Leigh Whannell and Wolf Man

Leigh Whannell, the Aussie writer and director behind Saw, Insidious, and The Invisible Man, is back with his newest horror film, Wolf Man.

He bares all on what influenced the movie, the origin of Saw, and his thoughts on the future of cinema.

Feel free to drop us some comments, feedback or ideas on the speakpipe (link below).

Keep it fun and under a minute and you may get on the show.

https://www.speakpipe.com/YASNY

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Get a pete. Hell are you here? Welcome to you
Ain't seen nothing yet?

Speaker 2 (00:03):
The movie podcast where our chat to a movie lover,
have it a classic or be loved movie they haven't
quite got around to watching until now? And today's guest writer,
director actor Lee Wnell all below, I want to stay

(00:23):
here with you.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Gay to the jobble my hat. Snake sucked my hail.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
They couldn't have.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
An any right sl You ain't seen nothing?

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Ye? Well, this is very exciting, and I know I
often say that about this podcast, but this is a
different kind of episode.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
This is actually the first.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Time we've had somebody who is I guess on a junket,
you know, selling their movie.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
I have been offered them before, but I've been a.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Bit careful about how we do them because I want
this to remain you know, a podcast is not necessarily for.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Sale, you know in that regard.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
But the opportunity to chat with Lee Wennell was toogle
the refuse and then when I saw the movie he
is promoting a Wolfman, I was extremely keen to have
him on.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Lee is an amazing Australian success story.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Lee started was raised and was born in Melbourne and
first came to our screens as a.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Young kitchen he must have been seventeen eighteen.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
You know, I Reckon on Recovery when back when it
was hosted by Dylan Lewis, and he would do, you know,
movie reviews and tep the movie stars and you're going.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
To see His love of movies was real.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
And infectious, and since then he has gone on to
have one of the most celebrated careers of any Australian
in Hollywood with his partner in crime, James Juan. We
should be celebrating these guys. So for those who don't
know he went on, we've been calling. Card into Hollywood
was the Saw Movies movie, which became one of the

(02:23):
biggest horror franchises in the world. I think there's ten
Saw films. He was also behind Insidious. It made him
a good upgrade, which is I think underrated and really good.
And then a couple of years ago he was charged
with bringing The Invisible Man, so Universal's Monsters Ensemble, which

(02:43):
if you don't know, we're talking the Invisible Man, we're
talking the Mummy, we're talking Dracula, but also things like
The Phantom of the Opera, you know, Doctor Jekyler mister
Hyde like the Avengers of.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
The twentieth century, I think so.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
He was charged of bringing The Invisible Man to screen
and last scene on screen I think, well, first scene
on screen in nineteen something, and Lee not only made that,
you know, a good fist of it, he knocked it
out of the park. If you haven't seen The Invisible Man,
starring Elizabeth Moss, check it out.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
It is if you pertain not to be a big
horror person.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
The Invisible Man is an incredible piece of work because
not only does a deal you know, with the thrills
that come with horror, but there's a real story behind it.
As far as some of it feels real based on
gas lighting of a woman and violence towards women. It's
an incredible piece of work. So I was very excited

(03:49):
when I heard that Lee was backing that with.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Footh Man, and I think he's done an equally.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
An amazing job finding something that makes this not just
a monster movie. There is some being more going on
with Woofman. Obviously with woof Man, I don't want to
give too much away because it's it's in cinemas.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
Now, so check it out. I think you're gonna love it.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
So this episode, obviously because he's doing a junket, we're
not doing the you know, he hasn't seen this movie.
We're going to talk about his at least three favorite films,
and we're going to talk about three films of his
that peak my interest, which is Saw the Invisible Man
and wolf Man.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
And also because we've already recorded the chat, there's so
many other things we talked about.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
This is just a great fun discussion from two blokes
who love movies. I hope you enjoy it.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
My bloody stoke to have Leewenell with us today.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
Hi, I'm Lee Wenell, and my three favorite films are
Jaws seven, What's in the Bark and Mad Max two.
I'm just here for the gasoline. I'm the writer and
director of the film Wolfman, which is coming out on

(05:07):
January sixteenth in Australia. Daddy, what's wrong with Daddy? She
got sick? What is happening to me? Can you understand me?

Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (05:30):
You're you're hearing You're scaring me? Daddy?

Speaker 2 (05:42):
Is me?

Speaker 1 (05:45):
Hurry? Mommy is coming? Oh? It gives your chills.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
Blake played by Christopher Abbott, has a complicated relationship with
his estranged, survivalist father and a marriage on the rocks
as he looks after his daughter, Ginger Matilda Firth, while
his ambitious, career focused wife Charlotte, the always excellent Julia Ghana,
struggles to separate her love of work with her love
of family, if that love still exists. When Blake inherits

(06:32):
the family farmhouse in rural Oregon after his father is
presumed dead, he persuades Charlotte to join he and Ginger,
hoping that some country air will be good for their marriage.
Is it good for their marriage? Well, it certainly gets
complicated after initially fighting off a fierce, bloodthirsty beast and
finding a momentary safety in their farmhouse. Of course, that

(06:56):
safety will not last long, as the creature stalks the
outside of the house. But something is happening within the
four walls of the old family home. Blake begins transforming
into something unrecognizable. Danger inside, danger outside. Charlotte must step
up to the plate and protect her daughter against unspeakable horror,
both physically and emotionally. From the Classic Universe. Monsters Universe

(07:20):
writer director Lee Wenell, fresh of his remarkable Invisible Man
remake with Elizabeth Moss again takes a character first scene
on screen last century in nineteen forty one, and places
them in a modern day, giving them an utterly modern feel.
After Universal had a couple of false starts trying to
reignite their Monsters ensemble, it seems the key to that

(07:41):
Haunted Kingdom may rest with today's guests Lee Wearnell, Lee Wenell.
Are we sure Blake doesn't just have long COVID? I
mean did he do with COVID test?

