Night Swim scared James Wan so much, he needed to turn it into a full-length film
At New York Comic Con, Jason Blum also teased that Blumhouse's merger with James Wan's production company is imminent
The 2024 horror film Night Swim, which looks pretty fucking scary based on the teaser, is a feature-length version of director Bryan McGuire’s 2014 short film. And that short spooked the hell out of James Wan, the creator of The Conjuring Universe. McGuire told an enthusiastic audience at the 2023 New York Comic Con panel that, after seeing it a few years earlier, Wan told him he later went swimming, because, of course, that’s what any reasonable human would do after watching a film about a haunted pool.
McGuire added, “He told me was doing a freestyle stroke, he looked up to the left, and saw the creature from my film standing there. He said it means you’ve scared me so much, I have to turn it into a full-length movie.” Damn if that’s not a major flex, we don’t know what is. The result is Night Swim (releasing January 5), starring Wyatt Russell, Kerry Condon, Amélie Hoeferle, and Gavin Warren. It follows a family who moves into a new house with a backyard pool where supernatural forces clearly reside in the water. And you thought Jaws was spooky, huh? Night Swim is co-produced by Wan and Jason Blum under their respective production banners, Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. Blum also teased that a merger of both companies is “very close.”
At NYCC’s Blumhouse panel, McGuire and Blum further discussed the inspiration for Night Swim, and yes, Jaws is obviously involved. “Watching the movie when I was 9 didn’t just ruin the ocean for me, it ruined the water. If I don’t see the bottom of the pool in the dark, it’s basically not there, even though my rational mind knows it’s not true,” McGuire noted. “So the reaction to the trailer now is validating because the phobia isn’t just mine, it’s universal. The pool is considered domesticated, fun, and even sexy, but that’s not the element we’re in with Night Swim anymore.”
Blum also told the audience how Night Swim came to Blumhouse. “It’s when we were working on M3GAN. This was something Atomic Monster fostered and brought to us as well. Bryan and James are terrific at making the ordinary so upsetting,” he said. “That’s what Night Swim and The Conjuring do so well.”
The Blumhouse panel also featured Prime Video’s recently released Totally Killer, a slasher comedy directed by Nahnatchka Khan and starring Kiernan Shipka, Julie Bowen, Olivia Holt, and Randall Park. Blum perfectly described the rise and appeal of this genre, and why he was completely invested in Totally Killer because of it: “Horror and comedy are cousins. People respond vocally to them in a theater with the timing of a scare and a joke. They need to be exact. Comedy makes people relax, making it easier and effective to scare them.”
No wonder Khan was chosen to helm Totally Killer, or as Blum put it simply, “I chased her.” She’s co-created sitcom gems like Don’t Trust The B—— In Apartment 23 and Fresh Off The Boat, as well as Netflix rom-com Always Be My Maybe. Khan said at NYCC that any project she does will always have comedy, “so this murder mystery just made sense for her, with Mad Men’s Shipka as everyone’s top choice as the new scream queen.”
The third and final film to appear at the NYCC panel was Five Night At Freddy’s. Directed by Emma Tammi, it’s based on a video game franchise of the same name and stars Josh Hutcherson, Matthew Lillard, Elizabeth Lail, and Piper Rubio. Tammi and Blum teased how the film is for fans of the game as opposed to a broader audience. “Hollywood often makes this mistake while adapting a popular book or game. They want to satisfy old-timers and a new audience, that’s the pressure,” Blum said. “What became clear while developing this is to do it for true fans. If new people get introduced to it in the process, that’s fine. We can’t try to please everyone.”
Five Nights At Freddy’s follows Mike Schmidt, the new security guard working a night-time job at an abandoned family center and pizza place. It’s no peaceful gig, because the killer animatronic mascots have murderous plans. Tammi said they used Jim Hensen’s Creature Shop to make toys “because they are the gold standard.” She also teased that a fun FNAF character not revealed in the trailer is poised to make a big appearance in the film, which releases on October 27.
For his part, Blum joked about combining his two exciting 2023 projects by making a Freddy Vs. M3GAN movie at some point. Now, while that sounds doable and probably a lot of fun, he also said his true desire is to do a Michael Myers vs. M3GAN film. Sorry, Jason, but Halloween’s Michael will destroy the AI robot girl—no matter how great she is at dancing—in no time. Still, let’s hold out hope for that Freddy and M3GAN battle in the meantime.