Jason Blum gives his brutally honest review of 2021’s Paranormal Activity 7. Blum’s Blumhouse Productions kicked off its reign as masters of low-budget horror with 2009’s original Paranormal Activity. The spare-but-effective supernatural movie famously cost just $230,000 to make but took in a massive $193 million worldwide.
Given such an impressive cost-to-profit ratio, it was no surprise when Blumhouse went back to the Paranormal Activity well multiple more times, releasing sequels on an almost yearly basis from 2010 to 2015. But diminishing returns finally convinced the studio to put their first franchise on ice for a time, while other series like the Purge and Insidious movies raked in the money. Paranormal Activity was finally dusted off again however in 2021 with the release of Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin, which went straight to Paramount+ amid the COVID pandemic. Critics unfortunately were not keen on Next of Kin, and it currently holds just a 31% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Now it turns out that movie critics and Paranormal Activity franchise fans weren’t the only ones who hated the seventh Paranormal Activity movie. Blumhouse head Blum was himself not a fan of the sequel, as he revealed in a talk with Variety. “It has been enough already,” Blum said of the once-profitable ghost story franchise. He added, “That last ‘Paranormal Activity’ movie was terrible.”
Despite Blum’s very negative assessment of Next of Kin, there have been reports that another Paranormal Activity movie is in fact in development, with an eye toward a 2023 release. But it seems that after that movie, reportedly entitled Paranormal Activity: The Other Side, the long-running franchise will finally be given the ax. And in many people’s eyes it will be a long-delayed mercy killing.
On the one hand it’s somewhat refreshing to see a producer like Blum offer such an honest assessment of a weak film made by his company. On the other hand, Blum could perhaps be accused of biting the hand that feeds him, given how huge the Paranormal Activity franchise has been for Blumhouse Productions. Indeed the original Paranormal Activity set the entire formula for Blumhouse’s approach to making horror films that cost little money and rake in huge profits. And that formula has been so successful that Blumhouse has been able to branch out into more prestigious fare with movies like Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Us, Universal’s The Invisible Man and the Halloween reboot trilogy.
It’s arguable that Blum perhaps should be a little more gentle in his handling of the franchise that helped make him such a powerful movie producer. But at the same time, it’s good to occasionally get a breath of honesty in a world where most statements from creatives are carefully crafted to offend – and enlighten – no one. At the end of the day, few will argue with Blum's brutal assessment of Paranormal Activity 7.
Source: Variety