Speaker 3 (07:52):
Probably should take one little nasal swab there. Actually, the
first draft of this film was written during COVID.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
It did under that. Yeah, yes, it.

Speaker 3 (08:02):
Was very much. It was that that time, remember that
sort of period in mid twenty twenty where it seemed
like the world was upside down. It was like we
were all living in a science fiction movie and you know,
we were staying in our houses all day long. I mean,
I know it was very strict here in Melbourne, Like
it was so discombobulating that whole time. And you know,

(08:23):
my wife and I had three young kids, and it
just wears you down when you can't like you know,
you're trying to make a couch for it interesting. For
the seven hundredth time in a row, and I always
felt like people were doing COVID parenting better than me.
Like you'd go on Instagram and be like everyone would
always be like, we're learning to make honey, and I'd
be like, what I'd be wearing the same you know,

(08:45):
trackie dicks I've been wearing for six months covered in food.
My kids are screaming at me, and I'm like, I come,
everyone else is doing this COVID parenting thing so much
better than I am. What am I doing wrong? So? Yeah,
my wife and I definitely poured all our anxiety and
all the frustration of that time into the script because you.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
Co write with your wife.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yes, was that a result of being lockdown in COVID
going it's better than sour dough exactly?

Speaker 3 (09:13):
Yeah, everyone else is learning to make crab bisk or
sour dough bread, and we're like, let's write a movie about,
you know, someone with a degenerative illness. Yeah, I think so.
I don't know if we would have written it together
without COVID, I'm not sure, but certainly it made sense.
We were in the house all day long. She'd be
upstairs in our bedroom and I'd be downstairs in my
office and we'd be texting back and forth. Are you

(09:34):
doing this scene? Yeah, I'm doing that scene okay. And
it was a good project during that time to kind
of help keep a sane I mean we all had
I mean, what were you doing that A lot of
people like you said sour dough bread or I got
into like cocktail making. I was ordering like expensive brands
and booze online and being like, okay, I'm going to

(09:55):
learn to make a real you know, a proper old
fashion or a paper play and vinyl. Like we were
all doing things just stay sane.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
We said that we did pub crawls within our house,
so we would set up different parts of our house
and name them different pubs. One would be in Irish
probably be like just that chimney of our fireplace, and
one in the shower, like and we just like took
photos of us having cocktails in the.

Speaker 3 (10:20):
Fully would they be names of pubs that existed.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
No, like like the Irish pub I think was was
the Killian Murphy, And so it was just it was
and that kind of went.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
It kind of went, you know, some small version of
Iral and.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
You were sort of you would sort of we're doing
at the end of the video and put it on.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
More just photos, and then we thought, oh, we posted
one and it got like yeah, people fun And at
that time, being a comic, you kind of think, well,
the one thing I can do.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
I can't help fight this virus.

Speaker 2 (10:52):
One thing I can do is but by content, and
this is this podcast was born actually out of covid,
and so I started doing you know, taking more photos
and it kind of inspired us to do more of it,
and then we started we ran out of rooms and
just like ideas for pubs, and we started doing like,
oh now we's done the travel, and we had like
you know, like like little videos of like a little

(11:12):
wind up New York's, you know, cable We're in New
York now and like making little videos and somebody about
three people got really upset that we were celebrities and
privilege and we're why are you allowed to travel? Why
are you allowed to go overseas and into state? And
it's like quite There's one that was quite clearly a
pineapple in our driveway that taken like a close up

(11:34):
of the pineapple and we're we're at a big pineapple
in Queensland. And there was another we're at Australia Zoo
with Steve and not not with Steve obviously, but we're
at Australia Zoo and there was us with a pool
in the background holding an inflatable crocodile with handles in
the middle of the head and people were getting upset.

Speaker 3 (11:50):
So it was a crazy Internet though, like people they're
so ready to be angry. Yes, but you know, give
them that inch, they'll take the mile, you know what
I mean. So I'm not I'm surprised it was only three.
But that's a clever idea the pub crawl. So you
would actually say, like, would you actually apart from the
photos and the social media, would you actually go from

(12:10):
the kitchen to the laundry and be like sit down
and have a drink and be like we're in a
different place now.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
We would certainly it was always just a one pub
on each each night, but it was certainly we would
certainly have drinks there, Like it wasn't just taking the photos.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
We would like this, that would be a night out.

Speaker 3 (12:23):
It was funny because there was a couple of things
from that time that I knew I would miss. I
was like I said to my wife at one point,
I bet in a year or two, when this is
all over, we're going to look back and go I
really miss that. So we would do this like date
night on the balcony thing where we would have like
ordering food and have like a restaurant date on our balcony.
And we don't do that anymore. Now, we don't do

(12:44):
that anymore, and I miss that. And then we would
camp in the backyard with kids. We'd pitch a tent
and like camp out there overnight and and stuff, and like,
you know, we do a lot of sleepovers with the kids.
But all this stuff that you were forced to do,
and I got it. I would make these drinks, and
then I got into vinyl records. So my version of

(13:04):
a COVID night out was I would put a record on,
and you know, whether it's whatever, Roxy music or something,
I'd put it on and then like make a drink
and sit there in my dark living room on my
own and I'd be like I'm in a Japanese whiskey
bars listening to a to a mint condition copy of Avalon,
you know, and I missed that. There was something about that,

(13:27):
even though we were all frustrated and housebound. I do
miss some aspect of it, so well.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
The zero expectation from the outside world was what I
loved about it.

