of Horrors is taking over the 88-year-old Variety Arts Theater building, located at 940 South Figueroa Street, between 9th and 10th Streets. Once known as “The Playhouse,” the building hosted performances by industry greats like Laurel & Hardy and Clark Gable and featured speeches by historical figures like Eleanor Roosevelt and Dorothy Parker. The event provides rare access for visitors to explore one of Los Angeles’ most historic and well-preserved cultural sites.
Visitor information:
• The Blumhouse of Horrors will be open from 6 p.m. to midnight, Thursday, Friday and Saturday from October 4th through October 28th; and then Monday, October 29th, through Saturday, November 3rd.
• Ticket options start at $29 and can be purchased at www.BlumhouseOfHorrors.com.
• The experience is appropriate for children ages 12 and up and there will be select weekend daytime “lights on” experiences for younger children.
ABOUT BLUMHOUSE PRODUCTIONS
Blumhouse Productions (@blumhouse and facebook.com/blumhouse), founded by Jason Blum, is a multi-media production company that pioneered a new model of studio filmmaking – producing high-quality, micro-budget films for wide release. Since its launch in 2000, Blumhouse has produced more than 30 feature films including some of the most profitable movies of all time. Blumhouse is a director driven company that helps filmmakers like Scott Derrickson and James Wan tell genre stories that they are passionate about.
Blumhouse’s first production following the high-quality micro-budget model was the original Paranormal Activity, which was made for $15,000, released by Paramount Pictures, and grossed close to $200 million worldwide, making it the most profitable film in the history of Hollywood. The sequel Paranormal Activity 2, grossed close to $170 million worldwide, setting additional box-office records.
Last year, Blumhouse produced highly-profitable movies like James Wan’s Insidious which had a budget of $1.5 million and grossed close to $100 million worldwide and Paranormal Activity 3, which had a budget of $5 million and grossed over $200 million worldwide. Premiering later this year is Sinister, directed and co-written by Scott Derrickson and starring Ethan Hawke for Lionsgate/Summit, and Paranormal Activity 4 for Paramount Pictures.
Since announcing a first-look deal with Universal Pictures, Blumhouse has wrapped production on The Purge with Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes; Not Safe For Work, directed by Joe Johnston; and Mockingbird, directed by Bryan Bertino. Blumhouse has also wrapped on the Scott Stewart directed Dark Skies for Alliance/Dimension and Jessabelle for Lionsgate.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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