Renowned hypnotherapist Dr. Seward’s voice echoes through the infinitely long room, “Repeat after me, ‘Unless instructed otherwise, I will form perfect memories of recent events.’” The darkness in the corners of the room fades from the rolling sheets of mist. Suddenly, walking outside, odd street signs appear – “Suspicious When Wet… No Right Answers.” Lost in the fog of one’s own subconsciousness, the soothing tones of the doctor’s voice is the only guideline back to reality. I’ve entered Little Cinema’s Welcome to the Blumhouse Live.

The interactive, online event Welcome To The Blumhouse Live returns for a second straight year to accompany the release of four new Blumhouse Productions movies on Amazon Prime Video – Black as Night, Madres, The Manor, and Bingo Hell. Designed by LA/NYC studio Little Cinema, the experience blends themes and concepts from the four films to create its own unique story, neatly packaged into an hour-long experience.

The core narrative is established in the pre-show lobby, with a series of faux text messages from the protagonist, Tonya. Her Grandma Estella has been missing for three days, and it is the job of the audience to assist her and her aloof friend Dom in investigating her apartment building for clues. The rooms available to explore are limited in number – the only other tenants are Reese, a jovial hairdresser, and Seanette, a novelist writing about the gruesome history of the building. The final room belongs to Dr. Seward, a hypnotherapist that was working with Estella to cure her memory issues and who also happens to own the apartment complex.

In classic horror movie fashion, after a few minutes of exploring Estella’s room, Tonya and Dom decide it would be wise to investigate more rooms and split up, allowing the audience to explore the other tenant’s spaces by clicking on a diagram of the building. A strength of the production is how varied the experience is behind each of the virtual doors. Reese and Seanette’s rooms are live video chats with actors, where participants can coax information from them via the chat feature. Another room is similar to a digital “I Spy” book, where 2-D frames of a penthouse are shown and participants must click on objects in the room to explore them. But the most innovative room takes one into a hypnotherapy session with Dr. Seward, and the video turns into a rudimentary video game where participants must wander through thick fog to find their way into the depths of their mind.

As the basic framework for Welcome To The Blumhouse Live closely resembles last year’s effort, most of the improvements come from limiting the scope of the story. The 2020 edition largely gave participants full-run of the building for the entire hour, with almost all of the rooms being a live interaction with a character. While the ability for the audience to choose their own content is appealing, it comes at the cost of some percentage of the audience missing key moments in certain rooms, or being unable to solve all of the puzzles, which can be stressful or unrewarding. This year’s version has fewer rooms, and only gives the audience the ability to explore them in 15 minutes sessions. The unstated rules established with these parameters makes it clear to all what room one “should” be exploring in the current moment if they’re interested in helping save Grandma Estella. Additionally, all audience members are pulled into certain rooms for crucial moments, including the thrilling climax.

Likewise, in a move that also improves the experience for newcomers to the genre, the on-screen gore is largely toned down in comparison to last year’s edition. Grizzled veterans of immersive horror content may be disappointed with this decision, as the genre has classically been defined by pushing the boundaries of visual content or even tastefulness, but it’s correct for the audience and intent of the show. This is not an underground production for enthusiasts; it’s ultimately an advertisement for Amazon Prime Video’s new content from a studio known for crowd-pleasing PG-13 horror films. That’s not to say the plot isn’t thrilling – there’s plenty of gunplay and vampiric themes during the climax – but it certainly pulls some punches when other may opt to be more graphic.

In a way, Welcome To The Blumhouse Live unintentionally solves one of the most understated issues with immersive or interactive content, which is the high barrier of entry for general audiences. Content represents one of those barriers – few experiences have chills and thrills without stepping over the line into what the average potential consumer would consider unsavory content. But the more interesting facet is the barrier of monetary cost. For most types of media, there are premium outlets, and free or low-cost options. For example, in audio content, the premium options of live concerts, physical media, or paid streaming services are available for those willing to pay for it. However, for those unwilling or unable to afford these luxuries, radio stations and streaming sites with ads represent a free outlet for entertainment.

Live theater is trickier to make consumable in this way, as it’s not recorded and replayed repetitively. Typically, to cover the costs of the production and compensate the actors and crew, there would have to be some fee levied from the consumer. Welcome To The Blumhouse Live is a free event, funded by Amazon. In return, the audience is subjugated to advertisements within the content, such as Frankie Smith from Black as Night getting a “virtual haircut” with Reese. Honestly, this type of content is indeed distracting, especially when the audience is meant to be completing the pivotal task of saving Grandma Estella from an untimely death. Is it any more distracting than a movie being interrupted by a 30 second ad on Hulu though? And for those who would not be able to experience a live theater event otherwise, is it not better to deal with these distractions than not experience an immersive event at all?

Welcome To The Blumhouse Live continues to fascinate in both content and investment strategy, and represents one of the most artfully crafted ad campaigns in recent memory. Blumhouse Productions revolutionized horror movie production in the past decade with affordable, digestible content, and – knowingly or unknowingly – they may be partially responsible for a similar template for immersive content. With a series of improvements made this year, a third installment would be wholly welcome and creatively justified.

For more information about Little Cinema, check out their website, Facebook and Instagram pages. For more immersive events, check out our Event Calendar.

Haunting is a resource for immersive theater and horror fans in Los Angeles and across the world, promoting art and community. Want to help us reach even more people, and get some cool perks and experiences? For as little as $1 a month, you can join our Patreon and help us keep bringing content to life.

If you like the above article and want to find more like it, make sure to join our community. If Facebook is your favorite, follow us there and become a part of our groups for Immersive Horror fans and/or Immersive creators. We’re active on Instagram, posting evocative imagery and informative stories to promote our reviews and recollections; follow us there. You can even find us on twitter; click here to follow. For those who want to explore deeper, we have a vibrant Slack community with new event alerts and immediate ticket sale announcements; click here to join. And subscribe to our event calendar to get emails for all or specific events (look for the link right under the calendar)! Finally, we have a newsletter that comes out once a week; click here to sign up.

Spooky Tea is a seasonal event at The Lilly Rose.