Our company, it's, uh, really un-sexy. And I think most people get into Hollywood to be showy. We first of all make horror movies, which people turn their noses up at. Second of all, we make cheap movies, and Hollywood's a lot about ego and money and, 'My movie cost $200m!,' you know?

I think because Skype is becoming so much more prevalent, and you're looking at someone else on a screen, it's going to work its way into movies and TV shows in all different ways, which I think is really cool.

I don't believe in ghosts or paranormal activity, but one time I think I saw - I might have seen - no, I think I did see a ghost.

Success stems from the producer creating the optimal conditions for the filmmaker's own creative process. Not from steering the filmmaker through a one-size-fits-all approach.

The most effective tool I have to work with artists I admire is to point to other artists that I admire and show that I've worked with them many, many times. It's not because I have option deals; it's because they want to keep working with us.

In every art form, nothing exists in a bubble. It exists because of what came before it. A lot of bricks were laid. I think if it weren't for 'The Purge,' 'Get Out' wouldn't resonate as a mainstream movie. You push on the taste of the audience, in a way, get them used to something, and then you keep pushing on it.

We make a lot of movies that I don't think merit a wide release. We have this label called Tilt, and we have the movies come out on that, and that's fine. But it shocks me when, having done this a few times, when I really believe a movie should get a wide release, and I struggle to get it released. That does surprise me.

When DVD disappeared but before digital distribution came on strong, there were a few years where a movie that didn't get theatrical would just be gone.

Most of the most successful films Blumhouse has made have been rejected by everyone else. No one wanted to make 'Get Out.' Nobody. Nobody wanted to make 'The Purge.' I think it was floating around for three years before it came to us. Nobody wanted to make 'The Gift,' when it was a script called 'Weirdo.'

'Paranormal Activity' was the first of our independently made/studio-released films. It was also the ultimate low-budget high-concept movie, which is what we are always looking for. 'Paranormal Activity' was the genesis of our model, of which I am so proud.

I was lucky enough to have made a tonne of mistakes and be kind of frustrated. I was working in the movies for 15 years before I did 'Paranormal Activity,' so I was lucky enough to have that experience. So instead of trying to make, like, 'Godzilla' after 'Paranormal Activity,' I said, 'Let's keep making inexpensive movies.'

We're offered bigger, larger budget movies to produce a lot, and we don't do them. That's not to say there aren't exceptions: there are a few exceptions, but I try and stick by the rules that produce what I think is the highest quality, most innovative work and try and let the rules go that make us feel like we're retreading.

The real scares on CNN, etc. and the scares in a movie, like 'The Purge,' are totally different. One of the ways you can tell when someone, whether it's a film maker or executive or producer, wants to make a scary movie but doesn't understand that distinction is they'll want to recreate too much of what's on TV.

Halloween is woke, and there's nothing we can do about it.

Working with kids is always hard because you have to have very limited hours. They have to have breaks, and they have to have a tutor, and they have to have a lot of - good things! But it makes it hard to shoot.

The first thing I learned as a producer is that you have very little control over the life of a project. Anything can stall a film from financing to scheduling to casting. Things fall apart all the time. Don't waste time on something that just won't get made. Try to have as many projects going at one time as you can handle.

When I was working for Miramax, before Sundance, a videotape of 'The Blair Witch Project' - of the full, completed movie - went to a lot of the buyers. And so we all saw it before the festival, and I passed, a bunch of people passed... Then I watched the movie marching toward success, and was reminded by my bosses what a dope I was.

One of my favorite things about making horror movies is, the first time you screen them in front of an audience, it's very fun to hear people audibly react to the work you put into a movie. You don't wonder at the end of the movie whether it worked or not.

I think being snobby about the kind of storytelling people do, it just irks me. It irks me. And in fact, it's one of the things that drives me to make as many horror movies as I do.

We don't decide how a movie will be distributed until it's finished. It might be on iTunes, it might be on 3,000 theaters, but we make that decision after the fact.

I love musicals. I love horror movies and I love art movies.

I love South By because people are more relaxed here, and people are a little more off guard. They say things and react more freely than Sundance or Cannes. I love the feel of this festival.

