The Paranormal Activity
franchise launched a lot of careers in the movie industry, but I'm
not talking about acting ones. Instead I'm referring to producers,
specifically Oren Peli (who also wrote and directed the first movie),
Jason Blum, and Steven Schneider, who are among THE hottest
properties in Hollywood right now. Between these three men, they've
produced over thirty mainstream horror movies since 2007, earning
well over A BILLION dollars in profit. Even more impressive, they've
done this with “micro-budget” films, not a single one of them
having a budget that exceeded ten million dollars. This is why no
matter how bad it gets (and wow, is it bad right now), mainstream
horror will never go away because it's basically guaranteed profit.
Today we're going to be taking a look
at one of Schneider's latest productions, The Houses October
Built. The film was actually based on a 2011 documentary by the
team of Bobby Roe, Zack Andrews, and Jeff Larson, in which they
traveled across the country exploring the growing phenomenon of
Halloween haunted houses (better known as “haunts”) that go the
extra mile to scare people by really amping up the terror. Along
with their interviewer Brandy Schaefer and Bobby's brother Mikey, who
handled editing duties, they drove around in an RV talking to people
who ran the crazier haunts. It was a fairly interesting documentary,
but then it took an inexplicable detour into fiction when they
started pursuing a legendary place called the Blue Skeleton Inn and
ended up getting killed in the end. It was jarring, to say the
least.
Cut to a couple of years later and the
idea came around to make a movie based out of their documentary,
since it was a unique premise in the WAY overcrowded world of found
footage horror. All of the film makers signed on to play themselves,
Bobby was handed directorial duties, and on October 10, 2014 we had
ourselves a movie. Was it any good? That's what I'm here to answer,
so put on your best brave face and enter the dark hallway, because
it's time for A Ghoul Versus The Houses October Built!
