Halloween Ends, the final chapter in the Michael Myers reboot trilogy, debuts on Oct. 14. This will most likely be the final time we see Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) take on her lifelong adversary. Despite the universally negative reviews for the middle chapter Halloween Kills, the appeal of a final showdown should make Halloween Ends a financial success.
It also bears mentioning: Jason Blum is producing Halloween Ends, under his Blumhouse Productions banner. And Blum does not miss.
Blum is one of Hollywood’s most successful film producers because he recognizes that horror movies are consistently both profitable and low-budget. There is little risk but massive, potential reward. It’s not uncommon for a Blumhouse film to make back 10 times, or even 20 times, its budget.
So instead of a $100 million film barely breaking even, you have a film like Paranormal Activity 2, which was made for $3 million, earning $177.5 million. And because Blumhouse filmmakers have unprecedented creative freedom—another benefit of a low budget—they occasionally create the sort of weird, twisted horror films that upend and redefine the genre.
Here is the cream of the crop. We’ve ranked the 12 best Blumhouse horror movies. The latest Blumhouse project, Halloween Ends, debuts on Oct. 14, on Peacock and in theaters nationwide.
12. 13 Sins (2014)
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Release Date: April 18, 2014
Starring: Mark Webber, Devin Graye, Tom Bower, Rutina Wesley, Ron Perlman
A down-on-his-luck man receives a strange phone call, one that gives him the opportunity to play a game. Complete 13 challenges, sequentially, and the player will win a multi-million dollar prize. The problem is that each challenge is increasingly horrific and criminal. There's a dark-humored edge to this film, which allows the audience to suspend its disbelief about the logistics of such a game. And like many Blumhouse films, 13 Sins has an 11th hour plot twist that'll make you want to watch it again.
11. The Gift (2015)
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Release Date: Aug. 7, 2015
Starring: Jason Bateman, Rebecca Hall, Joel Edgerton, Allison Tolman, Tim Griffin
Jason Bateman usually plays the comedic straight man in his films, reacting to everyone else's madcap shenanigans. In The Gift, he also plays an everyman (named Simon), but he's reacting to something much creepier—a former high school classmate with an axe to grind, who stalks and harrasses Simon and his wife. The twists pile up, and by the end, you're not entirely sure who to root for. But the last ten minutes answer that problem definitively. Sick, cruel, twisted, and fun.
10. The Purge: Anarchy (2014)
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Release Date: July 18, 2014
Starring: Frank Grillo, Carmen Ejogo, Zach Gilford, Kiele Sanchez
The Purge series: great concept, spotty delivery. The dystopian franchise, about a U.S. government that legalizes all crime for one day of the year, has trouble deciding what it wants to be. Is it a home invasion film? A biting satirical play? A glorified exploitation flick? But The Purge: Anarchy, the first sequel to the original Purge, balanced all the moving pieces perfectly. It kept the low-key suspense of the first film, while also expanding on the overarching themes concerning race, class, and privilege.
9. Insidious (2010)
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Release Date: April 1, 2011
Starring: Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Ty Simpkins, Lin Shaye
This ghost film about astral projection, body possession, and love for family relies on camera angles, timing, and good editing, rather than gore, to generate its biggest scares. It was made on a $1.5 million budget, so it's not like they could afford the fancier tricks, anyway. Sometimes, limitations can be the key to innovation.
8. Halloween (2018)
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Release Date: Oct. 19, 2018
Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, James Jude Courtney, Nick Castle
It's early yet, but this was a great addition to the Halloween franchise, and deserves to be in the Blumhouse Top 12. What's so fun about the new Halloween is that it doesn't over-explain Michael Myers, unlike the prior sequels; it's always best to keep the slasher villain a little bit mysterious. This reboot, a direct sequel to the original Halloween (thus retconning all other sequels), places the franchise back on its original, proper track.
7. Happy Death Day (2017)
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Release Date: Oct. 13, 2017
Starring: Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard, Ruby Modine, Charles Aitken
The funniest film on this list, Happy Death Day is a remake of the Bill Murray classic Groundhog Day, with more blood and violence. The main character is Tree, who at first appears to be a stereotypical, stuck-up sorority girl. But on her birthday, she gets stuck in a time loop, where she's forced to repeat the day she dies, over and over again, until she can figure out how to prevent it. On the surface, it's a straight-up horror/comedy. But underneath it all, it's a story about grief and how one should best process it.
