James Wan Wanted To Shake Off Saw's Reputation With Insidious
I was a freshman in college when director James Wan and writer Leigh Whannell burst onto the scene thanks to "Saw." The duo's grisly 2004 horror mystery film drew mixed reactions upon its release; I even remember one of my teachers arguing it would've been better if Edward Norton had played Cary Elwes' role. Nonetheless, Wan's low-budget thriller proved immensely profitable and the subsequent "Saw" franchise has since grossed over $1 billion at the box office across nine films costing $95 million combined ... in case you were confused why "Saw X" is happening.
Three years later, however, Wan's career had significantly cooled. His and Whannell's follow-up to "Saw," the (relatively) gory ventriloquist doll flick "Dead Silence," is better than its reputation suggests, but that didn't prevent it from flopping at the box office. 2007 also saw the release of the Wan-directed "Death Sentence," a 1970s-styled exploitation vigilante thriller that similarly failed to catch on either critically or commercially. Roger Ebert was somewhat kinder to the film than other critics, yet his observation that Wan "has a much more sensational line in violence" was perhaps indicative of a larger problem — that Wan was already being pigeonholed as "that guy who makes movies like 'Saw.'"
Hoping to escape the shadow cast by their breakout feature, Wan and Whannell shifted gears by joining forces on "Insidious," a low-budget horror film that forwent graphic violence in favor of carefully constructed, blood-free jump scares and maintaining a simmering sense of dread. The result was a genuine game-changer for both of them, but particularly Wan.
'It's not the house that is haunted'
Posting on Facebook to commemorate the film's 11th anniversary in April 2022, James Wan explained:
After "Saw," I wanted to shake the "torture-porn" label and do something less graphic and more atmospheric. Being huge fans of ghost stories and haunted houses, Leigh Whannell and I wanted to do our own version of those films, and felt we could make it for very little money to retain complete creative control. We felt the most important thing the film needed was to be scary, and so we dove into the creepy world of astral projection (a subject matter that fascinates me) and dimension-traveling.
"Insidious," for those unfamiliar, is basically a haunted house flick with a twist. At its core are the Lamberts, a well-adjusted family suddenly beset by a series of terrifying, paranormal incidents. Except, the things going bump in the night aren't the ghosts of their home's former occupants or spirits annoyed about the oblivious mortals camping out on their turf. They're really demon-y entities drawn to the Lamberts' young son Dalton (Ty Simpkins), who's been unknowingly astral projecting his consciousness into a mysterious, specter-inhabited, purgatory-esque dimension known as the Further. Wan recalled:
Initially, Leigh had named the script "The Further," but I convinced him that the one-word title "Insidious" was a "cool sounding word" for a movie about ghostly possession by parasitic entities from another dimension. He agreed.
Wan is a director of many hats
James Wan would eventually return to his gory roots with his gloriously gonzo giallo throwback "Malignant," yet in many ways, he's better known nowadays for his mood-heavier horror films than his bloodier ones, thanks to the success of both "Insidious" and, later, "The Conjuring." It was also "Insidious" that led to Wan's relationship with Blumhouse, which has seen them team up on multiple "Insidious" sequels and prequels, in addition to the dance-tastic killer AI doll hit "M3GAN" (which Wan produced and co-wrote). Wan acknowledged the film's greater impact on his career trajectory, writing:
Leigh [Whannell] wrote a fantastically efficient script that was scary as well as emotional (this would go on to inspire my approach for "The Conjuring") and attracted Jason Blum to the project. It was the first time we collaborated together (along with Oren Peli) and the start of Blumhouse. It was a great experience.
Bear in mind, there's nothing inherently wrong with a director spending most of their career working on A Certain Type of Film™. Heck, you could argue that encapsulates the majority of filmmakers (in some sense or another). But that was never Wan and he's demonstrated as much time and time again over the past decade, trying out different shades of horror in-between massive tentpoles like "Furious 7" and the "Aquaman" films. Even now, when you watch his work, you can still catch glimpses of the wide-eyed wunderkind who began his life's true mission — instilling the masses with a deep-seated fear of dolls — when he helped to introduce the Jigsaw Killer all those years ago.
Meanwhile, the Further lives on thanks to "Insidious: The Red Door," which Wan produced and Whannell co-wrote. You can catch it in theaters starting on July 7, 2023.