'Insidious' writer Leigh Whannell and director James Wan. (Stan Behal/QMI Agency)
TORONTO - There’s no blood in Insidious, the new film from James Wan and Leigh Whannell. There are no chains, hacksaws or reverse bear traps either.
This might not seem odd, but Wan and Whannell are the same minds that brought audiences Saw, the low-budget indie thriller that ushered in a new era of extreme gore to cinemas.
And the reason for the lack of blood in their new haunted house thriller is simple: It’s hard to make a scary movie without it.
“It’s easy to shock and disturb people,” Wan said during an interview at the Toronto International Film Festival last September. “You come up with the most horrific concept and just shock the crap out of people. But to make a movie where it’s the atmosphere that creeps people out…that’s tricky.”
After Saw became a surprise hit, studios were desperate to let the duo take a stab at big budget scares. And in 2007 they took the bait and made the poorly received Dead Silence.
“It was a horror film,” Whanell said, pursing his lips. “It just wasn’t the picture we wanted it to be.”
But that movie, which is about a town haunted by a murdered ventriloquist, did leave them with the desire to go back and make the horror film they’ve always wanted to make.
Insidious, directed by Wan and written by Whannell, is a haunted house story with a twist – it’s not the house that’s haunted, but the people living there.
The story starts innocently enough – a young couple has just moved into a new home. But when one of their sons has an accident and falls into a coma, the family finds its existence threatened by evil spirits lurking behind closed doors.
“The one thing people are always thinking in haunted house movies is, ‘Why don’t they move?’” Whannell said with a grin. “So we said, ‘Fine, they’re going to move and the ghosts will follow.’ We wanted super scary villains, not some misunderstood spirit crying out for help from the beyond.”
“We hate that s---,” Wan interjected. “We wanted our ghosts to be freaking scary. Really demonic and out to get you like the Exorcist or Ringu.”
Determined to play with the genre, the pair came up with a list of commandments to put their actors – Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Barbara Hershey and Lin Shaye – through the ringer. The chief of which was: No fake scares.
“Leigh and I hate when someone is walking down the hall and suddenly a cat jumps out,” Wan said.
Whannell nodded his head, adding: “If you’re going to have someone open their mirror cabinet and get their pills out and all of a sudden someone is behind them, have it be the f---ing killer.”
“I think a lot of studios feel that shocks are enough,” Wan continued. “It’s almost mathematical; one every five minutes. They false scare you to death and it just gets boring.”
While Wan and Whannell admit the Saw sequels - which they have not been involved with since the third chapter - have got progressively gorier, they want to be known for more than just being the progenitors of 'torture porn' – the extreme cinematic violence they are credited with inventing.
“I want to know what doofus came up with that term,” Wan said angrily.
“(Hostel director) Eli Roth put it best: When critics use the term ‘torture porn’ it’s used in a very lazy context…When the first Texas Chainsaw Massacre came out, critics ripped it to shreds. And if you watch Texas Chainsaw it’s a scary movie, but you see so little of it. It was purely because of the title.”
“I feel Texas Chainsaw Massacre was unfairly scapegoated as the ringleader for this video nasty thing when actually there’s nothing in it,” Whannell broke in. “When (torture porn) is applied to the first Saw film I do think that’s unfair. If you watch the first Saw movie, it’s a very restrained…locked room thriller.”
So they purposely made the scares in Insidious skin crawly.
“Leigh and I really wanted to prove that a scary movie doesn’t need gore,” Wan said smiling. “Scary movies are best when they play on people’s fears, fears that their loved ones may be in trouble by forces beyond their control.”
