Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)
Nov 17, 2010Haunting Found Footage Film
This necessarily lacks the surprise effect of the first film but still captures some of the same eerie dread anticipation as spooky things begin happening
Blumhouse
Tooth Fairy (2010)
Jan 27, 2010Tough Guy Becomes a Tooth Fairy
From the top wrestling superstar in the world in the early 00s to movie action hero to being dressed in a pink tutu with fairy wings, it is hard to believe that Dwayne Johnson’s box-office star would have ever recovered from this family film embarrassment that sees him cast as a fairy
Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)
Oct 20, 2011Haunting Found Footage Film
The Paranormal Activity series still manages to produce a reasonable amount of eerie scares and jumps a third time around, although by now the claim to still being found footage is starting to strain credulity
Paranormal Activity 4 (2012)
Oct 20, 2012Haunting Found Footage Film
The Paranormal Activity series has had a better run than most horror franchises up until now but the cracks are starting to show through here. This feels like it is straining to find some new way to do the familiar moves but fails to provide anything unexpected or original
Sinister (2012)
Nov 7, 2012Hauntings and Ritual Killings
Scott Derrickson film that is badly underwritten in terms of proper explanatory rationale. That said, you cannot deny that Derrickson manages to produce the scary goods on a number of occasions
Insidious Chapter 2 (2013)
Sep 13, 2013Haunting/Possession
James Wan proves himself one of the finest directors in the horror genre with this sequel to his 2010 film. The plot is trimmed to deliver an effective scare show and Wan again produces a series of eerie and unworldly jumps
Dark Skies (2013)
Feb 23, 2013Sinister Alien Visitations
Former effects supervisor Scott Stewart surprises here in producing a carefully restrained alien abduction film that focuses on the incursion of the inexplicable into the everyday
The Purge (2013)
Jun 8, 2013Future That Permits One Night of Lawlessness
Film based around the improbable concept of a future where on one night of each year all crime including murder becomes permissible. While this promises a rich vein of satire, the film only emerges as a variant on Straw Dogs
Ouija (2014)
Oct 26, 2014Ouija Board Unleashes a Malevolent Spirit
Blumhouse horror film based around the Parker Brothers boardgame. Modern multiplex horror films don't come more generic than this. On the other hand, you cannot deny that debuting director Stiles White creates some occasionally quite spooky moments, it's just that the rest of the show comes entirely by the numbers
The Purge: Anarchy (2014)
Jul 18, 2014Future That Permits One Night of Lawlessness
Slightly more interesting than its predecessor in that it takes the action out from gated communities into the streets, otherwise this offers just the same as The Purge – much in the way of heavy artillery and a patina of contemporary politics that have all the depth of a protest placard
Unfriended (2014)
Apr 19, 2015Supernatural Retribution Across Social Media
One of the most unique films in some time – everything takes place across social media (chat sessions, video calls) where the cinema screen is the computer screen. A fairly average supernatural retribution story that generates reasonable tension
13 Sins (2014)
Jun 5, 2015Game of Deadly and Extreme Challenges
I was very impressed with Daniel Stamm's previous film The Last Exorcism; this was his follow-up – a brutal English-language remake of a Thai film where people are offered the challenge of engaging in increasingly more malicious and extreme acts to win large sums of money
Creep (2014)
Apr 21, 2020Over-Friendly Stalker
An improvisational project shot between actor Mark Duplass and friend Patrick Brice, a two person handheld-shot film where videographer Brice is hired by an over-friendly Duplass who becomes increasingly disturbed
Jessabelle (2014)
Dec 7, 2014Haunted Southern Home
Ghost story from one of the directors of the Saw sequels that settles in with halfway reasonable build-up, before being killed off by an improbable left field twist ending
Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014)
Jan 10, 2014Found Footage Film/Possession
Less another sequel than a spinoff of the Paranormal Activity series, this takes place with Latino characters and in a whole different culture and socio-economic strata. While this gives the series a face change, everything else it feels like the shuffling of a well-worn deck of plot cards
Ascension (2014)
Apr 17, 2015Generation Ship
