Welcome to the Blumhouse makes a strong launch for new horror voices

A year ago, horror studio Blumhouse Productions launched a new movie anthology series for the Halloween season, releasing four thrillers on Amazon Prime under the Welcome to Blumhouse flag. Like the eclectic fare that Blumhouse throws into theaters, and different to the company’s previous fear-focused anthology series, In the dark – that first set of “Welcome” movies mostly edged the outer edges of the horror genre. Black box, To eye, The lie, and Night It had creepy titles, but all four functioned more like psychological thrillers. They hinted at supernatural elements, but they weren’t monster movies or horror movies.

The second batch of Welcome to Blumhouse the cinema has arrived, with Bingo hell and Black as night debuting on Amazon on October 1 and Mothers and The mansion landing on October 8. The four new films are unequivocally described as horror. They feature demons, vampires, ghosts, and corpses piling up one by one … all the classic tropes. But what sets these movies apart from the hundreds of other horror movies that come out each year, aside from Blumhouse’s endorsement, are their leads, who for the most part are different from the usual screaming queens and goofy teenagers.

On Bingo hellFor example, Adriana Barraza plays Lupita, an old woman who lives in a working-class neighborhood that is slowly being absorbed by the hipster hangouts. Gentrification is accelerated when a grinning jerk named “Mr. Big ”(Richard Brake) opens a bingo room that offers payouts that seem too good to be true. It turns out that Mr. Big’s price for fulfilling wishes is taking away the homes, lives, and souls of his clients. Only stubborn Lupita and her old friends stand a chance against him.

The mansion It also features an elderly heroine: Judith (Barbara Hershey), a newly admitted nursing home resident who begins to see signs of a demonic presence around her otherwise nice and exclusive assisted living facility. Because she recently had a stroke, and because she is at an age where dementia sometimes sets in, Judith has a hard time convincing her family, her nurses, or her new neighbors that there is something dangerous lurking.

The heroine of Mothers he also has disturbing visions that may or may not be significant. Set in rural California in the 1970s, the film stars Ariana Guerra as Diana, the heavily pregnant Mexican-American wife of migrant worker Beto (Tenoch Huerta). As a newcomer to the community, Diana struggles to find someone to trust when she begins to have premonitory flashes of impending violence, or perhaps psychic impressions of something horrible that happened in the past.

As for Black as night, stars Asjha Cooper as Shawna, a 15-year-old black girl from New Orleans who discovers that a cult of vampires has been taking advantage of the homeless and drug addicts, including her own mother. As she rallies her friends to hunt down the bloodsuckers, Shawna is taught about the often tragic history of her city, and the many ways it has allowed its incumbent classes to exploit or neglect the poor.

It’s not that unusual for four mostly unrelated horror movies to have women in the lead roles. The genre has long focused on female leads, sometimes for progressive reasons, because it’s easier to root for someone who is underestimated by their peers and enemies, and sometimes by regressives. (A scared and vulnerable woman in tattered clothing is easy to objectify.)

But are Four women, two of them elderly, two Latinas, one black and one pregnant, don’t have much in common with the kind of movie heroines who are often harassed by masked serial killers in summer camps. And their identities are essential to what their stories are really about. The old lady Lupita in Bingo hell and teen Shawna in Black as night they oppose forces that are literally and metaphorically draining the soul of their communities. Judith and Diana, both new to their last homes, are desperate to be heard, rather than treated as if they are confused by their respective physical conditions. It’s easy to see why Blumhouse / Amazon has bundled these four movies together the way they have. Each pair serves as a thematically linked dual characteristic.

As with the first Welcome to Blumhouse Established, it would be an exaggeration to call these four films an essential viewing for moviegoers or horror fans. All four would have worked as well as the hour-long episodes of an anthology series. And while it’s great to see fresh faces and personalities battling evil, the plots of these movies are all too familiar and quite predictable. Only The mansion – written and directed by Axelle Carolyn, a Belgian filmmaker who has worked as a film critic and actor, as well as writing and directing horror-themed television series – seems to have worked well as a theatrical release or as a Midnight Madness title in a film festival, rather than as a television movie.

But the other movies are not a waste of time for fans of the genre. Each one has a distinctive flavor. Bingo hell (directed by Gigi Saul Guerrero, who also co-wrote the script with Shane McKenzie and Perry Blackshear) has an unusually light tone for such a gory image. At times, it looks more like a movie about the daily lives of stubborn old men than a story about a seductive and destructive demon. Black as night (directed by Maritte Lee Go from a script by Sherman Payne) doesn’t skimp on its high school movie elements, making sure to let Shawna express her teenage desires and insecurities. Mothers (directed by Ryan Zaragoza from a script by Marcella Ochoa and Mario Miscione) makes great use of its’ 70s setting, capturing a time that was spiritually unstable and fraught with paranoia.

If nothing else, the 2021 batch of Welcome to Blumhouse Movies are a strong argument for opening up the horror genre to new voices. In these four movies, even when the material isn’t all that original, and even when the stories fade a bit, at least the characters and worlds they inhabit don’t look or sound like any other spooky B-picture. These movies are a good reminder that even if the horror of the big screen seems to stagnate, there are still plenty of places to panic, and for many reasons.

Bingo hell, Black as night, Mothers, and The mansion now everyone is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.