Speaker 3 (13:36):
A sudden the complete eradication of fomo.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
Yeah, yes, was great. Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 3 (13:42):
Yeah, that was so yeah. So those are the things
we remember. But the frustrations and the anxiety of COVID
and the whole like getting tested and the fear that
you were going to get it and what's going to
happen if I get it? I read in an article
that you that it causes neurological damage. All that uncertainty
and fear went into Wolfman, and then you had the
Japanese whiskey tasting in the living room on your own.

(14:03):
That was the upside of it, you know, just coping mechanisms.

Speaker 1 (14:08):
Really, so when.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
Did such an incredible job with Invisible Man, and you're
follow that so beautifully with wolf Man, so that from
the outside it looks like this was part of a
plan that you are the Kevin fig now of universal Monsters,
you know, but was always part of the plan that
you would go on and write Wolfman after the Invisible Man.

Speaker 3 (14:29):
No, it's funny because it's funny to hear you say, like, oh,
from the outside, it looks like a real plan. It's
interesting that because I have the same feeling about other filmmakers. Yeah,
you know, I look at their work and it seems
it seems very structured, very planned. I actually ran into
I went to a screening. This was just when things
were emerging from COVID. I went to a screening of
Dune at at the Imax headquarters in Los Angeles, and

(14:53):
Denisa Leneuve was there and they had this little sort
of half fast after party and I saw him and
I was like, oh, big fan of Denise. So I
walked up to him and you could tell he'd just
been doing ten thousand interviews, and I said, I really
love the film, and he looked exhausted and he was like, yes, yes,
And I told him that it was his work inspired

(15:13):
Stephan Ducio, the cinematographer I worked with. He and I
are very inspired by Roger Deacon's work with Deniva Leneuve, Sakario, Prisoners,
these movies they have this really stark look. It's just
it's just very inspirational to us. And so I told
him that and he perked up because he was like, oh,
he's like, I'm a fan of Invisible Man. And I

(15:34):
pose that question to him. I said, you know, your career,
it's so planned out, and you know from movie to movie,
and you do the you do a sort of mid
mid budget sci fi and then you go and he
said that there is there is no There is no
and I said, no, no plan and he was like, no,
it's this chaos. And I think, to the outside sometimes
it seems like there is that you're playing chess. Really

(15:55):
you're not seeing all the movies that are half written
in a draw, all the all the movies I was
excited about that didn't happen for various reasons. So it's
actually the opposite. It's totally random. The fact that I
did Wolfman, I never intended to do that, And between
Invisible Man and Wolfman, there's probably three projects that didn't.
Maybe one day they will come to fruition. Movies don't die,

(16:18):
as you know, they come back around. They're on life support.
But it's so funny that it looks planned out. From
my perspective, it's just chaos. It's like the things that
you see are the things that limped over the finish line.
Behind them. There's a trail of dead, you know, it's
like blowing up everest, as they say, as you're going,
as you're going up, every as you see the skeletons

(16:39):
of the people that didn't make it. I've got scripts
like that along the trail.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
Can't I can't wait to chat more about wolf Man
and The Visible Man. We're going to chat about Saw
as well, but I want to talk about your three
favorite films that you've mentioned. I can't wait for the
next a little bit because it's going to be a movie,
absolutely movie feast. But Mad Max two, let's start with that.
Start with the Aussie one nineteen eighty one. Did you
like You're you're younger than me, So when did you

(17:05):
see what was your first memory of Mad Max two?

Speaker 3 (17:08):
Mad Max two was definitely VHS. It was that era.
It might have been even No, the first time I
saw it was taped off the television. Do you remember?
This is hilarious, people of our age, the censorship of
movies on television.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
I was telling to my kids that that this this week,
about how our version of National Lampoon's Vacation had all
the swearing cut out and you had to like.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
Pause the ads.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
Yes, and my job was kind of the pause of
the ads, and sometimes I was pretty good at it,
but you'd always end up with for like half, I'm
like hola for a Marshall half a kmart Ad.

Speaker 3 (17:43):
It's like, yeah, exactly. Oh got some of those commercials
from back then. The Australian commercial just burned into my mind,
like the kitchen wipe one. What was that product? Anyway?
It was? Was it Jiffy? I can't remember, yeah, but
it was, but yeah, totally, And like you would experience
movies that way. That's like, you know, I remember watching

(18:04):
Blue Velvet. You know, Dennis Hopper was like freak you
for like, you know, it was freak. Everything was free
and the creative. One of the things I love is
the creative replacement of language in movies and you still
have to do the TV at it. I think I
think my favorite one ever, can I swear on this,
My favorite TV censorship ever is The Big Lebowski where

(18:26):
John Goodman says, you see what happens, Larry, You see
what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass.
Remember the kid and he's like beating the car with
a baseball bat. The TV version, he goes, you see
what happens, Larry, You see what happens when you find
a stranger in the Alps. It's so amazing when you
find a stranger in the Alps. Only the Cowen brothers.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
But yeah, the should have a spinoff based on that,
as apprentise well exactly.

Speaker 3 (18:52):
I mean Mad Max two. Mad Max two is the
version I saw. I mean remember in the first scene
Vernon Wells, you know, pulling that arrow out of his leg?

Speaker 1 (19:01):
Not there right?

Speaker 3 (19:02):
Not on Channel nine and nineteen eighty seven, Like there was,
there were so many elements and they would do these
random weird things like I don't know if you remember
Lethal Weapon, how well you know that movie?

Speaker 1 (19:12):
I watched it recently recently.