Fascinating tv mini-series set around the notion of a generation ship – the show explores the scenario in interesting ways then proceeds to put some wild spins on what we think is happening
The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014)
Dec 31, 2018Modern-Day Copycat of The Phantom Killer
Not a remake but a sequel to the cult true-crime film The Town That Dreaded Sundown with a series of copycat killings influenced by the film occurring in the present-day. Directed with a bravura stylishness that makes you jump out of your seat in joy
Mercy (2014)
Aug 30, 2017Stephen King Adaptation/Sinister Grandmother
Modestly creepy adaptation of a Stephen King short story about a boy who realises that his grandmother is a witch who made a deal with a backwoods entity
Mockingbird (2014)
Jan 7, 2015Found Footage/Home Invasion Thriller
Bryan Bertino who made the impressive home invasion thriller The Strangers and this was his follow-up. This was held up so long in release that its originality has been rendered everyday by others milking the Found Footage genre
Visions (2015)
Apr 8, 2016Clairvoyant Visions
Another effort from the near-ubiquitous Blumhouse horror company. A film that teases many things – occult rituals, cultists after the pregnant heroine's baby – that prove red herrings as it eventually telescopes down to a frustratingly ordinary explanation
Insidious Chapter 3 (2015)
Jun 6, 2015Haunting/Possession
This doesn't have James Wan directing and is a far less interesting ghost story before doing a repeat venture into the beyond. On the plus side, incoming director Leigh Whannell does generate a fair degree of eerie tension
The Boy Next Door (2015)
Jan 25, 2015Stalker Thriller
A cougar version of Fatal Attraction with Jennifer Lopez stalked by a teenage boy. On every level this invites ridicule, from J-Lo sleepwalking through her performance to a director who has never made a good film to a script detached from human psychology
The Visit (2015)
Sep 19, 2015Found Footage/Weird Grandparents
M. Night Shyamalan makes one of his best films in ages. He kicks back his heels and goes nuts – at the same time as he is spooking us he also has us laughing; he ventures into making a Found Footage film but at the same time is also deconstructing the process with hilarious results
Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015)
Jan 9, 2016Haunting Found Footage Film
For supposedly the Paranormal Activity series final entry, this offer the novelty of the first Found Footage film in 3D – a gimmick that signals the series is out of fresh ideas. Moreover, the series' look via watching security cameras has been de-emphasised in favour of another CGI driven ghost story
Curve (2015)
May 25, 2017Trapped in an Overturned SUV, Taunted By a Psycho
Another variant on the containment thriller a la Buried, this has Julianne Hough trapped at the bottom of a cliff in an overturned SUV while being taunted by a serial killer
Area 51 (2015)
Jun 21, 2015Found Footage/Break-In to Area 51
Paranormal Activity director Oren Peli's second film – a gripping Found Footage film about a group breaking into Area 51 in search of evidence of the alien visitors that the US government is holding
The Lazarus Effect (2015)
Feb 28, 2015Experiments in the Resurrection of the Dead
The experiment to bring someone back from the dead has been trod many times before and this Blumhouse production only rehashes it in tired and unimaginative ways
Sinister 2 (2015)
Aug 29, 2015Hauntings and Ritual Killings
The original had some undeniably effective jumps but suffered from a lack of explanatory rationale but this makes for a shaky house of cards when the same arbitrary happenings are extended for a sequel
The Gallows (2015)
Aug 24, 2015Found Footage/Haunted High School Play
Though this received a reasonably high-profile release from Blumhouse, it transpires as no more than a Found Footage film about the haunting of a high-school play
Martyrs (2015)
Feb 28, 2016Imprisonment and Torture
Martyrs was one of the most grimly disturbing films of the 2000s; this English-language remake, which waters everything down and rewrites the ending to have one of the girls bursting in to save the other with a shotgun counts as surely one of the great all-time cinematic bad ideas
Jem and the Holograms (2015)
Jan 29, 2016Girl Pop Band/Animation in Live-Action
The original animated series was one of the pop oddities of the 80s – part teen pop fantasy, part superheroics and secret identities. This live-action remake is an object lesson in how to strip all the fun elements out a series
The Gift (2015)
Aug 22, 2015Old Schoolfriend Stalker
Blumhouse thriller about an old school friend who inserts himself into the lives of a successful couple and proceeds to stalk them. This produces several effective twists but ultimately feels too mannered
