About a year ago, Blumhouse held a survey to classify 100 of the most prominent horror films from the last 50 years into subgenres based on their content. The survey results identified the paranormal subgenre as one of the most thriving in the industry among others such as psychological thriller, slasher flick, and more.
During the first “The Business of Fear” event recently, Blumhouse President Abhijay Prakash and CEO/Founder Jason Blum, as well as Atomic Monster CEO and Founder James Wan and horror author/analyst Stephen Follows discussed the ways that horror has grown, evolved, and expanded in recent years, due in-part to the growing number of subgenres providing for a broader audience with varied interests in horror entertainment.
Due to the enduring popularity of the paranormal subgenre in horror movies, literature, and gaming, Blumhouse announced that they have acquired the film rights to Kinetic Games‘ massively popular online multiplayer paranormal investigation games Phasmophobia. The game was released back in 2020 by a small British indie studio and has since enjoyed the sale of over 23 million copies thanks to its online popularity due to streamers and creators heavily featuring the title in their content which drove a great deal of interest in the title.
The organically generated buzz coupled with the consistently fun, frightening and intriguing gameplay loop, have propelled Phasmophobia into the category of genre-defining for multiplayer horror experiences. If Blumhouse’s previous films and even their endeavors into the gaming space are anything to go on, I think they will likely do this game justice.
With recent titles including The Woman in the Yard, Imaginary, and Speak No Evil among so many others, as well as their upcoming sequels M3GAN 2.0, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, and Black Phone 2, Blumhouse continues to produce quality content that spans the many subgenres of horror.
With the popularity of their other video game film adaptation Five Night’s at Freddy’s and its upcoming sequel, I think they may very well be the best studio to handle adapting Phasmophobia, but we won’t know until we can feast our eyes on the paranormal thrill ride when it drops.
Are you hopeful for the film adaptation? Do you enjoy Phasmophobia? Is Blumhouse a good fit to handle this project? Let us know what you think over on the Discord.
