Truth or Dare's Tyler Posey reckons a shared cinematic universe comprised of the various Blumhouse franchises could be an exciting crossover venture. Beginning in 2009 with Paranormal Activity, Blumhouse Productions quickly became the foremost purveyors of modern horror movies, spawning a number of successful franchises including the Insidious and Sinister films. Last year, the production company tasted awards success with Get Out, Jordan Peele's brilliantly horrifying depiction of rural racism taken to a disturbing level. The movie picked up the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay after being nominated in a number of major categories.
Blumhouse's latest release, Truth or Dare, tells the story of a classic party game turned bloody, when a group of youngsters playing the titular game begin to suffer punishments when they break the rules. Directed by Jeff Wadlow, Truth or Dare takes several staple Blumhouse elements such as supernatural overtones and shocking horror sequences and adds a Final Destination-esque twist to proceedings.
Related: Jeff Wadlow Interview: Truth Or Dare
In an interview with Screen Rant, Tyler Posey - who portrays Lucas in Truth or Dare - explains how well he believes a shared universe of Blumhouse movies could work. The conversation with Posey is as follows:
SR: Truth Or Dare is obviously a Blumhouse film. Would you ever want to see a Blumhouse cinematic universe? Because I feel like you could totally cross these franchises over.
Tyler Posey: You totally could, man. We were actually just talking about that. And one thing that would be cool is that Truth Or Dare deals with demons and so was Paranormal Activity, you know?
SR: Lin Shaye [Insidious actress] could be like that through-line character for all of it.
Tyler Posey: Right, right, right, right, right, right. I love that idea. I think I've always been entertained by the idea of a production company shooting stuff that has nothing to do with one another, but they're in the same universe and then potentially doing a crossover that's like kind of subtle or not subtle at all. I think that'd be really cool.
This isn't the first time a potential crossover between Blumhouse properties has been mooted. The company's head, Jason Blum, has previously spoken about a potential crossover between Insidious and Sinister, claiming that the project has been discussed but never quite taken off, although there was still interest in mashing together the two horror properties. If Blumhouse does eventually get around to making such a crossover, it certainly wouldn't be much more of a stretch to add a few other franchises into the pot and cook up a genuine cinematic universe. For example, both Truth or Dare and Paranormal Activity could work well alongside the aforementioned properties, with protagonists from each (those left alive, anyway) joining together to put their literal and metaphorical demons to rest once and for all.
The current cinematic universe trend ultimately stems from the prevalence of the Marvel Cinematic Universe which has been a runaway success, both critically and commercially. However, it's worth noting the other studios' attempts to emulate that success have been largely unsuccessful. Last year, Universal kicked off their shared Dark Universe with Tom Cruise in The Mummy to a very unenthusiastic response, putting the future of the planned franchise in doubt. There has also been an attempt to connect originally unrelated movies into a shared Cloverfield universe which, once again, has not proved particularly successful.
Although a Blumhouse shared universe containing the likes of Insidious and Truth or Dare certainly has potential, there are definitely a number of possible pitfalls the studio could fall into and if they ever do pull the trigger on a crossover, the project would need to be handled with care in order for it to please fans of the various franchises.
