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[Interview] Producer Jason Blum Talks ‘Insidious 2’, ‘Paranormal Activity 5’, ‘Dark Skies’ And ‘The Purge’ At The Opening Of ‘Blumhouse Of Horrors’!
Last night I attended a preview of Jason Blum’s Los Angeles haunted attraction, “The Blumhouse Of Horrors”. While what I saw wasn’t 100% finished, it was certainly impressive. It’s not so much a maze as it is a building full of haunts, characters, magic and smoke. I took a guided tour, which is not a VIP thing, it’s how the attraction is meant to be experienced since your guides are pretty creepy as well. There’s a lot of cool stuff to see (and feel – I know BD alum Brian Collins even got zapped). There’s also a neat feature that had the claustrophobic in me absolutely reeling. If you live in LA, and are a fan of haunted houses, I certainly recommend it.
The Blumhouse of Horrors opens on October 4th and will be open to the public Thursday through Saturday throughout October. And it’s open the entire week of Halloween. Info and tickets are available on the official site. You can also follow the Blumhouse Facebook and Twitter for more info.
After experiencing the attraction I sat down with Jason Blum to talk about his inspiration for the experience and how he tailored it to fit the building’s unique space. We also talked about some if his upcoming films. Insidious 2 seems to be just a click away and the existence of Paranormal Activity 5 seems to be a given at this point. We also talk about Dark Skies and the Ethan Hawke-starring Vigilandia, which is now titled The Purge. Head inside for the interview, it’s short but sweet!
This is a very distinctive haunted house. It has a nice 20’s and 30’s vibe, a lot of characters and it just doesn’t feel like anything else. What was the inspiration here for you?
The inspiration? We shoot almost all of our horror movies in LA and a couple of years ago we were talking about how fun it would be to scare people in a live event as opposed to on film. That’s where the conversation started. And then once we found this building, this location – we were able to come up with the story for it based on that.
About how long did it take to put all of this together?
It took about 6 months to put all of this together and I was very involved with how it came together but it was a big team of people. We had two great designers, Jen and Tom Spence, who came up with a lot of the set pieces. But I was pretty hands on.
In terms of choosing the location does this building have a significant history for you?
It does have a history, which a lot of buildings in LA don’t. And there have been a lot of ghost sightings here so hopefully they’ll come out and play along in October.
We’ve got to talk about some of your movies too. I know James [Wan] And Leigh [Whanell] are working on Insidious 2…
We’re getting closer. We’re getting closer. It’s not that we have an answer and we’re not telling, but every movie has a lot of moving parts and when they click together it happens. We’re close to the click but it hasn’t clicked yet.
I recently saw Paranormal Activity 4, which raises a lot of questions. How many of those are you answering in Paranormal Activity 5?
[laughs]Hey, I’ve gotta try!
It’s sort of the same answer. We don’t know what Paranormal 5 is yet. We have a lot of different ideas floating around about it and we haven’t landed on one of them yet.
You’ve also got Sinister coming out, which has a pretty intense ending. I was speaking with Scott Derrickson and he mentioned that a lot of studios wanted to change it and he had to find someone who wouldn’t.
Yeah, Sinister was 100% Scott. He had final cut on that movie, total creative control. I’m very proud of that movie and I think it’s good because of what what Derrickson and [writer] Cargill created. He had his idea of the story and the company gave him the tools he wanted to make it.
What our company primarily does is take genre directors who have some experience. Who have at least two or three films under their belt, sometimes more. And they have to work within strict parameters because of the budget, but we let them do what they want to do. And that’s what happened with Insidious and that’s what happened with Sinister.
And you’ve got Dark Skies as well, which just wrapped.
Yep, we did that with Scott Stewart, that comes out in 2013. And then we’ve also got The Purge, [formerly Vigilandia] which Michael Bay’s company [Platinum Dunes] produced and James DeMonaco directed is also going to be released by Universal.
A gnarly infection threatens to claw its way out of a moving camper in the first trailer for Shudder’s claustrophobic Hellcat.
The feature debut of writer/editor/director Brock Bodell, who previously edited the Fantasia title Ultrasound, makes its debut on Shudder on August 14.
In Hellcat, “Lena wakes up in a moving camper trailer with a horrifying wound. She’s warned by the driver that they have one hour to get to a doctor, or she’ll succumb to an unimaginably awful fate. As the pain sets in and reality begins to fray, who should really be afraid?”
Dakota Gorman (Natural Disasters) leads the cast that also includes Todd Terry (“Breaking Bad”), Liz Atwater (The Other People), Jordan Mullins (The Bikeriders), and James Austin Johnson (“Saturday Night Live”) in a voice role. Bodell also produces alongside Andrew Duensing and Nate Eggert.
Hellcat made its world premiere last summer at Fantasia. I wrote in my review, “Hellcat is a bit of a Trojan horror that defies easy classification, by design. Bodell’s sneaky debut feature is occasionally too sparse in its worldbuilding in its bid to preserve the mystery, but not enough to detract from the thrilling road thriller that transforms into a completely left-field type of horror we don’t get nearly enough of. The stripped-down tribute to a classic horror staple catches you off guard in more ways than one, marking Bodell as one to watch.”
In other words, there’s a lot more than meets the eye to Hellcat‘s simple infection setup, delivering plenty of surprises along its bumpy road of horrors.
Check out the trailer and poster below and add Hellcat to your watchlists asap.
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