Last year we got the inaugural BlumFest, it gave us a taste of the horror convention fix that we were all missing. This time around BlumFest kicks off today, and has star-studded panels and a live stream from Beyond Fest. You can watch it right now on Blumhouse’s YouTube channel and Facebook page. The panels at Beyond Fest start at 8pm PT on Friday with a Q/A with Producer Jason Blum and director David Gordon Green of Halloween Kills at around 10pm PT when the film finishes it’s screening.
You can grab BlumFest 2021 merch at shop.blumhouse.com/.
Here’s the master list of everything going on for BlumFest 2021!
The Thing About Pam
The Thing About Pam executive producer and star, Renée Zellweger, speaks with Dateline correspondent Keith Morrison for the first time about what fascinates her about the story, inhabiting characters based on real life, and why she loved Blumhouse films Get Out and Split.
“Whenever you can’t turn something off, or turn away from something, and when you keep coming back to it and discussing it over and over again, it must have some sort of relevance and I felt like there was a lot to examine here,” said Renée Zellweger about stepping into the role of “Pam Hupp.”
The highly-anticipated limited series coming to NBC in 2022 marks two-time Oscar winner Renée Zellweger’s network television debut. Renée will be joined by a cast that includes Josh Duhamel, Judy Greer, Katy Mixon, Gideon Adlon, Sean Bridgers, Glenn Fleshler, Suanne Spoke, and Mac Brandt.
NBC’s and Blumhouse Television’s The Thing About Pam is based on the 2011 murder of Betsy Faria that resulted in her husband Russ’s conviction, although he insisted he didn’t kill her. His conviction was later overturned. This brutal crime set off a chain of events that would expose a diabolical scheme deeply involving Pam Hupp.
A thorough examination of the scheme was featured on several episodes of Dateline NBC, becoming one of the most popular topics to ever air on the hit NBC franchise. It also became the subject of a popular 2019 podcast, “The Thing About Pam”, which remains one of the most downloaded podcasts on iTunes.
Help
Help – Producers Tyler Perry (A Madea Family Funeral, A Fall from Grace, Acrimony) and Jason Blum (Split, The Purge franchise), announce their first collaboration, a feature film called Help.
Alan McElroy (Star Trek: Discovery, Wrong Turn) will write and direct Help, a new thriller film and the first major collaboration between Tyler Perry Studios and Jason Blum’s Blumhouse Productions. The film is set to start production in Atlanta in 2022 at the Tyler Perry Studios. Tyler Perry and Jason Blum are producers on the film, along with Tim Palen under Perry and Palen’s Peachtree and Vine label.
Welcome To Blumhouse
Welcome to the Blumhouse – Blumhouse Television and Amazon Prime Video hosted conversations with the up-and-coming directors of the newest Welcome to the Blumhouse films and TikTok creators about crafting stories, the fun of making monsters, the stars of the films, and their love of horror.
Bingo Hell director/co-writer Gigi Saul Guerrero and Madres director Ryan Zaragoza spoke with 2021 TikTok Latinx Trailblazer Leo Gonzalez (@LeoGonzall). Leo Gonzalez is a content creator based in Los Angeles, California. He creates short video skits based around different characters and situations – everything from news reporters to your average grocery store employee – but he also focuses on his primary character, “Junior.”
Bingo Hell is directed by Gigi Saul Guerrero and written by Shane McKenzie & Gigi Saul Guerrero, along with Perry Blackshear.
Logline: A feisty senior citizen fights to protect her beloved neighborhood from an evil force that’s taken over the local bingo hall and is killing the residents in gruesome ways.Madres is directed by first-time feature director Ryan Zaragoza and written by Marcella Ochoa & Mario Miscione. Starring Tenoch Huerta, Ariana Guerra, Evelyn Gonzalez, Kerry Cahill, and Elpidia Carrillo.
Logline: Expecting their first child, a Mexican-American couple move to a migrant farming community in 1970s California where strange symptoms and terrifying visions threaten their new family.
Black As Night
Black As Night director Maritte Lee Go spoke with director and filmmaker David Ma (@davidwma on TikTok). David Ma is a commercial Director and Filmmaker who creates short films, commercials and viral content on television and social media. Across his social channels he’s known for taking people behind the scenes on his sets and sharing his creative process and unique approach to filmmaking.
Black as Night is directed by Maritte Lee Go and written by Sherman Payne. The cast stars Asjha Cooper, Fabrizio Guido, Craig Tate, Keith David, Mason Beauchamp, Abbie Gayle and Frankie Smith.Logline: A resourceful teenage girl driven by revenge, alongside her trusted friends, spends her summer battling vampires terrorizing her city of New Orleans.
The Manor
The Manor writer/director Axelle Carolyn spoke with TikTok creator and #horrortok personality Bunny Meyer (@grav3yardgirl). Bunny Meyer, known as @grav3yardgirl on TikTok, is a multi-platform Content Creator with a combined audience of 13.7 million subscribers. Since 2011 she has loved entertaining her “Swamp Family” with an energetic and quirky style covering a ‘grab bag’ of topics from product reviews and fashion to makeup tutorials & paranormal stories.
The Manor is written and directed by Axelle Carolyn, and stars Barbara Hershey, Bruce Davison, Nicholas Alexander, Jill Larsen, Fran Bennett and Katie Amanda Keane.
Logline: After suffering a mild stroke, Judith Albright reluctantly moves into a historic nursing home where she becomes convinced a supernatural force is killing the residents.