Speaker 3 (19:13):
Yeah, that whole opening scene where the woman's like half
naked in her apartment doing coke off that I remember
the TV version, which was the first they to replace
the cocaine shot. They just cut to an outer as
focused shot of a table. It was like just a
random shot of a table because someone could find this
sort of you know Channel nine edit of Lethal Weapon.
It blow your mind the things that they did. They

(19:35):
were like, who cares they won't notice? I think it's
a good idea for a podcast. Actually, yeah, Channel nine
Movies with the ages Channel nine movies, but we've done
some fun replacements for language, like an Invisible Man Elizabeth Masset,
she goes, she's she's been committed to a psychiatric hospital
and she's the doctors are trying to strap her down
and she's looking past them at the empty corner and

(19:55):
she's like, she's like, she's like, high see you what
the fuck? And so for the TV at it, I
was like, Elizabeth, because I'm there, and I was like,
we've got to have some fun with this, and I said,
for a motherfucker, can you say? So what we ended
up doing is she says, I see you you monkey
feeders and she was cracking up, laughing. It's great, it's awesome.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
Did you do that on the day or is this
on the day.

Speaker 3 (20:24):
We're in a dr and you get to the end
of the ADR and it's like, got to do the TV,
got to do the airline TV version, which actors usually hate.
But I was like, Elizabeth, let's just have fun. So yeah,
we did monkey Feeders. We did we did some We
did some.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
Pretty fun ones, because when you're being dragged down a
psychiatric hospital yelling and screaming, you're not really minding your
p's and q's.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
Are you know that's ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
But I took you off track from Admax too, But yeah,
you asked about the first time. It's that TV version
the ad breaks, like you said, And then I would
get around as I got older, I watched the VHS
version and then now I have like this pristine four
K disc and I watch it and I'm blown away
by that movie. The creativity on display, and it's in

(21:08):
an era when you had to shoot what you did,
you had to build it. They built that outpost in
the desert, and it influences things to this day. I mean,
George Miller pretty much singlehandedly created post apocalyptic film culture.
The amount of films in the wake of that movie.
I even remember a TUPAC video where they were all

(21:29):
dressed up like Mad Max. Like. Its impact on pop
culture is deep. It's as deep as Jaws or any
one of these characters that's infiltrated. That aesthetic, that which
was probably forced by the budget, But he created that
sort of random, you know, using cricket gear as armor,
this sort of weird that was an esthetic that he created,

(21:51):
this kind of half s and m half weird post
apocalyptic thing. It's amazing and I think Mad Max two
is the really the full crim of that. That's the
best realization of that aesthetic.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
You know.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah, I mean we're going back to watch Mad Max
not that long ago, within the last ten years, it feels,
and realizing, oh I thought there was more action, Like
it takes a lot of those films from that era
are slower. We now we are bombarded by you know,
it's about pace and momentum. And then so then I
watched Mad Max two. I though, oh yeah, most of
the action is actually Mad Max two. Yeah. Yeah, stuff

(22:28):
happens at the end of Mad Max one, but it
takes a while to get there.

Speaker 3 (22:31):
So it does. It's a real grindhouse film, isn't it,
because it's like we're all building up to this massacre.
You can see the lack of budget in Mad Max one,
and like, I love the characters. The dialogue is just poetry.
There's there's so many quotable lines in the first Mad
Max and you know, just the opening scene with like
the night rider he knows who.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
I am, well actually not hiding the australianness now and
it becomes maybe the most successful thing, you know, as
far as making a film about Australia in Australia that
we've released three really.

Speaker 3 (23:05):
I know, and it's such a lesson because you know,
the old I think it's Alfred Hitchcock and probably mangling
that the old saying, if you want to be universal,
be specific. A lot of these Australian movies from the
eighties would like shoehorn some American character in there to
try and be some C list American actor who'd be like, well,
if we put this person in there, we'll get an
international sale. The guy that just went out and didn't

(23:27):
shy away from the Australians and didn't do that. Having
said that, he had Mel Gibson in the lead, who
was actually born in the US, but Mel was doing
an Australia. He was, as far as the world was concerned,
he was an Australian star. He didn't shy away from it.
And that's the one that connects. And I feel like
Mad Max one's the warm up. Mad Max two is
the perfect execution of myth because you know, I read

(23:52):
an interview with George Miller and he was saying, as
he did his world tour for Mad Max two, he
found that in each country they resonated with it in
a different way. In Japan, Mad Max was a samurai.
In the US, he was the lone gun slinger. In
the UK he was the Knight. Every every culture has
their hero story and myth, and he had tapped into myths.

(24:16):
It's a Western, right, he's out there in the desert.
That that line, that's like, if you want to get
out of here, talk to me. Like he's the reluctant
hero right down to like, of course the hero has
to refuse the quest. At first, you know, it's all
straight from Joseph Campbell, but then he comes back and
he reluctantly. It's it's brilliant, but it's it's the old myth.

(24:37):
But don't, like Star Wars, you put new window dressing
on it. You take the oldest story in the world,
the Knight's quest to save the Princess or whatever, but
put the world around it, around the myth is different
and that's enough.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
And you talk about when George Miller was on the
junket for Mad Max two and finding out that Mad
Max was a samurai, and you know in Japan and
different cultures, that again sounds like did he plan that
did he know that? But like a happy, happy accent
that something has fallen into because of good craft, I think,
and good writing, but maybe something subconsciously was you know, yeah,

(25:16):
attracting you to those trum.

Speaker 3 (25:17):
You sort of you get it from watching movies. Yes,
sometimes you unconsciously learn these beats. Yeah, you know, I've
certainly found that as a screenwriter, Like I used to
read a lot of screenwriting books, you know, that whole
cottage industry of like how to write a screenplay or
you know, write your hit movie in ten days. That's
seductive because you go into the bookstore and you're like,
I need that book. If I read it, all I

(25:39):
write a hit movie. But I stopped reading it because
I'm like, I don't want to know the rules. I
don't want to reduce this to an equation. It shouldn't
be it should be busy. But if you watch movies
and absorb them, you start to unconsciously learn these rhythms
and beats. The trick is actually to avoid it a
little bit because you don't want it to be predictable. Yes, so,
but yes, I think maybe he just somehow unconsciously learned

(26:01):
this by being a movie fan.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
Yeah, yeah, It's interesting because I know I'm going to
jump around a bit here, but I know the Thing
was also a big influence on Wolfman, and I watched it.
I hadn't watched it for a while and I watched
it last week. And the thing that really struck about
the Thing, which is what they teach you not to do.
There's no backstory about anyone in that film. There's no

(26:27):
The obvious thing is to have Kurt Russell McReady talk
about his wife he's left behind.

