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Exclusive Interview With Leigh Whannell On Insidious: Chapter 2

Actor/writer Leigh Whannell teams up again with director James Wan for Insidious: Chapter 2. The two have worked together on Saw, Dead Silence and the original Insidious, but this new sequel may be their most challenging project yet. The first film was clever in how it subverted the haunted house genre and it left you wondering where they could possibly go with a sequel. But as it turns out, the duo have not so much created a sequel as they have a continuation of the events started by its predecessor.

Leigh Whannell and James Wan

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The Insidious movies are made on low budgets. Does that change the way you write or do you just write the script and then worry later if the budget will be big enough for what you’ve come up with?

Leigh Whannell: Definitely with Insidious. I was very aware of what the budget would be going in writing and I knew that I would have to keep it compacted. The great thing about horror films is that they work on a low budget. The genre is the star. You don’t need big movie stars, and I actually think a lot of times that the best horror films are the low budget contained ones. It’s a weird little anomaly about horror films in that the more money and noise you have, the less scary it gets. Even The Exorcist, which is a classic film obviously and what you could call a big-budget studio horror film, if you look at that film it’s all set in one house. You could make The Exorcist today for a very low budget.

I don’t know what it is. I just think that horror films, particularly supernatural horror films, are dealing with dark spaces in the corners of our lives, so that is inherently cheaper to shoot. Once you get into sci-fi and you’re dealing with giant robots, how are you going to get around that cheaply? I knew the budget we were going to have and I knew that it would be low, but that didn’t hurt me in the writing. I wasn’t pulling my hair out. I was actually going the opposite way and saying the less we see the better. It’s just one thing I love about horror films. I’m thinking about directing something myself now, and it’s really got me thinking about genre and what works and what doesn’t.

For me, it’s always what you don’t see that’s the scariest and it makes more sense to go in that direction.

Leigh Whannell: Yes, exactly. With a sci-fi movie or an action movie, it’s what you do see. If you have a car driving off a bridge you can’t really cut away to the guy in the tollbooth watching and just hear the crash. Audiences want to see the car go off the bridge. Horror films are the opposite; as you said, you can be staring into a dark corner and not see a thing and it’s still very satisfying.

Absolutely. I have to say that Insidious: Chapter 2 kind of reminded me of Paranormal Activity 2 in how it surrounded the events of the first film. Certain questions from Insidious were answered in a way which I thought was very inspired.

Leigh Whannell: That element is what really made us excited about the sequel. Once we decided that the second film could visit the first film, that’s when we got kind of pumped.

What would you say would be a harder script to write, one that’s based on a true story or one that is fictional?

Leigh Whannell: I haven’t actually written anything based on a true story yet, but I actually prefer as a writer to create a completely new world because I feel like you can’t get it wrong when it’s your world. There’s so much to get wrong in a true story.

Was there anything you personally wanted to put in this movie that James didn’t come up with?

Leigh Whannell: I think we were pretty in sync. There was one stage where I thought we should get a bit more outrageous with The Further and really go Lynchian which James love too, but I think we wanted to keep it more reined in and not go too crazy.

That concludes our interview but we’d like to thank Leigh for taking the time to talk with us. Be sure to check out Insidious: Chapter 2 when it hits theatres this Friday!