Kyle Milner
There’s no denying that the Emmy award-winning film producer and Blumhouse Productions founder and CEO Jason Blum is one of the most successful and exciting names in the movie business.
From the wild success of micro-budget found-footage horror flick “Paranormal Activity” in 2009 – which raked in over $193 million at the global box office on a $15,000 budget and spawned multiple sequels – to Academy Award-winning films like “Whiplash” and “Get Out” and even television with the Amy Adams-lead miniseries “Sharp Objects” currently airing on HBO, Blum is clearly a force to be reckoned with.
One of Blum’s latest is “Truth or Dare”, a horror film in which a group of college students become trapped in a deadly and supernatural game of “truth or dare” while on vacation in Mexico. Starring Lucy Hale (“Pretty Little Liars”) and Tyler Posey (“Teen Wolf”), the students must confront their greatest fears to avoid becoming the game’s latest victims. Moviehole were lucky enough to get the chance to speak with Jason ahead of the film’s home video release.
Hi Jason, thank you very much for taking the time to speak to me!
Jason: My pleasure, thank you.
I think “Truth or Dare” has a very simple and fun concept behind it. From what I understand, it began as just the title and spiraled out from there, conceptually. Can you tell me a bit more about its beginnings as a project?
Jason: Yeah, you know, it was while we were doing “Ouija”, and the head of marketing at Universal gave us the title and said, “if you can make a good movie with this title, we could market it”. And that is kind of unusual.
I get compared to Roger Corman a lot, that’s a very Roger Corman-esque thing to do. I always maintain that I love Roger Corman, but our process is very different than his. Although this was a very Roger Corman thing – we come up with a title, and then can we come up with a great movie?
We were lucky enough to work with Jeff Wadlow, who wrote and directed the movie, and came up with what I thought was a very clever idea and a very clever way to do it. With any luck, we’ll get to do another one with him.
Yeah, absolutely – I think that’s a really cool way to go about things.
‘Truth or dare’, as a childhood game, I think is one that most people probably would’ve played in their childhood – or maybe even adults, if they’ve had a couple of drinks. What is it about childhood games that seems so effective as inspiration for the horror genre?
Jason: Yeah, there are a lot of them. “Ouija”, which we also did. I think, though, kids like to tell ghost stories. And they like to play games, and try to summon ghosts to scare them – to get themselves scared. And I always think the things that make the scariest movies are things that are grounded and things that come from reality.
And so, the idea – it’s a very satisfying notion, the idea of going to see a movie about kids who play one of these many games, and the game actually works. Clearly, in real life, the games don’t work. At least, not as far as I’ve heard.
So it’s fun to imagine what would happen if they actually did conjure a ghost or spirit or (have it) go wrong, and you’ve pissed off the demons in the world. I think that’s why the movies are so satisfying.
Exactly – to see something from your childhood played out on the big screen in a particularly terrifying way is super fun.
Something that really stands out in my mind since watching the film, is the digital effect that was used to achieve some really creepy imagery – the morphing of the actors’ faces. Was that something that was in there early in production on Jeff’s behalf?
Jason: It was an idea that Jeff had, and what I really thought that was so great about it was that it was so simple. And I always think the best — I’m not a big fan of effects, generally. But I think if you’re going to use effects, the best way is, “a little goes a long way”. We didn’t have that conversation, but he clearly felt the same way. And what I love about that little effect is that it’s so small and so subtle, but it’s very powerful, and I haven’t seen it before.
Truth or Dare, like a lot of movies you produce – and you’ve produced a lot of movies – has seen success at the box office on what’s a pretty humble budget by Hollywood standards. Were there any ways in particular with this film where Jeff really had to get creative to work within the budget and the scope of the film?
Jason: The movie itself, it’s a big movie packaged into a small DCP, a small file. Or a small budget. And I would say it’s always a struggle to get our movies to the budgets that I’m comfortable shooting on. This one was a bigger struggle than most. We had reduced – I think it only took a week or maybe even a little bit more than a week, maybe seven or eight days out of the schedule. We crushed locations. We did a lot of massaging to fit our shape, and Jeff was very agreeable about it. But I think that too makes for a better movie. I think that forces us as film-makers to really edit before you shoot, and choose the most important parts, and spend your time and money on those parts. But this movie was a real challenge in that department.
Yeah, I find that a lot of my favorite horror movies – and just movies in general – have definitely had a lot of production issues, or being limited in what they’re able to do. And that really seems to bring out the best in people, or sometimes the worst in people. But that seemed to work out really well with “Truth or Dare”.
Sorry to put you on the spot, but if you had to play Truth or Dare – and I’m talking this movie’s version of the game – what would you say is probably one of your biggest personal fears that you’d hate to be forced to face as a dare?
Jason: The first thing that comes to mind is heights. I don’t have a wild fear of heights, but that would be very unsettling to me – if you forced me to jump out of a plane with a parachute, or something like that. That would be very scary to me.
I also make scary movies about ghosts. I’ve made so many movies about ghosts, I think I’m less scared of ghosts than I was. [laughs]
