The Big Picture

Blumhouse Productions prioritizes original horror stories and low budgets, allowing filmmakers to have creative control and execute their vision. Night Swim, Blumhouse’s first big studio film in 2024, expands on a 2014 short and follows a couple who uncovers dark secrets lurking beneath their new home and pool. Blumhouse has upcoming projects including the Five Nights at Freddy’s sequel, the video game adaptation Dead by Daylight, and sequels for M3GAN and The Black Phone.

In Hollywood, Blumhouse Productions is leading the charge in horror. Whether they’re handing the creative control over to emerging filmmakers or teaming up with directors like M. Night Shymalan and James Wan, the company’s commitment is to original stories and low budgets, opting to “give that money to the filmmakers so they can execute on the story.” For Blumhouse’s first big studio film of 2024, Night Swim, Collider’s Steve Weintraub spoke with executive producer and BH Vice President of Feature Film Development, Ryan Turek, about what slate of movies they’ve got cooking up for the upcoming years.

First up is Night Swim, a horror that spotlights writer-director Bryce McGuire for his feature debut, based on a 2014 short he worked on with co-director Rod Blackhurst. Expanding on the original four-minute short, the Blumhouse film stars Wyatt Russell (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) and Oscar-nominee, Kerry Condon (The Banshees of Inisherin), as Ray and Eve Waller, a young couple who move their family into a new home. Ray is a former major league baseball player, recently forced into retirement due to an injury, who believes the move and the sparkling backyard pool will be good for them, and provide him with physical therapy in hopes of returning to the big leagues. Just below the surface, however, their home and pool hide dark secrets, and a sinister force is waiting to drag them down with it.

During their conversation, inspired by the film’s promise to ruin swimming pools for a new generation, Turek shares the influential horror movies that led him to a career dedicated to celebrating the genre, from Fangoria to co-creating DreadCentral, to the offices of Blumhouse. The producer shares his passion for filmmaking as well as updates on some of Blumhouse’s most anticipated projects, like M3GAN 2.0, the Five Nights at Freddy’s sequel, The Black Phone 2, and the video game adaptation in the works, Dead by Daylight. Check out the full interview in the video above, or read the transcript below. For even more Night Swim, read on for Collider’s interview with director and co-writer, McGuire.

Night Swim Feature length version of the 2014 short film about a woman swimming in her pool at night terrorized by an evil spirit. Release Date January 5, 2024 Director Bryce McGuire Rating PG-13 Runtime 118 minutes Writers Rod Blackhurst , Bryce McGuire

COLLIDER: This is a weird moment because we did set visits together and round tables and everything else, and now you are on the other side.

RYAN TUREK: It’s very weird.

You’ve been where I’m sitting, and now you’re at Blumhouse and you’re in the machine. You know how the cookies are made. What has really surprised you that you didn’t really expect sitting on this side that you’ve now learned being over there?

TUREK: Oh, that is a great question. How hard it is to make a movie, man. Honestly. I feel when I was in the world of journalism and when I was running the website and working for Fangoria, I knew it was difficult to make a movie, but I didn’t know how truly hard it was to make a movie, like to get it off the ground; to be waiting over a weekend for a cast to read it and hope that they’re gonna be involved; from getting on set and discovering all the hurdles that you could be thrown. There’s so many people that work on a movie, and they’re all putting their heart and soul into it, and so when I look back at maybe something I had written in Fangoria, like a review or something, I’m like, “Man, I was really tough on this because I bet they had a difficult time making it.” I can look at a movie now and go, “I bet this scene was incredibly tough to pull off because of this, this, and this.”

Listen, it all starts with story; if the story is not great, then that’s an inherent problem. But it’s just more respect for everybody behind the camera. There’s just so much hard work and so many incredibly talented people that are rolling up their sleeves, getting in there, believing in your story. And that’s the thing, we love people who are volunteering to tell a scary story. I’ve equated it to kind of putting on a carnival. We’re all people that are there going from town to town, bringing this show and bringing the talent, and we’re all putting up the tents and rolling out everything, and we all hope that the audience loves it. Even if they don’t, I still reflect on everybody who put in their hard work and I still respect all of them. They’re incredible.

You’ve been at Blumhouse eight years now. Is there a project or two projects this whole time that you’ve been like, “We’ve gotta make this. We’ve gotta make this?”

TUREK: We’ve made them. I mean, Halloween was a huge one. It would be a balance between Freaky and Happy Death Day because, obviously, I’m a huge slasher movie fanatic. I’m a huge slasher movie fanatic, and to see twists on the slasher movie formula that I’ve never seen before — Groundhog Day meets Friday the 13th and then a body swap horror movie — I love both of those, and obviously I love Chris Landon.

Related ‘Happy Death Day’ Director Christopher Landon Is “Still Holding Out Hope” for Third Movie “I have that movie in my head, and I know exactly what I want.”

