Jason Blum and Blumhouse have become synonymous with horror movies since breaking through with the Paranormal Activity franchise, and achieving critical acclaim with Get Out. Blumhouse has already achieved box office success in 2023 with M3GAN and Insidious: The Red Door, and are hoping to replicate that with The Exorcist Believer and Five Nights at Freddy’s. But it turns out, Jason Blum isn’t as much of a horror aficionado as you’d expect.
It’s executive Ryan Turek who is the die-hard fan of all the best horror movies (and Amityville 2) at Blumhouse, as he recently explained to Entertainment Weekly – so much so that when he first met Ellen Burstyn he was wearing Exorcist sneakers.
“The fact that Jason [Blum] didn’t grow up stashing Fangorias underneath his bed, like I did, means he comes at it as a pure audience member,” Turek says. “I will go, ‘But wait, we can’t do this, because [it happens in] Amityville 2: The Possession’ – a legitimate conversation we had. Jason will come in and go, ‘Guys, you’re overthinking it. Cut to the chase, get to the scare.’ Or, he’ll say ‘Don’t forget to think about emotion, the family drama of it all.’ Jason’s really great at clearing out the noisy clutter of development and putting us back on the path.” It’s probably for the best that any similarity to Amityville 2 was avoided.
When Taylor Swift announced that her Eras concert film would release on October 13, Blum briefly tried to get Exorswift going, but then moved The Exorcist Believer release date a week earlier. “We had this amazing Friday the 13th in October, which is the single best day to release a scary movie. Obviously, we moved off that and we bowed our head to Taylor Swift. It was too risky to see if ‘Exorswift’ was going to take or not. The one thing that scares me to death is Taylor Swift!”
If you’re as excited for spooky season as we are, check out our guide to the best Halloween movies, the best horror series and the best horror anime. We’re also very hyped for Wednesday season 2.