I don’t know about you, but when I think of Jason Blum, normally horror movie franchises like Paranormal Activity or The Purge come to mind. Or just horror movies, period. He’s certainly produced many. However, the prolific producer has also worked on some non-horror hits too, such as Whiplash and BlackKkKLansman. Therefore, maybe it shouldn’t have surprised me to learn that Blumhouse Television and Jason Blum have also produced a lot of true crime docs. But it did.
I only made the connection thanks to a true crime docuseries bingefest that started with Netflix’s The Girl in the Picture, The Most Hated Man on the Internet, and Worst Roommate Ever. Jason Blum didn’t produce the first two, but he was executive producer on the last one. Something that I may not have paid any mind to except for a little problem I had this summer: my normally mild obsession with true crime docs was out of control. I simply could not get enough!
As soon as I finished streaming the ones I’ve already mentioned, I hunted down more. Luckily discovery+ obliged with a new release (at that time), The TikTok Man. It’s not a Jason Blum true crime doc, but while I was watching it, ads for Relentless kept airing. They worked. I watched it next and noticed Blum’s name in those credits too.
Then after that, I watched The Anarchists, another Jason Blum project, on HBO Max.
That all got me wondering what else he’d produced. So I headed over to IMDB and discovered these compelling Jason Blum true crime docs.
10. The Anarchists
IMDB Rating: 5.4
Year Released: 2022
Description: I’m surprised this six-part docuseries didn’t rate higher. It was wild! It was filmed over six years and followed Canadian entrepreneur Jeff Berwick and the evolution of his “Anarchapulco” anarchist conference in Acapulco, Mexico. “Relationships are fractured, rivalries are forged and, ultimately, lives are lost.” And when death came, it came in every form imaginable, murder, suicide, and sickness. Those closest to Anarchapulco, celebrated, suffered, and ultimately had their lives irrevocably changed in ways they could never have imagined.
Platform: HBO Max
9. Florida Man Murders
IMDB Rating: 6.1
Year: 2021
Description: This eight-episode docuseries from Blumhouse Television profiles the “most notorious and outrageous killers from the Sunshine State.” Jason Blum is credited as an executive producer on four of the episodes.
Platform: Oxygen True Crime
8. Fall River
IMDB Rating: 6.3
Year Released: 2021
Description: When it comes to sensational murder cases, most people associate Fall River, Massachusetts, with the Lizzie Borden case. However, this four-part series examines another murder case involving a satanic cult and the murders of Doreen Levesque, Barbara Raposa, and Karen Marsden in 1979 and 1980 in the small town.
Platform: Epix
7. No One Saw a Thing
IMDB Rating: 6.3
Year Released: 2019-2021
Description: Along with award-winning director Avi Belkin, who was also a co-executive producer on this true crime doc along with Jason Blum (and Alexandra Shiva, Jeremy Gold, and Marci Wiseman), this six-episode docuseries explores vigilantism and an unsolved murder. Ken Rex McElroy was shot in the head in 1981 in front of almost 60 townspeople in Skidmore, Missouri. All of whom denied seeing anything…and still do to this day. Why?
Platform: SundanceTV
6. A Wilderness of Error
IMDB Rating: 6.5
Year Released: 2020
Description: This five-part true crime docuseries was based on the book of the same name, A Wilderness of Error: The Trials of Jeffrey MacDonald by Errol Morris. It examines the case of Army surgeon Jeffrey MacDonald. In 1979 he was convicted of murdering his wife and two daughters in 1970. He’s been in prison since 1982, but is he actually innocent?
Platform: FX
5. Smiley Face Killers: The Hunt for Justice
IMDB Rating: 6.8
Year Released: 2019
Description: This six-part docuseries examines the cases of six men who disappeared at different times. But when their bodies were discovered, their deaths were ruled as either accidental or undetermined drownings. Because graffiti smiley faces were also found at most of the scenes, detectives wonder if a killer, or killers, are responsible for the deaths. Retired NYPD Detective Kevin Gannon, retired U.S. Department of Homeland Security TSA security manager Anthony Duarte, and Dr. Lee Gilbertson lead the investigation.
Platform: Oxygen True Crime
4. Worst Roommate Ever
IMDB Rating: 7.1
Year Released: 2022
Description: Netflix sums up this five-part docuseries that highlights four cases (one is split into two episodes) as “Violent con artists. Stone-cold killers. These terrifying true stories unveil some of the worst cohabitation experiences one could ever imagine.” Beware who you room with…
Platform: Netflix
3. Relentless
IMDB Rating: 7.3
Year Released: 2021
Description: Christina Whittaker disappeared in 2009 from Hanibal, Missouri. Where did she go? Did someone take her…or murder her? The six-part series documents filmmaker Christina Fontana’s almost decade-long involvement in the search that yielded a lot of twists and turns but ultimately no definitive answers.
Platform: discovery+
2. Cold Case Files
IMDB Rating: 7.9
Year Released: 2017
Description: This reality legal show originally aired on A&E Network in 1999. Episodes aired from then until 2002, then again in 2005-2006. The Blumhouse Television and AMPLE Entertainment reboot aired on Netflix in 2017.
Platform: A&E and Netflix (reboot)
1. The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst
IMDB Rating: 8.6
Year Released: 2015
Description: Robert Durst is often described as the scion of New York’s billionaire real-estate family. As of the making of this doc, he’d been accused, but never convicted, of three murders over the past 30 years. (That’s since changed.) Nor had the brilliant and reclusive man ever spoken publicly about any of it —until now. Directed and produced by Andrew Jarecki and produced and shot by Marc Smerling, this six-part series exposes long-buried information of a case that has baffled authorities.
Platform: HBO Max
Check-In
Did you know that Jason Blum has 219 producer credits on IMDB? (As of this post. He adds more to that list constantly!)
Courtney Mroch is a globe-trotting restless spirit who’s both possessed by wanderlust and the spirit of adventure, and obsessed with true crime, horror, the paranormal, and weird days. Perhaps it has something to do with her genes? She is related to occult royalty, after all. Marie Laveau, the famous Voodoo practitioner of New Orleans, is one of her ancestors. (Yes, really! As explained here.) That could also explain her infatuation with skeletons.
Speaking of mystical, to learn how Courtney channeled her battle with cancer to conjure up this site, check out HJ’s Origin Story.
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219 credits?! Wow, that’s impressive. I had only thought of Lizzie Borden when hearing Fall River. Who knew there was another big-headline case in the area?
I was stunned to learn all of that too. Wild!