One of the things about Night Swim is, it reminds me that I’m never gonna get in the pool and I will never get in the ocean. I learned this from a young age from horror movies. What horror movies hit you as a kid that actually changed what you do in real life, just in general, like Poltergeist for me and under my bed?

TUREK: Interesting. I’ve always said that horror movies are great learning lessons. Forget school, horror movies were my life lessons – don’t go creeping into the woods at night, you know? A movie like Something Wicked This Way Comes, where these kids have full accessibility to the town and they discover awful things about the town when this guy rolls into their place. Jaws was a huge one, obviously, when it comes to the ocean. Cujo. I love dogs, I have a dog, but Cujo was like, “Okay, don’t go messing around with dogs you don’t know.” That’s a really great question because I think everything about horror, to this day, still inherently makes me cautious about society and life. Everything. Everything I’ve seen in a horror movie, I inherently am on edge. And that’s not like I’m a stress ball, it’s just like I’m more attuned if I’m in this crowded scenario. I’m more attuned. I’m looking for exits.

Exactly.

What’s the Status of the ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ Sequel?
Image via Blumhouse

I don’t think Blumhouse has announced it, but is there gonna be a Five Nights at Freddy’s sequel? I’m assuming. It made so much money.

TUREK: That movie made so much money. It was a huge success, and we’re grateful for that. Emma [Tammi] did such a great job, but we’re still waiting for the green light on that. We’ll see.

Which is crazy.

TUREK: No, it’s not crazy. It’s just part of the process, I think.

Sure. I am surprised that there hasn’t been a date of, like, 7/2/25 on a sequel movie that did that well on both streaming and in theaters.

TUREK: Right, I’m sure Jason’s got some tricks up his sleeve.

‘M3GAN’ Sequel Is Underway, Blumhouse’s Ryan Turek Confirms
Image via Universal Pictures

Exactly, it’s just a question of when. So M3GAN was a huge hit, The Black Phone was a huge hit, both are getting sequels. So, when do you actually start shooting those, or have you seen scripts that you’re happy with?

TUREK: M3GAN 2 is underway. We haven’t started shooting or anything like that. We’re aiming towards that January release date that was set. And The Black Phone 2, there’s nothing else I can say really in terms of movement.

How ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ Will Impact Blumhouse’s ‘Dead by Daylight’
Image via Behavior Interactive

What are you excited about at Blumhouse that you’re getting ready to film in 2024 that maybe is not on people’s radars?

TUREK: I will say that one of the projects that I’m active on is Dead by Daylight, which is the video game adaptation of a game that’s been around for, like, seven years. I look at that as the celebration of horror that the video game itself is. What we’ve learned from Five Nights at Freddy’s is, obviously, steer towards the fans and make a video game adaptation for the fans. I’m a huge Dead by Daylight fan. I played, even though I steer to newer games like Alan Wake 2, and I’m like, “Let me play some Alan Wake 2 tonight… Eh, I’m gonna get into Dead by Daylight and play the killer tonight.” That one I’m super excited about, and we’re creatively mulling around what the way into it is.

Why Blumhouse Doesn’t Shoot in IMAX

I love IMAX and the large screen format, and one of the things that I have not really seen is horror or genre films that really embrace the large screen format. You look at what Oppenheimer did, like the billion dollars, and just how much people love that screen. Is there any talk with you guys about, “What can we do with IMAX,” to push the boundaries in a movie theater?

TUREK: I mean, we’ve had releases in IMAX. Obviously, some of the Halloween entries were in IMAX. To shoot IMAX, I don’t know if that’s conducive to the Blumhouse system in a way. It’s very expensive, obviously. At least this is from my standpoint, I’d rather give that money to the filmmakers so they can execute on the story and the scares and make the scares as scary as possible. Also, it’s interesting, I wonder how that would be interpreted on the big, big screen. I feel like if you’re looking all over…just because scares are very scientific in a way, in terms of how you orchestrate or how you choreograph when things are coming on camera. I’m fascinated by it, but I just don’t know if budgetarily it would work.

Meet the Filmmaker Behind ‘Night Swim’

Bryce McGuire is the latest filmmaker to team up with Blumhouse Productions. Following in the footsteps of a previous short film director, David Sandberg, who went from expanding his own short to a feature-length Lights Out to directing for a DC project, McGuire’s Night Swim aims to ruin pools the way The Grudge ruined showers, the way The Ring ruined TVs, and so on. In his interview with Collider, which you can check out above, he shares his influences, the connection between his short film with Rod Blackhurst to singer and songwriter, Michelle Branch, and why he’s delighted to scare a new generation of audiences. McGuire also discusses the thrills of horror, dream projects he has ideas for, shares his own genre recommendations, what he learned working with Blumhouse, what audiences should be on the lookout for while watching Night Swim, and his plans for a sequel.

Night Swim hits theaters in the U.S. on January 5.

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