More Blumhouse
The suspenseful genre-thrillers continue to highlight female and emerging filmmakers, and diverse casts. Bingo Hell and Black As Night premiere today October 1, 2021 on Prime Video in over 240 countries and territories worldwide. The Manor and Madres will premiere on October 8, 2021.
And on Thursday, October 14, fans worldwide are invited to continue the Halloween festivities by stepping inside the world of Welcome To The Blumhouse at a virtual interactive experience. Taking inspiration from the upcoming Blumhouse features Bingo Hell, Black as Night, Madres and The Manor premiering on Prime Video in October, the Emmy-nominated Welcome To The Blumhouse LIVE experience weaves the 4 films together in chilling synchrony into one interactive and explorable story world.
Untitled John Logan Project
Untitled John Logan Project – John Logan’s directorial debut for Blumhouse will stream EXCLUSIVELY on Peacock. The film also announced the casting of actors, including: Quei Tann, Austin Crute, Anna Lore, Monique Kim, Cooper Koch, Darwin del Fabro.
A House On The Bayou And American Refugee
A House on the Bayou and American Refugee – Blumhouse and Epix announce release dates for first two films in originals slate — A House on the Bayou and American Refugee — day-and-date on Epix and for digital purchase from Paramount Home Entertainment; and debut first look trailer for A House on the Bayou. Collider’s Perri Nemiroff host conversation with writer/director Alex McAulay and stars Angela Sarafyan, Lia McHugh and Jacob Lofland.
Dashcam
DASHCAM director, co-writer and producer Rob Savage and producer Douglas Cox talk with IndieWire’s Jude Dry for an in-depth conversation about the film that had Toronto Film Festival’s Midnight Madness audiences talking. Watch a clip from the film.
The latest film from British director Rob Savage and the creative team behind the acclaimed lockdown breakout feature Host, DASHCAM follows two friends, played by Annie Hardy and Amar Chadha-Patel, on a fucked-up horror road trip as they livestream the most terrifying night of their lives.DASHCAM premiered at the 2021 Toronto Film Festival. Possibly the most divisive film this year, audience reactions ranged from “batshit insane”, “wild,” “reprehensible,” “bold,” “brilliant,” “a mic drop for the found footage genre” to “what the actual fuck.”
Savage, Cox and Dry discuss making another prescient film of this moment, casting Annie Hardy and the female anti-hero, the unorthodox approach to stunts and blowing things up, and what really was the hardest part of making this movie.
DASHCAM will premiere next at BFI London Film Festival’s “Cult” strand on October 14, 2021.
Mr. Harrigan’s Phone
Mr. Harrigan’s Phone – Donald Sutherland and Jaeden Martell have been cast in Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, written and directed by John Lee Hancock, based on the short story by Stephen King. Production begins this month – Blumhouse and Ryan Murphy producing – and will be available on Netflix globally in 2022.
- Award-winning actor Donald Sutherland (The Undoing, Hunger Games) and Jaeden Martell (IT: Chapter Two, Midnight Special) cast in screen adaptation of Stephen King’s short story “Mr. Harrigan’s Phone” produced by Blumhouse and Ryan Murphy for Netflix.
- Written and directed by John Lee Hancock (The Little Things, The Highwaymen).
- Production will begin in October.
- Sutherland, one of the most respected, prolific, and versatile of motion picture actors, will star in the title role of “Mr. Harrigan.”
- Martell, a rising star and tapped for Variety’s Power of Young Hollywood List in 2019, will star in the role of “Craig.”
- Logline: Mr. Harrigan’s Phone is from the latest collection of novellas “If It Bleeds” from Stephen King, about a young boy “Craig”, living in a small town, who befriends an older, reclusive billionaire “Mr. Harrigan.” The two form a bond over books and an iPhone, but when the man passes away, the boy discovers that not everything dead is gone, and finds himself able to communicate with his friend from the grave through the iPhone that was buried with him.
- “Mr. Harrigan’s Phone” is from the #1 New York Times bestselling author’s latest collection of novellas “If It Bleeds”.
- The film will be released globally on Netflix in 2022.
- Producers are Jason Blum, Ryan Murphy, Carla Hacken.
- Executive Producers: Blumhouse Television’s Chris McCumber and Jeremy Gold, and Scott Greenberg.
- About Netflix: Netflix is the world’s leading streaming entertainment service with over 209 million paid memberships in over 190 countries enjoying TV series, documentaries and feature films across a wide variety of genres and languages. Members can watch as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, on any Internet-connected screen. Members can play, pause and resume watching, all without commercials or commitments.
Halloween Kills On The Last Drive-In
Halloween Kills – A commercial break from The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs which touts an upcoming appearance, on “Joe Bob’s Halloween Hoedown,” by Halloween Kills director David Gordon Green and producer Jason Blum, on Friday October 8 at 9pm ET/6pm PT on Shudder.
David Gordon Green introduces Halloween Kills: Return to Haddonfield, a behind-the-scenes look at the iconic characters returning to the fictional town of Haddonfield. The piece features interviews with Danny McBride, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kyle Richards, Charles Cyphers, Nancy Stephens. Halloween Kills, the highly-anticipated film from Universal Pictures, Miramax, and Blumhouse, is set for release on Friday, October 15, 2021—wide, and will also premiere day-and-date with theatrical on Peacock
For more on horror, check out Fright-A-Thon, or stay tuned to That Hashtag Show.
