10 Films That Helped Blumhouse Take Over Cinema

In the space of less than a decade, Jason Blum has established himself as one of the most reliable and distinctive names in horror production. Since Blumhouse Productions appeared on the scene with Paranormal Activity in 2009, the studio has proved itself adept at finding new talent, supporting established names to produce innovative projects and, more recently, getting in the hunt for Oscars.

When Blumhouse first got started, the horror genre was on the cusp of change, with the 'torture porn' franchises of the noughties beginning to go out of fashion for audiences desensitised to gore. Blumhouse movies helped to establish the revamp of found footage with the aforementioned Paranormal Activity and also took control of a whole new wave of haunted house movies, led by the Insidious franchise. The studio has consistently been ahead of the curve and, with that in mind, almost every film they've produced has made money - no mean feat in an era of a volatile box office.

Like all of the best genre cinema, Blumhouse movies know when to reinvent themselves and try something different. After starting with dirt-cheap horror films, the studio has gradually diversified. It's true to its genre roots, but that's not to say that Blumhouse is afraid to push boundaries and think outside the box.

In the decade or so between The Village and After Earth, thriller maestro M Night Shyamalan couldn't buy a good review. The five films he made during that period have an average Rotten Tomatoes score of 21% and the success of The Sixth Sense must have seemed a very long time ago. His next film was The Visit - a found footage horror movie that eventually had the clout of Jason Blum placed squarely behind it.

The result of this was a decent set of reviews and a global box office haul of almost $100m from a budget of just $5m - as per the low-budget Blumhouse formula. The film is a solid, back-to-basics horror story with a killer twist that gives way to an unchained, bonkers final act. It isn't a movie as special and immediately memorable as The Sixth Sense, but it was enough to bring Shyamalan back into the fold, where he subsequently made Split, also for Blumhouse.

Such was the power of The Visit in rehabilitating Shyamalan's reputation that he was nominated for the Razzie Redeemer award as a result of his work on the movie, suggesting a phoenix rising from the ashes of his terrible fimography. In this case, it was Jason Blum who helped to hoist Shyamalan out of the dirt.