Jason Blum's horror film track record is scary good

Brian Truitt, USA TODAY

Jason Blum lives for putting his low-budget films up against the big boys of the box office.

Most Hollywood producers are excited just getting their films greenlit, he says, but the happy day for the horror-movie guru is "when a studio says, 'We're going to release your movie exactly the way we release our $50 million movie.' "

With his Blumhouse Productions company, the 45-year-old specializes in "micro-budget" films costing less than $5 million, and his track record is scary good: In the past decade, his horror movies — including the Paranormal Activity, Insidious and The Purge franchises — have made more than a $1 billion.

The latest is Oculus (in theaters Friday), writer-director Mike Flanagan's scare-fest revolving around two young-adult siblings (Karen Gillan and Brenton Thwaites) seeking revenge on a mirror that is seemingly a supernatural portal for terrifying spirits and was responsible for their parents' deaths.

"I was interested in trying to do a story that could use a portable 'Overlook Hotel,' " says Flanagan, referring to the setting of Stephen King's The Shining. "Have a haunted house that you could pick up and carry around with you and hang on the wall."

Blum has been a boon for horror in Hollywood, Flanagan adds. "He is taking movies that 10 to 15 years ago would never have had a prayer of securing a wide release, and showing you don't need the budget or the star power the studios system says you do."

Here are some of Blum's keys to finding horror fans' next favorite movie.

Seek out diamonds in the rough. Blum is like Jason Voorhees when it comes to stalking potential new films. He looks at them at all stages: Blum saw Oculus at the Toronto Film Festival after it was filmed and teamed with Relativity Media to release. He gets involved with most at the pre-production script level, and in the case of the first Paranormal Activity in 2007, filming was almost done when Blum came aboard. "We finished 40 more times after that," he quips. "If I see one that seems original at any state, I've over the years had a fun time trying to get them out to the world to a broad audience."

Embrace something different. That originality is a major aspect to Blum's works — with Oculus, he saw a similar sense of realism as Sinister and Insidious: "It feels like something you could put yourself into." Plus, it also breaks the horror mold in having a strong heroine — Gillan's Kaylie doesn't cringe in terror, she pretty much tells the mirror to bring it on. "She's a woman in command. It's a modern and new take on the girl in a horror film where she's not running away from a threat, she's running toward it. The worse things get, the more excited she gets."

Know the audience. These days, no one knows the horror genre better than Blum, says Tucker Tooley, president of Relativity and a friend for 10 years. "Having had the successes he's had and taken as many shots as he's taken, you get to learn about your audience and what works. You get so much data not only before a movie's out but after, in terms of feedback." While Blum's good at it, Tooley adds, "he's never satisfied with the results. He always wants to know how it could have been better."

Katie Sackhoff goes horror as a creepy mom in "Oculus."

Don't worry about having a franchise. The sixth Paranormal Activity movie is coming this fall, and before that the sequel The Purge: Anarchy is out in July. But Blum is always quick to tell his filmmakers before the first movie is released to not even dream about future installments. "It's hard enough to make a movie under 5 million bucks and compete against $50 million movies on its own," Blum says. "If the audience responds and loves your movie, and the original writer-director wants to dig in and do a second one, everyone's clever enough to figure out what they should be thinking for a sequel."

Vary the filmography. Blum has also been doing non-horror movies for a while, including the 2008 drama The Reader and 2010 family comedy Tooth Fairy. And he's looking to branch out more: Blum produced the Sundance hit Whiplash, about a young jazz musician, and in a couple weeks he's scheduled to begin filming on a live-action Jem movie based on the rockin' 1980s cartoon with director Jon M. Chu. "It's destined for a studio release," Blum says. "It fits into my fascination with that idea of being the underdog." But, he adds, "we're not slowing down on scary movies." Among those coming: the ghost film Jessabelle (Aug. 29), Halloween thriller Ouija (Oct. 24), the haunted-house reboot Amityville (Jan. 2, 2015) and the Frankenstein-esque Lazarus (Jan. 30, 2015)

Keep it cheap. No matter what genre he's involved with, that $5 million budget is integral. Blum has three rules that he feels keep things financially responsible and make for better movies: Limit filming locations, cut down on speaking parts and have actors, the director and himself work for the minimum pay for union standards (with some participating in the financial success of the movie on the back end). "The special effects and all the bells and whistles that go along with expensive moviemaking go out the window," Blum says. "And when you can't afford those things, you don't spend your time on them because they don't exist and you spend time on storytelling and performance. That's the heart and soul of a good movie."