-Our next guest is an Oscar-nominated
and Emmy Award-winning producer behind movies
such as "The Purge," "Us," and "Get Out."
His annual event, BlumFest, featuring conversations with
Blumhouse filmmakers and actors, is going on now.
And his latest movie, "Halloween Kills,"
is in theaters and streaming on Peacock.
Let's take a look.
-What are you guys doing out here?
-It's Halloween.
We went trick-or-treating. We got a whole bag of candy.
-You guys should not be out here right now.
Okay? It's not safe. -Ooh, I'm so scared.
-Are you guys alone?
Where are your parents? -No.
-No, we're waiting for our friend.
-And, like, there's a creepy man in a white mask.
And he keeps like trying to play hide and seek with us.
-Where did you see him?!
-He's just hiding behind trees.
-And he pops out like, "peekaboo."
I mean, we're not three years old.
Come on, man! -Oh, look, there he is.
-Oh, hello!
[ Laughter ]
-Is that Dennis' mask?
-Run! Go home now!
-Please welcome to the show Jason Blum, everybody!
♪♪ [ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Hi, buddy. It's so great to have you here.
-Well, it's -- I'm very excited to be here.
Very excited. This is amazing.
I've been dying to get on this show.
-Well, this is big. This is big for both of us.
-This is big. -Congratulations.
This movie's doing great.
You obviously have been in the horror business for a while.
I would imagine when you have something like "Halloween,"
that people have a relationship with,
you're making a sequel to it, how much do you have to come up
with new and fascinating, and dare I say, fun ways for people
to get murdered? -Well, you have to --
I mean, it's a big -- We have a science lab.
We have to do all these different things.
No, Danny McBride and David Gordon Green
came up with these crazy ideas.
Someone gets -- One of the most wild kills we've ever had
in a movie is they take a fluorescent light bulb,
break it in half and stab someone in the armpit.
-Yeah. -And that was pretty amazing.
[ Laughter ] But, you know.
-When they call you up and tell you that,
are you just like mwah? -I'm like, "Yes! Yes!"
And then they have to -- You know, people count the kills.
They're like, "33 kills in this movie."
There will be 47 kills in the next movie
or something, I don't know.
-Was Halloween always a big deal to you?
-The holiday of Halloween. The movie not till I was older.
But the holiday of Halloween was a big --
My mother and I loved Halloween.
My mother and I would start doing our costumes in August.
And I was a dinosaur once.
I was the Abominable Snowman.
Halloween was a huge, huge event in our household.
People always say, "Did you love horror movies as a kid?"
Actually, I didn't. I loved all kinds of movies.
But I was a very odd child. -Okay.
-And although this is not Halloween-related,
one of the things that I did when I was very young is
I collected my fingernails.
-Okay. -Yeah.
-That is -- That is very odd. [ Laughter ]
-It was very strange.
And somehow I think this was a --
-You would clip them and save them?
-They were a part of my body. And I would --
-I think we know. You can jump ahead.
We know what fingernails are. [ Laughter ]
-Sorry, yes. My mistake. I'm very nervous.
-You're starting way -- -Yeah, too early.
Starting too early. Okay, yeah.
No, but I felt they were part of me
and I didn't want to let them go.
So I put them in a little plastic box, which I still have.
Now, one time -- -Wait.
-Hold on. It gets worse. [ Laughter ]
One time, I actually -- This is part of what was in the box.
One time I grabbed a couple of my mother's fingernails.
[ Audience groans ] So, in this box, there are
a bunch of tiny fingernails from a little boy
and about eight colored fingernails from my mother,
sitting in this box.
This box has been with me since I was five years old.
I brought it to all the different places that I lived.
And I very -- I thought, astutely, hid this box
under my sink in my bathroom. -Okay.
-My wife, Lauren Blum, used to be my fiancée
before she was my wife, before that, she was my girlfriend.
When she was my girlfriend -- -We all know how that works.
-Got it. Okay, thank you. [ Laughter ]
Thank you, thank you. Got it.
She found the fingernails.
-No! -Yes. And I still married her.
That's how I knew she was right for me.
-Right. -Yes.
-I think I should stress she still married you.
-That's what I meant! That's what I meant.
That's what I meant. [ Laughter and applause ]
-You were like, "I'm still going to marry you
even though you snoop around!"
[ Laughter ]
"You go where you're not supposed to go, Lauren."
-Correct. [ Laughter ]
-One of my favorite things when I first met you is,
obviously -- and I should note, I think the first movie
that sort of brought Blumhouse to prominence was
"Paranormal Activity." -Correct.
-So, this is a movie that everybody had sort of passed on.
What was it that you saw in it that you thought,
"Oh, this is -- I actually think an audience will love this"?
Which obviously they ended up doing.
-A long time ago I worked for a company
and I passed on "The Blair Witch Project."
-Wow. -And I never -- I never --
You know, I was always punished for passing on that movie.
Everyone made fun. Found footage, da-da-da.
And "Paranormal Activity," when it first came out,
was about 10 years after "Blair Witch."
So that experience was relatively new.
And I just saw it and then I screened it with an audience.
And anyone could have told you, if they bothered to watch it
with an audience, the movie was going to work.
But everyone had seen it on DVD or on cassette and passed.
It was going to home-video land, and I said to the director,
"I really think I can get this into a movie theater.
I passed on 'Blair Witch.' I see the same thing here."
It took three years to do,
but it really was the birth of our company.
So I'm very -- very -- It's a very beloved movie to me.
-And you had a dream that if you made money on a movie,
you would get the car that you'd always dreamed of
having to go to work in. -Correct.
-And I'm going to show everybody.
I want everybody to imagine what a big Hollywood producer wanted.
-This was my dream.
-And now I'm gonna show everybody what it is.
[ Laughter ]
I should note it says "Blumhouse Electric" on the side of it.
-And here, I don't know if you can see,
it says "residential and commercial."
[ Laughter ]
-But now, you -- This is actually a functional van.
And the reason you wanted a van --
-So, I've always been -- I've always lived in Los Angeles
but had been trying to move back to New York.
It's only been about 22 years. I'm still doing it.
And I can't -- One of the things I don't like
about Los Angeles is the traffic.
And it's such a waste of time.
I'm a very, very efficient person.
So I said if I ever have a hit movie,
I'm going to get a minivan, hence the Chevy Astro,
which is a very unusual minivan
'cause almost no minivans have a flat back.
They always have bumps for the axle.
The reason that handymen always drive Chevy Astros
is because the bottom is flat.
I bought a minivan -- I bought a used Chevy Astro for 10 grand
and I paid a stereo guy $25,000.
He ripped out the back.
He put in a comfy chair, a computer, a printer,
when you used to have to print boarding passes.
I used to print boarding passes in that.
[ Laughter ] I still have a van.
It's a little more upgraded from that,
but it's my efficient way to tackle
and never think about Los Angeles traffic.
-It's really nice that a kid creepy enough
to save fingernails ended up in a white van.
[ Laughter and applause ]
Jason Blum, everybody.
"Halloween Kills" is in theaters now.
For more info on BlumFest 2021, go to blumhouse.com.