Hush (2016)
Jun 26, 2016Deaf Woman Stalked by a Killer
A Mike Flanagan film that keeps you in a state of seat-edge tension. The premise is a simple one – a deaf woman is terrorised by a killer waiting outside her house – but Flanagan delivers it with electrifying effect
Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016)
Nov 12, 2016Ouija Board Unleashes Malevolent Spirits
Blumhouse's Ouija didn't get many good reviews but they proceeded with a prequel here. This is automatically the better film from the outset by employing Mike Flanagan, behind amazing works like Absentia, Hush and The Haunting of Hill House, as director, even if it comes out as one of Flanagan's lesser works
The Purge: Election Year (2016)
Jul 24, 2016Future That Permits One Night of Lawlessness
The Purge was a routine film that caught on with audiences but the premise lacks the legs to be a franchise – for one, it is based on a future scenario that has zero plausibility. This makes paper-thin stabs in terms of social issues but all interest evaporates when the guns start blazing
The Veil (2016)
Mar 7, 2016Ghosts of Mass Suicide Cult Members
This has a great premise – a camera crew revisiting the site of a cult mass suicide stir up the ghosts of the cult members – and a director who I always maintained had much untapped potential. Alas, the finished result seems to slip by his hands
Incarnate (2016)
Jan 14, 2017Possession and Exorcism
Ever since The Exorcist, filmmakers have been recycling the same cliches for the last forty years. This slings the cliches together with the dream incursion concept from Inception, which makes things somewhat interesting
Viral (2016)
Dec 26, 2016Plague Outbreak/Zombie Parasites
Effort from the near-ubiquitous Blumhouse that is constantly confounding expectations – a plague outbreak drama but not quite, a zombie film but not quite. In the end, not a great or groundbreaking film but certainly a modest one that takes things in some interesting and original directions
The Darkness (2016)
Jun 5, 2016Haunting/Native American Demons Awakened
Greg McLean has made an impressive name with the Wolf Creek films and Rogue. In his first US film, he delivers a disappointing and utterly generic haunted suburban house film
Happy Death Day (2017)
Nov 5, 2017Timeloop Slasher Film
A Christopher Landon film released by Blumhouse. This has been conceived as a mash-up between Groundhog Day and a slasher film with a girl who wakes up every day to be pursued by a masked killer
Amityville: The Awakening (2017)
Oct 29, 2017Haunted House
No less than the twentieth film spun out around The Amityville Horror. This Blumhouse revival emerges as marginally better than most films with Amityville in the name
Creep 2 (2017)
Jan 2, 2024Over-Friendly Stalker
Creep was a wonderfully creepy film with Mark Duplass as someone who invites a videographer to make a film but proves over-friendly to the point of highly disturbed. This is a sequel where Duplass returns for more
Get Out (2017)
May 6, 2017Sinister Small Town/Racial Mind Control
A rehash of The Stepford Wives recast along racial lines. It is a surprise to see a mainstream horror hit with a strong message about racism, not that Jordan Peele neglects the horror element either
The Keeping Hours (2017)
Jan 13, 2020Haunting
The best film that Blumhouse have produced to date. A ghost story as much as it becomes a relationship drama of incredibly authentic emotion that is beautifully made
Split (2017)
Feb 4, 2017Split-Personality Psycho
M. Night Shyamalan's name took a nosedive throughout most of the 2000s (although I am prepared to defend him) but he received some of his best notices in years with his collaborations for Blumhouse, This split personality thriller, anchored by a tour-de-force performance(s) from James McAvoy, continues the upward trend
Stephanie (2017)
May 11, 2018Young Girl Faces Unseen Creatures Amid an Invasion
Akiva Goldsman is the single worst screenwriter in Hollywood with a line of genre atrocities to his name. In his second directorial outing, blow me down if Goldsman doesn't make a halfway decent film, a cryptic film about a young girl facing unseen monsters amid a possible invasion
Truth or Dare (2018)
Mar 15, 2020Deadly Game/Demonic Curse
Jeff Wadlow made the smart Cry Wolf, a slasher film about a campus game turned deadly. In this Blumhouse production, he has simply remade that with a different game where the killer is now a demonic curse
Unfriended: Dark Web (2018)
Apr 28, 2019Found Footage/Darkweb Snuff Filmmaking Group
Unfriended had a unique novelty approach - everything took place in one take where the film screen was a computer screen. You wonder what a sequel can add to this. The surprise is that we get a film even better than the original