Speaker 1 (26:31):
And the kids.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
There's just none of that, which is it works. But
if you're hoping to write a hit movie in twenty
twenty five, I'm not sure if that's necessarily going to
work for you. Why does that work? And what I
love about your movies is there's like there's emotional there's
emotional stakes involved and not just the physical threats. So

(26:57):
why does the thing work? And so many other I
think filmmakers, if they try to do that would fail.
Was it was at the time and place was that
nine to eighty two, and maybe seeing monsters on screen
was you know, just it was enough? Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:11):
I mean, by the way, nineteen eighty two, what a
year for film. I mean, you know what else, maybe, well,
Blade Runner the thing. I actually think Mad Max two
was eighty two, right, yeah, so it was eighty two.
It was incredible, it was like what else was it?
Eighty two was just known as like this year of
incredible movies.

Speaker 1 (27:32):
But it's.

Speaker 3 (27:34):
The thing. It's interesting question is I don't think there's
an It's not an exact science because it's it's not
like you know a recipe where you say, if you
put too much salt in it, you ruin the dish. Right,
there is no right or wrong. The subjectivity of art
is what makes it attractive to me because the lack

(27:54):
of rules. I love that. And so it's about what
the movie needs. I think the reason the Thing doesn't
need the backstore is because they just launched you right
in there. You are with them, and there is no
need to know who these guys were because we are
not We are not thinking about the outside world. We
don't need to know about McCready's ex wife. The movie
starts when that dog turns up, and that's it. We're

(28:16):
in it with them, and I love it. I still
think the screenwriting is so great in the Thing that
the introduction to McCready's character is one of my favorite
of all time, where he paus the whiskey in the
computer chests. He's a chitting bitch. Like it's like, can
you get? Can you get any better than that? Like
as an introduction to a character, I dream of writing
a character introduction that good. But they're all you know

(28:40):
them and you feel them and you feel like you
know them, and the movie is it's different, right, I
find it. It didn't work. Critics hated it, and audiences
didn't go. And I've read a lot of theories. You know,
et came out, so everyone decided they loved cuddly aliens
and it was wrong. It was bad timing. But it
also was a nihilistic ending. You know, it wasn't it wasn't.

(29:03):
It wasn't an ending that leaves people. People don't walk
out of the theater feeling good. You know, it's quite
nihilistic the thing.

Speaker 1 (29:09):
Oh but I do love the ending though. Do you
love the ending? Oh?

Speaker 3 (29:12):
Yeah, I love it. I love it. It's proof that
the only true movie critic is time, because when you
go back and you read those original reviews from nineteen
eighty two, they just shred the movie. This is awful.
It's disgusting. This guy's a terrible filmmaker. He should be
banned from making movies. The critics have done a complete
reversal on that, and now it's known as a masterpiece

(29:33):
and a classic. And you know, sometimes movies can exist
not in their time. I think movies can actually be
before their time and it takes a while for the
world to reassess. And that happened with the thing.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
Yeah, and movie is gonna say, I think stay alive
and can become fluid things like even watching Citizen Kane
in the Trump era, it's quite it's a different experience.
I was watching it even ten years ago, Like, yeah,
you know, it depends what's going on, whatever's happening in society.
A movie can actually be reborn in the way.

Speaker 3 (30:08):
Yeah, it takes on a whole new life. It does,
and you discover it on your own time. It's funny
because I used to have this existential crisis about the
movie theatrical movie industry. Post COVID, movie theaters were closed,
you know, as you know, and there's all this hand
ringing about how will theaters survive, not only because of COVID,
but because it is said that kids today don't you know,

(30:31):
they're all their attention spans have been shredded by the Internet,
and the short form content is their drug of choice.
And you know, as someone who grew up on movies
and basically I've built my whole life on movies, you know,
so it's like you're taking apart my identity. If this
thing dies, so goes my identity. And so I was
having dinner with a friend of mine who's a director,

(30:51):
and I was saying all this. I'm like, no, man,
you know, what do we do if movie theaters don't exist?
This is And he said, let me something. What's your
favorite movie? And I was like, well, Jaws if I
had to pick one, And he was like, where did
you How did you first see Jaws? And I was
like on VHS and he was like have you ever

(31:12):
seen it in a theater? And I was like no,
and he was like, movies will be fine. He's like,
they'll you know, it's it's just getting back to what
you're saying. It's about who you are when you see it,
and what are the times like you don't have to
experience a movie in the window it was opened. You know,
they exist forever and you'll bring yourself to it. You know,

(31:33):
for me, the thing when I when I think about it,
it's a it's a it's a formative VHS experience. And
have you ever watched a VHS recently. I'm surprised we
just thought that was fine. It's terrible. It looks like
someone has I don't know. It looks like someone's like
a dub of someone's wedding video from I can't believe.
And what's funny is DVDs look like VHS is to

(31:56):
me now, like I as formats get better, I just
can't believe. I guess when you don't know what you're missing,
Like we're not lamenting the fact that we're not flying
around on jetpacks right now because they don't exist. I
guess when we were all watching VHS movies, we couldn't
fathom that there could be a better version. But it was.
So I was watching one of my favorite movies in

(32:16):
terrible quality, with terrible audio, and I still loved it.
The movie got through. The movies can punch through even
the worst if it's a good story. So that's yeah.
The thing, You're right, the thing and you're like you
said about Citizen Kane, God's that's actually my favorite film
of that era. It holds up, it's beautifully made, it

(32:37):
moves like a bullet train.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
It's great. Yeah, let's talk about Jaws.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
You mentioned it, then it's where you're you said, if
you have to pick one, it would be Jaws.

