st228

MOVIE FEATURE

visit jbhifi.com.au/stack

James Wan and Leigh Whannell are responsible for some of the most successful horror movie franchises of all time, from the ever-enduring Saw series to The Conjuring and Insidious movies. And it all began in Melbourne, where the two studied film at RMIT University. Whannell had made a name for himself as a film critic and video jockey on the popular TV series Recovery , and had small roles in shows like Neighbours and Blue Heelers . Meanwhile, Wan was busy writing and directing short films. Wan and fellow director Shannon Young ( Razor Eaters ) made a feature film called Stygian in 2000, which was basically a glorified student flick and has never been released beyond a film festival screening. From there, Wan and Whannell shot the infamous bear-trap sequence from their original Saw script. It immediately caught the attention of producers, who ultimately greenlit the now-iconic feature film before catapulting the duo to the heights of Hollywood. TWO LOCAL LAD S

BACK TO THE FURTHER Rose Byrne and Patrick Wilson reunite for Insidious: The Red Door , the final chapter of the Lambert family’s terrifying saga. Words Gill Pringle T he Lamberts must go deeper into “the Further” than ever before if they are

to face their family’s dark past, and lay their demons to rest once and for all. The last time we joined the family was ten years ago in Insidious: Chapter 2 , when astral projectors Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson) and son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) survived multiple trips into the Further, where Dalton had been kidnapped by a demon. “Alongside James Wan, we went to some crazy places in the

Leigh Whannell

James Wan

question that I asked, and that I wanted to pose to the audience, was: ‘What happens to a family after ten years, when you’ve been hypnotised in order to forget your family trauma?’ So I wanted to unpack that,” he explains. Picking up a decade after the events of the second film, Josh and Renai (Rose Byrne) have divorced, while Josh struggles to piece together his life while preparing for college. In making his directorial debut, Wilson says that Wan – his Insidious, Conjuring, and Aquaman director – offered invaluable advice. “The one thing that James would tell me over and over was, ‘Make it yours. It’s your movie. What

Patrick Wilson

King, thanks to his numerous roles in both the Insidious and Conjuring franchises – he

Insidious movies, but I think the reason they connected was that we started with a loving family,” says Jason Blum, who co-produces alongside franchise creators Leigh Whannell and Wan. “Just about everyone who starts a family does it with the best of intentions, hoping to create that warm, comforting, safe space with the people we love – and then, just about all of us discover that most families are complicated in one way or another. For some of us, that means years of therapy. For others, it means fighting a demon in a nightmare dreamscape,” he quips. For Wilson – dubbed Hollywood’s Scream

was unsure if he was up for making a final Insidious film. “After the second film, I felt there was nothing more to be done, or said, or explored with the Lambert family,” says the actor, who not only returns as Josh but also directs The Red Door . “I had saved my son, been saved myself, been possessed; I had gone

story do you want to tell? You’re the one who’s going to be living with it, so you better have some passion and understanding for the story you want to tell’.”

• Insidious: The Red Door is out Oct 11

through just about everything you can do in a horror movie. The biggest

26 OCTOBER 2023

jbhifi.com.au