Cam (2018)
May 3, 2019Camgirl and Her Doppelganger
This comes with the intriguingly original premise where Madeline Brewer is a camgirl performer on an adult site who finds that her life has been hijacked by a doppelganger
Delirium (2018)
Jun 27, 2022Home Detention Detainee Has Possible Hallucinations
Blumhouse film that stars Topher Grace as an asylum detainee who is released to home detention and may or may not be hallucinating seeing figures inside the house
Insidious: The Last Key (2018)
Mar 31, 2018Paranormal Investigation
After two fairly good initial entries, the Insidious series began its downward slide. Here new director Adam Robitel's clumsy jumpshocks are a far cry from the eerie effects James Wan pulled off
Family Blood (2018)
Sep 18, 2025Vampire Film
A modern day vampire film that comes with the amusing idea of James Ransone as a vampire who lurks around AA meetings to find his prey
Upgrade (2018)
Dec 23, 2018A.I Transforms a Wheelchair-Ridden Man Into a Fighting Machine
Leigh Whannell, James Wan's BFF and co-writer on the Saw and films, takes the director’s chair. A wheelchair-ridden Logan Marshall-Green gets an A.I. implant that gives him ninja super-skills among other things. Whannell’s action set-ups and plot twists are frequently ingenious.
Halloween (2018)
Jan 12, 2019Slasher Film
40 years later, Jamie Lee Curtis returns to pay homage to Halloween in what is a direct sequel to the original, erasing the continuity of every other sequel. This fails to conjure what made the original a classic
The First Purge (2018)
Mar 24, 2019The Origin of a Future That Permits One Night of Lawlessness
Blumhouse have handed the reigns of The Purge series to African-American filmmaker Gerard McMurray who takes the opportunity to get political and drag the series into the era of Black Lives Matter
Happy Death Day 2U (2019)
Apr 5, 2019Timeloop Film
Happy Death Day seemed a gimmicky marriage between Groundhog Day and a slasher film. This sequel is a far better film that places some funny and quite clever spins on the previous film
Glass (2019)
Apr 13, 2019Ordinary Superhero and Villains
Unbreakable was M. Night Shyamalan's everyday superhero film. Here he merges the characters from Unbreakable and Split to create his own shared universe. This could in effect be the kitchen sink version of The Avengers
Us (2019)
Jun 1, 2019Doppelgangers
Jordan Peele's follow-up to the massive hit of Get Out. This is a doppelganger film where the metaphors that Peele is trying to make are not entirely clear but what you cannot deny is that he demonstrates considerable assurance as a genre director
Ma (2019)
Sep 6, 2019Psycho Film
Blumhouse production with Octavia Spencer as a stalkery mad woman who befriends a group of teens in an elaborate revenge plot. Quite what people though they were making is a scratch of the head
Prey (2019)
Oct 11, 2019Desert Island Horrors
Franck Khalfoun, a former Alexandre Aja associate, who has made the quite reasonable likes of P2 and the remake of Maniac, directs a desert island survival story where the jungle lurks with horrors
Sweetheart (2019)
Dec 22, 2019Desert Island Monster Movie
Blumhouse production from J.D. Dillard who made a modest splash with the street magician film Sleight, this features Kiersey Clemons as a survivor stranded on a desert island facing a monster that comes out at night
The Gallows Act II (2019)
Dec 27, 2019Haunted High School Play
The Gallows was a Found Footage film about a haunted high school play. Blumhouse have yet to have a success to which they are not willing to spin out a sequel
Black Christmas (2019)
Feb 21, 2020Girl’s Dormitory Slasher
A remake of the work that has been cited as the first slasher film. This is less a horror film than a horror film that has been hijacked by a political agenda, delivered with a relentlessly loud and damning misandrist tone
Don’t Let Go (2019)
Jun 21, 2021Cellphone Calls Across Time
Blumhouse film that borrows the basics of Frequency where a detective starts receiving phone calls from his murdered niece from several days in the past and tries to prevent her murder
The Hunt (2020)
Mar 27, 2020Human Bloodsports/Liberals Hunt Conservatives
Controversial variant on the human bloodsports plot of The Most Dangerous Game but where liberals hunt conservatives. A film with a darkly satiric bite that sets out to offend people on both sides of the political fence
The Invisible Man (2020)
Mar 28, 2020Invisible Stalker
Blumhouse deliver an invisible man, although one that has nothing to do with H.G. Wells or the previous invisible man films. Indeed, this feels like an invisible man film that doesn't even want to be about an invisible man at all.