Speaker 1 (32:44):
We covered Jaws on this podcast. Stilly Pecola had never
seen Jaws and loved it. Weird.

Speaker 2 (32:49):
We watched that kind of in between lockdowns, and we
kind of realized that that whole thing is almost like
an allegory for COVID. Do we lock down the beach
where we protect, you know, profit versus you know that
we protect people. So it's a weird time to watch it.
But also the thing I think about when I think
about Jaws is how quickly they get in and even

(33:10):
more so, how quickly they get out. They don't even
make it back to shore before the credits start rolling,
like you would think, you would think if you made
that film these days to probably be reuniting with some
people on the shore, families, loved ones, you know, the community.
But that's what I do love about seventies films, and
I think you did it. You do it really well

(33:31):
as well. The Visible Man, which I was last night.
You got like, it's the first scene is Lizabeth must
try to escape, you know, and it's it's tense from
the get going and you're straight into it.

Speaker 1 (33:40):
You know.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
How much do you think about that and when you're
writing films or when you're editing films are getting in
and getting out?

Speaker 3 (33:48):
Yeah, a lot. I mean they say that the most
important pages of a script to the first fifteen, and
the most important moments in a film is the last fifteen,
you know. So you know, with the script, you got
to hook people in and finish the script. With a movie,
it's what they leave the theater with. So as a screenwriter,
I'm very focused on the opening because I'm thinking of

(34:11):
the reader and I'm like, OK. And then at the end,
I'm thinking about the movie and I'm like, I need
an ending that will just leave people. Really that's the
holy grail to me, Like a great ending is so difficult.
I just went and saw seven in imax. They did
a re release. I guess they've done a four K edition,

(34:32):
so they put it in theaters for a few days
in la and I went to the Chinese theater and
watched seven in imax, which is good but it just
struck me. Again. I've seen that film many many times,
but at the ending, I just was so envious. I
was like, God, this ending is so perfect, so poetic,
and it so Yeah. I think about the ending so much. Yeah,

(34:55):
it's what it's how you sink people into the story
and then what you leave them with.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
Yeah, and so you saw Jaws you mentioned on VHS. Yeah,
what impact. I mean, it had an impact on everyone,
Like people just wouldn't go to the.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
Beach for you know.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
Yeah, very few movies have that kind of an impact
where people, you know, something they may do every year
of their lives, every week of their lives, go to
the beach, They're suddenly not doing it.

Speaker 1 (35:18):
What impacted they have on you?

Speaker 3 (35:20):
The same thing? I mean, just I wouldn't go in
the pool like I was afraid of it.

Speaker 1 (35:24):
I was.

Speaker 3 (35:25):
He tapped into something super primal, which is that thing
of there are very few situations where human beings are
out of control. We've usually got the upper hand with technology.
You know, animals are playing a losing bet against us.
But when we're in the water, you know where now
you're floundering around like that feeling of that human feeling

(35:46):
of not knowing what's underneath you. It's amazing that someone
hadn't tapped into it. I think what he did with
that movie is just capitalized to such an extent that
he pretty much dropped the mic on it. How many
good shark movies have you seen? S it'saws.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
It's a good point, like he shuck Nato.

Speaker 3 (36:02):
Yeah, exactly exactly, like you know, yeah, Blake Lively on
a surfboard.

Speaker 2 (36:07):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (36:08):
He he did such a good job that he he
ended it. He ended a genre. He started it and
ended it because he he said, he did everything you
would want to do in that movie. He made you
fear that dark water underneath you, where where the monsters
of our subconscious lurk probably demon has chucks to a

(36:29):
point that's still hanging around today, these poor sharks, and
they're like, God, these guys made a movie about us,
and now we're you know, the devils of the sea.
But it's he just it was so masterful.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
Yeah, yeah, incredible. Let's also talk about seven. I remember
seeing this in the cinema and I think it was
what a Fincher made the pre he did Alien three
and three. Yes, so I'm not sure if I was
on board for Alian three.

Speaker 3 (36:54):
I was very disappointed.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
So, but seven blew me away from the from the
go one because also I was on the Brad Pitt
Express as far as trying to explain to my friend
that this guy is a serious actor. He's going to
be one of the superstars generation. He laughed in my face.
James Brasher, if you're listening, you know it's true. So
I think it was off the back of Twelve Monkeys,
I thought this guy is good.

Speaker 1 (37:17):
He's genuinely good. He's not just the.

Speaker 3 (37:19):
He's not just a pretty boy. Yeah, he had he
had the perfect Venn diagram. He was like, he looked
like a movie star and he could really act.

Speaker 1 (37:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:26):
Yeah, that's just why he became who he became.

Speaker 1 (37:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:29):
Yeah, But I mean, obviously seven has one of the
great twists of all time. Yeah, so seven is ninety five,
so it almost kicks off this like these years that
followed the sixth Sense and the Usual Suspects as a big,
really big twist.

Speaker 3 (37:45):
Yeah twist, there was that twist ending time. Yeah, exactly.
I think there was a while where I do love
a good twist ending if it makes you think about
the rest of the movie.

Speaker 2 (37:55):
Well, That's what I want to speak to you about,
because obviously in the films you make, you need you
do twists and turns, But how much are you looking
for the one? I mean Saw? I what Saw again
last week and I hadn't seen it for so long.
I was watching it like it was the first time.
And when and when one of the maybe the biggest
twists is what happens in the middle of the road.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
Listen, everyone's had enough times here.

Speaker 3 (38:19):
It can be fine. The statute of limitations on twists
has passed.

