Halloween isn’t for another six months, but that isn’t stopping Blumhouse for holding its first-ever Halfway to Halloween film fest.
The horror film producer will screen five films as part of the fest, including “Sinister,” “The Purge,” “Ouija: Origin of Evil,” “Insidious” and “The Invisible Man.”
“This is a terrific way of just getting some older films out there and giving a younger generation who may have missed them on the big screen at the time they were released an opportunity to grab their friends and enjoy a night at the movies,” Blumhouse Vice President of Feature Film Development Ryan Turek told Spectrum News.
The fest will mark the 13th anniversary of “Insidious,” directed by James Wan, who Turek called “a master of the craft of scary movies who gave us films like ‘The Conjuring.’” Earlier this year, Blumhouse merged with Wan’s company, Atomic Monster, so the festival is bringing together “two powerhouses in horror,” Turek said.
Each film will screen for a single day during the fest, taking place at AMC Theatres in 40 cities from Atlanta to Indianapolis to Wichita. “Sinister,” the 2012 film starring Ethan Hawke as a true-crime writer who discovers a murder case, opens the festival March 29. Hawke also stars in 2013’s “The Purge,” a 12-hour period during which all crimes are legal, screening March 30.
“Ouija: Origin of Evil” plays March 31, “Insidious” on April 1 and “The Invisible Man” closes out the fest April 2.
“We have a lot of films that are sequels that are now streaming,” Turek said, noting there are five films in each of “The Purge” and “Insidious” franchises. “There are a lot of people who are seeing those sequels for the first time and are wondering where they all began.”
In addition to the features, festival goers will see exclusive on-screen messages from Ethan Hawke, James Wan and Jason Blum, the latter of whom co-founded Blumhouse in 2000 and released the blockbuster “Paranormal Activity” in 2007.
In 2023, the Blumhouse film “Five Nights at Freddy’s” was the highest-grossing horror film in the U.S. and Canada, bringing in more than $137 million.
As of October 2022, almost two-thirds (64%) of adults aged 30 to 44 surveyed in the United States said they either liked or loved the horror movie genre, according to Statista Research Department data.
“We just happen to tell deeply dramatic stories through the conduit of scary movies,” said Turek, who was executive producer on “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” “The Black Phone” and the recently released “Night Swim,” about a family who moves into a new house only to learn it has a dark secret that plays out in the backyard pool.
“These movies are roller coaster rides. I think that there’s always been an appeal for kind of dark subject matter,” he said. “People love to feel safe in the theater. There’s always a space between the horrors they are seeing on screen and their spot in the theater.”
Horror fans who miss the Halfway to Halloween fest will have no shortage of Blumhouse films to see this year. “Speak No Evil,” about a family’s dream vacation turning into a nightmare, will be released in September. “Wolf Man,” the Blumhouse remake of the 1941 film about a man stalked by a deadly werewolf, is currently in production and is expected to be released around Halloween.