Fantasy Island (2020)
Apr 25, 2020TV Series Remake/Island That Makes Fantasies Come True
The big screen remake of the popular 70s/80s tv series about an island that makes guests fantasies come true. In the hands of Blumhouse, this has now been turned into a horror film
You Should Have Left (2020)
Jun 27, 2020Sinister House
David Koepp has an impressive resume as a screenwriter, even better as a director. Here he makes a film where Kevin Bacon rents a sinister holiday home that has shifting topography
Nocturne (2020)
Nov 1, 2020Rivalry Between Sisters at a Music School/Occult Spell
The best of the Welcome to Blumhouse films set among the rivalry of two sisters at a highly competitive music school where one gets an occult text allowing her an advantage
Evil Eye (2020)
Nov 1, 2020Reincarnated Stalker
Blumhouse film where a Westernised Indian girl rejects her traditional mother’s fears about her new boyfriend being a bad man reincarnated only for them to come true
Freaky (2020)
Dec 12, 2020Bodyswap Slasher Film
A slasher film with a novelty (gimmicky?) premise where the Final Girl and the hulking killer of the show end up swapping bodies. Essentially a conceptual mash-between a slasher film and Freaky Friday
The Craft: Legacy (2020)
Jan 16, 2021Teen Witches
Blumhouse revival of/sequel to The Craft, the film about a quartet of teenage witches. This updates the original to the modern era in ways the original never did
The Forever Purge (2021)
Jul 23, 2021Social Collapse of the USA
In this, the fifth film in The Purge series, the scenario becomes even more interestingly political, becoming a satiric take on MAGA America and the Capitol Riots
Halloween Kills (2021)
Oct 23, 2021Slasher Film
Sequel to the 2018 reboot/sequel to Halloween from David Gordon Greene, this is more scrupulous about paying homage to the original and recapturing something of John Carpenter’s original stylism
Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin (2021)
Nov 6, 2021Found Footage Film/Religious Cult
Blumhouse resurrects the Paranormal Activity series for another outing about an investigation into the secrets of an Amish cult
Black As Night (2021)
Aug 22, 2023Vampires Invade the Hood
One of the post-Twilight vampire films that have transplanted the basics into different locales – in this, a rundown inner-city New Orleans ghetto neighbourhood
The Black Phone (2021)
Jul 30, 2022Imprisonment Thriller/Ghostly Telephone
Scott Derrickson delivers an eerie film from a Joe Hill story about a child who is abducted and imprisoned by a serial killer but then receives message from beyond the grave on an old telephone.