Speaker 1 (38:23):
He gets up and you're like, like, so when did
you know?

Speaker 2 (38:29):
Did you know you had a great idea for Saw
based on the idea that two men wake up chained
two in this room together with with like a gun
in the middle of them. Was that the idea when
you thought this is a great idea or was it
when you kind of came up with the twists?

Speaker 3 (38:44):
So what happened was so James Wan and I we
had gone to RT we finished that and we're in
that post film school kind of unemployment hazed, you know, realizing, oh,
the world doesn't care about my ambitions. We're kicking around
Melbourne and I had been doing Recovery in Melbourne and
that had finished, and so we were both just kind
of shit kicking around, like what are we going to do?

(39:06):
We did a couple of short films and we worked
for the ABC for a while making It was just
this strange time, but we had that twenties burning ambition
where you're you're so young, yet somehow you think time
is running out, like you know, and so we were like,
we're going to do something. And it's right around that
late nineties time you had that rash of truly independent films.

Speaker 1 (39:27):
That did well.

Speaker 3 (39:28):
The Blair Witch Project, Pie was another one, Darren Aronofsky's
debut film. That they had these romantic stories behind the
making of those films where you know, we were just
a bunch of friends and we got together and we
pulled it whatever money we had and we made something.
And and those were such inspirations to us. We realized that,

(39:50):
you know, within Australia, there's there were two roads to take.
You either tried to go to the funding bodies and
get their approval, or you had to do it with
your own money. And so we were inspired by those films,
was like, let's just do it. Let's do the Blair Witch.
But then we needed an idea, so we figured out
the whole movie had to be set in one room
with two people. We were like, we could do that,

(40:10):
but try coming up with an idea that's just set
in one room. Like it took us a long time.
I think after about a year we had we had
pitched each other every version of a locked room thriller.
At one stage it was going to be someone's big idea.
Maybe mine was like, it's an elevator that's stuck and
there's like, you know, four there's four people on the

(40:30):
elevator and one of them is a killer or something,
you know, and the other person would always say it
was very frustrating. So then one day I still remember
this like it was yesterday, James called me. He's like,
I've had this idea. It was just, you know, I'm
in the shower and I just had this idea. Two
guys wake up in like a bathroom and there's a
dead body lying in the middle of the room and

(40:52):
there and they're like, how did they get there? Who
put them there? And the movie goes on and stuff happens,
and then at the end of the movie, the body
stands up and that's the one that put them there.
And it was really interesting because I hung up the
phone and this was a you know, two thousand and two,
so that was a landline, and hang up, hung up
my Telstra landline and I was pacing around and earlier

(41:15):
that week I had sketched the words sore in my
little diary. It was like dripping blood and I don't know,
it was like that weird. I remember recently watching that
amazing Beatles documentary that Peter Jackson made. Yeah, and I'm
not like a Beatles fanatic or something, but what I
loved about it was you actually watched creativity.

Speaker 1 (41:33):
In real time.

Speaker 3 (41:35):
What you usually documentary is about. It's a bunch of
talking heads. You know, the Beatles were great, they were
This was actually you watched Paul McCartney right get back,
and I from as a creative person, it was incredible.
I just ate up six hours. But that thing that
they talk about where something is happening, it's your your

(41:56):
mind is making connections and suddenly something come to life.
It felt like that. I'm not going to say it was,
you know, a beaming to me from a higher dimension.
And I was just the vessel for this idea. But
I remember that that moment, I'm pacing around and I'm
thinking about what James had told me, and I'm like,
and it very quickly assembled. And I called James back

(42:18):
and I was like, that's it, that's our idea. And
these guys the movie is going to be called Saw.
And these guys, you know, he put them there and
he's he said, if you're going to get out of here,
you're gonna have to cut off your cut through your
leg to get out, and and and we were like
hitting the ball back and forth. You know, he would
come up and pretty soon we built a movie, you know.

(42:39):
So that was really the start of it all, you know,
that was how he came up with that.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
And then you go to the States, you make the
film and you're and you're in it and you're starting
with your princess bride's Yeah, ws, what was it like this?
You know, being on set and making your first It
happened quickly, but I feel like it was happening quickly,
and it's just like now I'm in it and I'm
making it. I'm on a real set, Like, yeah, it

(43:03):
was unbelieving glovers over that.

Speaker 3 (43:05):
Yeah, it was crazy. I remember I like teared up
the first time I walked in. I flew from Australia
over to la and they took me down to the
set they were shooting at the Lacy Street Studios, the
prestigious studio where they shot Leprecorn. The first you know,
I heard that it was basically used mainly for soft
core porn. It was it's still there, I believe it's

(43:29):
it's kind of falling down building. There's cats running, stray
cats running around everywhere. So yeah, very low budget production.
But I walked in and there was a bunch of
people building this room that had only existed in my head,
you know, and they don't know who I am, so
they're like treating me like get out of my way.
I'm trying to hammer something.

Speaker 1 (43:47):
But just it.

Speaker 3 (43:49):
It's really incredible when something that exists in your mind
is suddenly tactile. And I made me emotional because I
was like, wow, like, I'm actually in the room after
a year or two of working on this script. So
that was a great moment. And yeah, Kerry came on
board and Danny Glover and these actors. It was it

(44:10):
was trippy to us because we just couldn't believe that
we were getting to do.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
This thing and obviously everything you've learned now is sore.
And I think in SIDIAUS three was your.

Speaker 3 (44:21):
First director that was that was that was my first
film as a director.

Speaker 2 (44:26):
Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, an upgrade and now this stunning
thing you've done with the Universal Monsters, with Invisible Man
and wolf Man. When did you know with wolf Man
like you've come off, you've you've hit it out of
the part. With Invisible Man, you know, were there any
nerves that are going you know, like, when did you
know that you had an idea that made it that

(44:48):
you could commit to and kind of go okay, because
I imagine, you know.

