In a post on The Script Lab, David Young examines how Blumhouse movies take common storytelling tropes and give them a spin to create compelling horror movies. “Try as we might, we can’t seem to escape the usual trappings of storytelling: time loops, meeting the parents, or even a good old-fashioned body swap,” he says. However, those hidebound tropes can be given a fresh twist to create exciting new stories. Blumhouse “likes to take something we know and shake it all up into a brand-new horror movie,” Young says.
Such as:
- Happy Death Day. From Groundhog Day to Edge of Tomorrow, characters stuck in a time loop are a popular movie trope. In Happy Death Day, the filmmakers use the concept to create a slasher flick, a whodunit, and psychological torment.
- Oculus. Many legal thrillers have been written from the perspective of a character trying to prove the innocence of a loved one accused of a crime they didn’t commit. In Oculus, the filmmakers add a deadly mirror to create a multifaceted psychological horror.
- Get Out. Meeting the parents is a time-honored tradition in romantic comedies, but no depiction of this rite of passage was more horrifying that Jordan Peele’s Get Out.
Young also examines The Purge, Insidious: Chapter 2, Halloween Kills, and Freaky.
