Blumhouse Still Wants to Do ‘Friday the 13th’
By George Robbins
Over this past weekend we saw the passing of yet another Halloween, though this year was far different from anything that we’ve seen before. With the pandemic, this year’s Halloween was much more complicated than any previous year’s and it most certainly shown through. This is because people had to do things far differently this year as opposed to any other year, but this isn’t any kind of actual surprise to anybody. We expected things to be complicated and people made the appropriate plans to hang out and spend time together, if possible. Those who couldn’t found other ways to relax and enjoy the holiday instead of just sitting around twiddling their thumbs. Of course that usually involves watching spooky and scary films which is a good alternative to doing nothing.
Over the holiday weekend, plenty of news has come out in regards to horror movies in general and it has been interesting to see what may be in the works in the possible future. Without a doubt the biggest one on everyone’s minds has been the teaser for ‘Halloween Kills‘ that released over the weekend. While not too much was shown about the upcoming entry to the ‘Halloween‘ franchise, there was plenty enough shown to make potential audiences excited for the film. Unfortunately, while the film was originally planned to have its release this past month, it couldn’t release because of the pandemic. Therefore, they did the only rational thing they could, they pushed it back an entire year to next October so that the movie’s release would fit into a fitting time slot.
Although there was over a year’s delay for the film, that doesn’t change the fact that the movie is still very much one that people are looking forward to seeing. The ‘Halloween’ series is one that horror movie buffs have loved for years, but no one can deny that the quality of the films had degraded severely over the years. This was just the tradition of slasher movies as there was little that could really be done with them in future sequels. There was plenty of popularity with those films which led to many different sequels being made over time, but you can’t really change the stories all that much as the entertainment value just became how people were killed in the film. It isn’t like people went to go see those movies for the plot, but things just kept getting more and more ridiculous in horror movies as time went on.
The ‘Halloween’ series is a prime example of a series where the main villain of the film just became something insanely powerful and un-killable as time went on. Michael Myers was just a man who suffered from psychosis which led to him essentially becoming obsessed with someone and trying to kill them and everyone else who got in his way. Although this is scary enough on its own, he was also tough, but originally not tough enough not to be stopped. The thing is, he was still a man no matter how people decided to look at his character, but in order to keep the story going in multiple sequels they essentially made him an immortal being that couldn’t be killed. This resulted in an eventual reboot for the series in which he was no longer this un-killable being, but he was kept just as terrifying. After all, the scariest part about him is the fact that he was just a normal man with a terrifying psychosis.
After the first reboot however, there was still not really any interest in the character by fans of the series because the story just wasn’t all that great. What changed since the original movies’ releases was the fact that people were no longer interested in the ridiculous ways in which horror movie plots played out and plots became more intrinsic to horror movies over time. This is where Blumhouse Productions came into things; and the movies they have made have helped shape the new generation of horror films. Blumhouse is responsible for the creation of numerous horror films which have been made on low budgets which have turned out to generate an incredibly high amount of revenue as time has gone on. Not only have the films been spooky in their own right, but their stories have caught people’s attention and brought people in to see them.
Blumhouse has been the company that is responsible for helping bridging the gap between the old style of horror movies and the newest generation of them. These new-school horror films have drawn countless attention from people over the years now and it has helped Blumhouse to be able to do bigger things in the horror industry. Perhaps the biggest thing they have done recently is take ‘Halloween’ and bring it back to the public properly with ‘Halloween‘ 2018. This version of the film is a direct sequel to the original 1978 film and instead of following the ridiculous storylines told in the older films, just goes back to the original story of the character. This time, the horror was ramped up as it brought back everything that made people fear the character to begin with.
Needless to say, Blumhouse has done something incredible with the characters they were given to work with and this reboot revitalized the franchise so well that they were allowed to make a new trilogy. ‘Halloween Kills’ is only the second film in this new trilogy and while we may now have to wait for it, people are nothing but excited for it due to how well Blumhouse had done the reboot. This made it extremely apparent to anyone who was skeptical of the studio that they know how to also handle existing properties and not just new ones they’ve made up themselves. With this in mind, Blumhouse CEO Jason Blum has been trying to convince people that his studio can now handle other existing properties. He’s been putting forth the notion that not only can he handle them, he can handle them well enough to make people proud of the work being done.
With all of this in mind, Blum has been trying to get his hands on the rights to reboot the ‘Friday the 13th‘ franchise that so many people have loved over the years. The original movie was made as a way for people to cash in on the original ‘Halloween’ after it was discovered that there was plenty of money to be made within the slasher genre. While the movie itself was nothing the write home about, the movie ended up having a twist that nobody saw coming. Also, while the actual acting left much to be desired, there was an interesting plot tucked away in that slasher film that led to an entirely new experience being birthed out of it in the future. The first film was at least somewhat realistic because it was similar to ‘Halloween’ with someone with a terrifying psychosis being the killer. What followed in future ‘Friday the 13th’ films was something that suffered from the same fate as the ‘Halloween’ movies.
The ‘Friday the 13th’ films brought in a supernatural element to them, but unlike the ‘Halloween’ films, this was something that actually kind of helped the movies. When people think of the ‘Friday the 13th’ series, they don’t really think of the original slasher, Mrs. Voorhees, and they instead think about the iconic Jason Voorhees. While Jason was not originally this unbelievably powerful being that couldn’t be killed, he evolved into that as time went on and this version of him became the most popular. The original version of him is popular as well, but the most popular version that people remember is Voorhees as the supernatural monster he was. Unfortunately the plot of those films declined which is saying something since the plots were never played out very well anyway.
Jason Blum has said that he would like to take on the ‘Friday the 13th’ franchise in the future when asked what project he would like to take on next. He still has a lot of work ahead of him with the remaining ‘Halloween’ reboot films over the next couple of years, but he has said he would love to work on a reboot of the iconic slasher franchise. The biggest problem that arises when talking about working on an upcoming reboot for the films is the fact that there have been a number of attempts since Michael Bay’s 2009 version of the film, but legal rights issues keep cropping up when talking about the series. This would be a massive obstacle that would need to be overcome, but it would be one that I’m certain Blum would try to get through to make more films from the beloved slasher franchise. Hopefully in the not too distant future we get to see news where Blumhouse will be able to work on the film.