As one of the most popular, recognizable, and prolific outfits in all of horror, Blumhouse churns out a mountain of terrifying content on an annual basis that runs the entire gamut from classic to criminal, but Stephen King has singled out one above all from 2022 that deserves the utmost praise, even if there may be an element of bias towards his thought process.
Ironically, the production company’s worst project of the year by far was the Firestarter remake, which was of course based on King’s novel of the same name. In total though, Jason Blum’s company lent its name to five episodic productions and a whopping 13 features, although not all of them were straightforward horrors.
After the Blumhouse Twitter account urged its followers to name their favorite of last year, it didn’t take the King of Horror long to shout out his favorite, and it’s a sentiment that an awful lot of people would surely agree with.
It’s worth pointing out that Scott Derrickson’s The Black Phone was adapted from the story of the same name by Joe Hill, so perhaps King is seeking to deliberately keep it in the family by supporting the big screen version of son’s work. Then again, respective Rotten Tomatoes scores of 83 and 88 percent from critics and audiences, coupled with a box office tally of $161 million on a budget of less than $20 million, would make it seen he’s stating the obvious, and definitely not playing favorites.
Either way, it’s clear which one of the King family fared better when it came to the Blumhouse business, seeing as Firestarter was completely and entirely deservedly ripped to pieces by critics and tanked horrendously at the box office, while The Black Phone quickly went down as one of the year’s top-tier terrors.