6. Split (2017)
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Release Date: Jan. 20, 2017
Starring: James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Betty Buckley
M. Night Shyamalan had a rough patch for a few years there. After making classic horror film The Sixth Sense and underrated superhero film Unbreakable, he lost his way with films like The Last Airbender and Lady in the Water. But then, he went back to his roots—thriller/horror films. First he released The Visit (another Blumhouse film), which showed he still had some magic left. And then he released Split, which revealed at the very end (spoiler alert) that it was a sequel to Unbreakable. Blumhouse also producing the final installment of the trilogy, Glass, which was released in January 2019.
5. Sinister (2012)
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Release Date: Oct. 12, 2012
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Juliet Rylance, Fred Thompson, James Ransone, Clare Foley, Michael Hall D'Addario
Sinister is unusually unsettling; the entire film feels diseased, like you'll want to take a bath after watching it. When a true crime author settles his family in a house where a family murder occurred, he finds a box of Super 8 tapes in the attic. And when he plays them, he makes a horrifying discovery; they're snuff films of entire families being slaughtered by an unseen killer. The Super 8 tapes are unbelievably creepy, and the graininess makes them look even more authentic. A 2015 sequel, Sinister 2, elaborates upon the myth of "Mr. Boogie," but it doesn't have the fresh horror and impact of the original.
4. Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)
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Release Date: Oct. 21, 2011
Starring: Lauren Bittner, Chris Smith, Chloe Csengery, Jessica Tyler Brown
The original Paranormal Activity was made for $15,000, which is an accomplishment in and of itself. But despite the innovation of the first film, the third film—a prequel about the childhood of tormented sisters Katie and Kristi—is the series’ strongest installment. Some of the best scares come from the characters' obliviousness; the audience can see something like a bed sheet slowly creeping up in the frame, while the characters remain blissfully unaware.
The fourth and fifth Paranormal films are unnecessary flourishes to Katie and Kristi's central story, and spinoffs like The Marked Ones are even more ancillary. But the first three Paranormal films are essential horror viewing.
3. Us (2019)
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Release Date: March 22, 2019
Starring: Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss
Jordan Peele dodged the sophomore slump with Us. In the film, a middle-class family takes a beach holiday, where they run into their demented doppelgängers who mean to kill and replace them. That, by itself, is terrifying. But Us is more than just a horror movie. It’s also a clever allegory for the class divide in the United States. It’s an indictment of how we treat and abuse the less fortunate so that we can live easier, more privileged lives. And it contains the greatest acting performance of Lupita Nyong’o’s career. That she didn’t win the Oscar, let alone be nominated for one, is a shameful crime.
2. The Invisible Man (2020)
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Release Date: Feb. 28, 2020
Starring: Elisabeth Moss
The original Invisible Man story by H.G. Wells starred a mysterious man wrapped in bandages. He was a scientist who used chemicals to make himself invisible but was subsequently unable to reverse the process. The 2020 movie The Invisible Man is a brilliant, contemporary take on a classic. The man is a wealthy tech mogul who terrorizes and abuses his girlfriend, and after she leaves him, he stalks her in a high-tech suit, decked out with mirrors and displays, that bend light and render him invisible. The tension in every scene is palpable; you’re never sure if you’re looking at blank space or at the Invisible Man, and when he reveals himself, it’s always in a terrifying, unexpected way. Smart, modern, and relevant, it’s one of the greatest horror films of the past decade.
1. Get Out (2017)
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Release Date: Feb. 24, 2017
Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford, Caleb Landry Jones, Stephen Root, Lakeith Stanfield, Catherine Keener
Get Out is a biting satirical takedown of a "post-racial society," purported by seemingly well-meaning liberals and bad-faith conservatives who "don't see color." The story, about a Black man who visits his white girlfriend's wealthy family, offers its scares slowly, first by fleshing out each character. And over time, the racial microaggressions, which Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) initially rationalizes as mere insensitivity, become something much more invasive and menacing. Peele won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay with Get Out, and his sophomore effort for Blumhouse, Us, (also on this list) followed in March 2019.