Dashcam (2021)
Sep 10, 2022Found Footage Horrors
Director Rob Savage made a splash with the Zoom horror film Host. His second film here is an insanely crazed horror film that is shot from the point-of-view of a dashcam
Mr. Harrigan’s Phone (2022)
Jul 8, 2023Text Messages from Beyond the Grave/Stephen King Adaptation
A nicely made Stephen King adaptation about a teen who starts to receive text message from beyond the grave. From Ryan Murphy, the producer behind tv's Glee and American Horror Story
The Visitor (2022)
Sep 12, 2024Sinister Small Town
Blumhouse production where Finn Jones moves to a small town and finds the portrait of the town’s founder is a ringer for him
Unhuman (2022)
Aug 20, 2023School Pupils Under Attack in the Woods
From writers of several Saw films and The Collector, a film about teens under attack in the woods where it is unclear what is going on oe who they are facing for most of the film
Firestarter (2022)
May 20, 2022Pyrokinesis/Stephen King Adaptation
One of Stephen King’s best books is given a new film workover by Blumhouse. Keith Thomas made a standout directorial debut with The Vigil, but this is a disaster, one of the worst of all King adaptations
Halloween Ends (2022)
Oct 22, 2022Slasher Film
David Gordon Green and Jamie Lee Curtis return to round out their highly underwhelming Halloween reboot trilogy. By now, this feels like a Halloween film in name only
M3gan (2022)
Feb 4, 2023Artificially Intelligent Doll Amok
A horror film about an artificially intelligent children's doll that resembles one of the Big Eyes paintings, which then proceeds to go full-on Terminator
Torn Hearts (2022)
May 14, 2023Batty Old Dame
Rather good film featuring Married ... With Children’s Katey Sagal who gives a splendidly deranged performance in the full Baby Jane mode as an aging Country and Western star
There’s Something Wrong With the Children (2023)
Jun 9, 2023Evil Children
Quite decent Blumhouse film in which children suddenly go bad and begin playing malicious, murderous games with adults
Unseen (2023)
May 25, 2024Blind Woman Flees Through the Woods
A film with an ingenious premise where a nearly blind woman must rely on a total stranger to guide her by her phone through the woods while avoiding a pursuer
Insidious: The Red Door (2023)
Aug 12, 2023Haunting/Astral Projection
The fifth film in the Insidious series. This time Patrick Wilson returns to the franchise and takes the director’s chair, showing he has been taking some lessons from James Wan
Totally Killer (2023)
Oct 14, 2023Time Travel/Slasher Film
A Blumhouse production that ends up being a smart conceptual mash-up between Back to the Future and Halloween
The Exorcist: Believer (2023)
Nov 4, 2023Demonic Possession
In much the same way as they did with Halloween, Blumhouse and director David Gordon Green offer up a sequel to The Exorcist on the original's fiftieth anniversary. The results are a bizarre scratch of the head
Five Nights at Freddy’s (2023)
Nov 10, 2023Videogame Adaptation/Killer Animatronics
A Blumhouse film adaptation of the videogame that was a considerable hit at the box-office. Josh Hutcherson plays a security guard at a pizza parlour who faces killer animatronics come to life
Afraid (2024)
Sep 28, 2024Smarthome A.I. Amok
The first film to come out following the advent of generative A.I. From American Pie director Chris Weitz, an evil A.I. film that arrives with all the hysteria of villagers with burring torches in a Frankenstein film
Speak No Evil (2024)
Nov 15, 2024Sinister Hosts
The Danish original was a darkly brilliant film about guests in a home of people who step over boundaries. This is the English-language remake from Blumhouse that lacks the same dark bite
Night Swim (2024)
Feb 2, 2024Sinister Swimming Pool
A Blumhouse and James Wan co-production about a malevolent swimming pool
Imaginary (2024)
Apr 6, 2024Sinister Imaginary Companion
A largely routine Blumhouse film where a woman’s return to her childhood home ends up awakening her imaginary companion who has now turned sinister
Obsession (2025)
Jul 11, 2026Love Wish Gone Wrong
A nerdy guy’s wish to have a girl love him goes badly wrong turning her into something deranged. This became a word of mouth box-office hit and signals Curry Barker as a major new genre director
Wolf Man (2025)
Feb 15, 2025Werewolf Film
After reviving The Invisible Man, James Wan associate Leigh Whannell takes on a reworking of The Wolf Man
The Woman in the Yard (2025)
May 3, 2025Mystery Woman Outside the House
Blumhouse film with Danielle Deadwyler and family having to deal with the ominous threat of a mystery woman in black veil who simply sits in their yard
M3gan 2.0 (2025)
Jul 25, 2025Artificially Intelligent Doll Amok
Sequel to the killer doll film M3gan that is a much better work than its predecessor. If the original was Child’s Play by way of The Terminator then this is the series’ equivalent of Terminator 2: Judgement Day
Black Phone 2 (2025)
Nov 15, 2025Hauntings/Ghostly Telephone Calls
Scott Derrickson makes a sequel to his earlier hit The Black Phone. The original was a modest but self-contained story, whereas this has to do some work before coming out as an original and effective follow-up