I think movies are overdeveloped in Hollywood. There's a big benefit to not overdeveloping and not being so precious about what you're doing. I think you lose a kind of vitality if you develop something into the ground.

I try not to put pressure on filmmakers to come up with a big scare at the beginning. I think that helps let the audience settle in and get to know the people they're about to spend 90 minutes with. Once the scarier stuff happens, it's scarier because of that.

I'm always trying to make movies that are better than the ones that we've made before. We don't always succeed at doing that by any means, but we're always trying to raise the stakes, raise the bar, make the movies better, and that's hard.

'Paranormal Activity' had fifty versions because it was $250 to reshoot. We'd screen it, see one thing wrong, shoot for an hour, fix it, and then screen it again. You don't have to be disciplined about it. On a regular movie, you have to screen it and think of every problem, reshoot for three days and solve every problem, and then you're done.

An effective found footage movie is much harder to make than an effective traditionally shot movie. A crappy one is much easier to make because you take your camera, and you shoot the scene, and you're done. But to make it effective, they're actually much trickier.

Unless you're making Marvel movies, I think CGI usually suffers, especially in mid-budget-range horror movies where you see CGI.

The thing I'm most proud of about - not all of our movies, but a lot of our movies - is that you might love 'em, you might hate 'em, but most of the time, they're trying to be different or trying new things, which I think is really important.

The one thing I am very strict about is that I don't like spending a lot of money on movies because the more money you spend, I think the worse that they get.

Halloween was definitely the biggest holiday when I was a kid. We started making our Halloween costumes in August. Me and my mom. My mom was a single mom; it was just her and I.

With most other genres, you need movie stars. With horror, you just need a story.

Rotten Tomatoes is the best thing that happened to the movie business because it means you have to make good movies.

I love horror movies, obviously; otherwise, I wouldn't make them.

'The Purge' is really about America's crazy relationship to guns and guns gone wild, essentially, and it kind of laid the groundwork for 'Get Out.'

You've got to think of fun stories, and if the fun story happened to have a lesson, that's a great thing. If you build a movie around a lesson, you're in real trouble.

When you have less risk, you have more fun. You can take risks. It's much easier to take risks when there's less money on the line.

For some reason, people value being scared less than they value laughing.

If you are still thinking about a script after five or ten years, that's a sign that it's good - not that it's stale. And the opposite is true - if everyone wants to make your movie, that's a sign that it probably sucks.

The key to a good horror movie is what happens between the scares. The scares aren't the tricky part. If you're involved in what's going on in between, the scare is going to trick you. If you're not, the best scare in the world will not be scary.

Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne made very good money from both 'Insidious' movies. Word travels fast, so as soon as you have a success and do what you say you're going to do in a contract and pay out that money, we had a lot more established actors come to us and say they want to work with us.

I fundamentally believe that your words have so much credibility if you're not taking money upfront. I feel really comfortable pushing actors and pushing executives and pushing marketing people when we're not going to benefit financially unless the movie works. I feel like that makes the playing field so much more level.

I love scary movies and respect the filmmakers of scary movies, and it's just as hard to make a great scary movie as it is to make a great comedy or drama or anything else.

Hollywood looks backwards and tries to repeat. And we really try not to do that. We don't always succeed, but I really think that what we try and do is different.

In big movies, interests are not aligned between those above the line and the financier, because above the line gets paid whether the movie works or not. The financier only makes money if the movie works, and that fundamentally sets up a contentious relationship.

We were producing 'La La Land'... and then we weren't. So it was a very painful topic, but I'm happy the movie was as successful as it was. And, of course, I wish we had produced it.

There are so many factors that go into having a successful movie.. too many that you can't control.

The minute I was told what to do at any age, I did the opposite. Hopefully I'll do that for the rest of my life.

All of our movies are lower budget, and that makes them more interesting, too: we have to come up with solutions other than throwing money at problems.

I couldn't stand it. It was what I thought I always wanted. I was there every day in the trenches, and I hated everything about that job. But what I loved - and what I got from 'The Tooth Fairy' - was to see how studio movies were released.