Tyler Perry And Jason Blum Are Teaming Up To Make A Horror Movie
Madea said it best: "Keep playing with the devil, he gonna show up." The devil has indeed shown up in the form of Blumhouse Productions founder and CEO Jason Blum ("The Purge" franchise). At BlumFest 2021 — an annual Halloween-centric festival for Blumhouse fans — Blum announced an upcoming collaboration with Madea's creator, writer-producer Tyler Perry.
Blum and Perry's upcoming thriller, "Help," is set to begin production in Atlanta next year at Perry's own Tyler Perry Studios. This will be the first co-production between Tyler Perry Studios and Blumhouse Productions, with Perry and Blum producing alongside Peachtree and Vine's Tim Palen.
Alan B. McElroy Will Write and Direct Help
Little is known about "Help" at this time, but the film has a captain at the helm. Genre jack-of-all-trades Alan B. McElroy is set to write and direct, which is an exciting prospect for horror fans. McElroy is known primarily for his collaborations with Todd McFarlane on the latter's "Spawn" franchise, but he got his start in a different realm of hellspawn menaces. His screenwriting debut was "Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers," a 1988 course-correction on the "Halloween" films after fans were confused by the Myers-free 1982 movie "Halloween III: Season of the Witch." (McElroy shares the "Halloween 4" credit with Danny Lipsius, Larry Rattner, and Benjamin Ruffner, underlining how many cooks were in that production kitchen).
Since then, McElroy has straddled horror and action films with equal zeal. Imagine someone with the range to write the balls-to-the-wall ultraviolence and dread of "Wrong Turn" — both the '03 O.G. and the 2021 reboot — and further add a season of hard sci-fi CBS series "Star Trek: Discovery," and you've got a good idea of the wild possibilities within "Help."
Tim Palen's attachment to the project sweetens the pot a bit more, considering his background. This is the producer partially responsible for the fantastic blood drive campaign in conjunction with each "Saw" film release, pushing the envelope and challenging the Red Cross to chill out with its controversial restrictions requiring gay men to abstain from sex for at least a year before giving blood.
While promoting Eli Roth's 2007 splatter-fest "Hostel: Part II," Palen (who is a photographer as well as a marketing exec) got the "Cannibal Holocaust" treatment from the MPAA. According to New York Magazine, Palen shot a tub of boar meat — which bears a textural similarity to human guts – for the movie's poster. The censoring body freaked out, and Palen was forced to send in his butcher shop receipts to prove that he did not kill anyone for the poster. Gnarly.
Those pining for the days of William Castle ballyhoo and barf-bag handouts at screenings might have a bit of hope in the promotion for "Help." And with McElroy at the wheel, there could be some spooky fun worth promoting.