Speaker 1 (44:51):
When you you are committing.

Speaker 2 (44:53):
Your life for how many years you know, and your
family's time, and this is going to take you away
a little bit, and you know it maybe helps that
you your wife is part of the project as well.
But when did you know this is what was the
seed of the idea. And with the Visible Man, I
imagine what was brilliant about was it was such a
surprise to see when I watched an Invisible Man, I

(45:15):
had no idea about really, I don't think I sort
of trailer. So the fact that it was in the modern setting.
I was like, ah, you know, I was expecting Visible
Man maybe it was like.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
A period piece.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
And then it was about gas lighting and domestic violence,
which was like there was a real awakening I imagine
around the world, but particularly in Australia about domestic violence
with women and all that. The timing of it was
was was, you know, right on. But with wolf Man,
what was the seed that you kind of thought, Okay,
I've got a way into this movie?

Speaker 3 (45:45):
It was I was it was suggested to me, you know,
are you interested in Wolfman? And my first reaction was no,
I just did Invisible Man. You know, I don't want
to repeat myself and make another monster movie. But they're clever,
they know what they're doing. So they said, is this
Jason Blum, Yeah, Jason Blum and Universal. They're very clever.

(46:06):
They said, well, just as an exercise, what would you
do if you were you know, and well if I
was doing this and they accepted me. So the first
idea was I was thinking about it, like, what's my
way in? I've got to do something different? And I
had this image of a woman talking but you couldn't

(46:29):
understand what she was saying. It was this garbled gibberish,
and that was what I locked into. I was like, well,
I don't know if I've seen that before, like somebody
losing the ability to understand human language. And I thought,
that's a really interesting way into Wolfman, because you're focusing
on the loss of these faculties first, instead of sprouting

(46:52):
hair and fangs, it's more about losing the ability to
communicate with our loved ones. So as soon as I
had that, I was like, I mean, you.

Speaker 2 (46:59):
Know, because I mean there's there's always the moment that
people are waiting for, which is the transformation, And so
I imagine you had to be pretty strong on it
can't just be about the transformation, like, it's about the
reasons behind the transformation and what and the threat that
it poses. And what I love about it is if
it poses obviously the physical threat which we.

Speaker 1 (47:20):
Expect, but also the emotional threat.

Speaker 2 (47:23):
And I think you've cast a Christopher Abbott is great
using poor things.

Speaker 1 (47:29):
Yes, poor things, and Julia Ghana is.

Speaker 2 (47:33):
I think it's such an incredible she'smated, whether she's you know,
in ozarks or or owning George Clooney in a net
cafe commercial.

Speaker 1 (47:43):
She's always always great.

Speaker 2 (47:46):
And I find the same with Elizabeth Moss, like that
there's something about that lioness character. And I guess Julie
Ganna's Charlotte is more of a lioness because she's protecting
her child and it's such a powerful I think the watch,
isn't it? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (48:02):
It is it always?

Speaker 1 (48:05):
You know.

Speaker 3 (48:05):
I always think of Sigourney Weaver in Aliens, you know,
protecting the little girl and just how bad ass it is. Yeah,
I think so. I mean you want with horror movies.
I think you want people to really emotionally attach, because
then it'll be more scary. I think we went through
a long period in the eighties where many horror movies,

(48:27):
not all, but many were more exploitational. The characters were secondary.
It was more about let's chop people's heads off. And
I think that sort of glut of cheap slasher movies
probably responsible for a lot of the shaming of horror. Today.
They still haven't shaken off that period, you know. I
think horror movies have come a long way since the

(48:48):
first Saw movie when we when James and I did that,
I felt like it was one step above porn in
terms of industry respect Yeah, exactly. Now. I've seen horror
grow since then, in the last twenty years a lot.
But I think that if you can write characters that
you do care about, everything goes up. It gets scarier,

(49:11):
it gets more tense.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
Yeah. So yeah, but it's also big ideas. A lot
of sci fi.

Speaker 2 (49:14):
Sci fi is often about big ideas, and this is
a fun way to explore, whether it's you know, a
space sat on the space ship or whever it might be,
you know, in Antarctica, wherever, and horror is the same thing.
It's exploring. It's the exploration of ideas. It becomes interesting.

Speaker 3 (49:28):
I think absolutely. Like horror is a great cloak to
wrap around a metaphor. Yeah, you can talk about things,
and people can have two different experiences. You could watch
a horror movie and just take it at face value,
get scared and leave, or you can dig into it
deeper and see what they're talking about. You know, with
Invisible Man, I was talking about domestic abuse and gas

(49:51):
lighting and stalking and all this stuff that are around,
but it's wrapped in this thriller, and I think it's
a good way of getting this. You could also just
make a movie about domestic abuse. But what horror does
is it manages to trojan horse these things into the
multiplex because I don't know that the drama about domestic
abuse has the same audience, doesn't have that potential horror.

(50:14):
Horror draws people in.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
I think comedy can do the same thing that trojan
horse idea of talking about an issue, But the one
thing that comedy can't seem to do is get people
into theaters, which horror is.

Speaker 3 (50:26):
These days, it was different what twenty years ago comedies
were ruling the box office. It's I mean, this is
a whole nother episode of the podcast to talk about
what happened. But yes, horror somehow is hanging in there.
It's one of the few genres left that can reliably
back out theaters.

Speaker 1 (50:44):
I think justin Jason Blum say that a billion dollars
of the cinema's you know money came from horror last year.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
Yeah, and I think The Nun Too was like the
second biggest horror film of all time. But nobody, he said,
nobody in hollywoodpeak about it.

Speaker 3 (51:00):
Yeah, it's weird. It is very strange. I remember when
the first Saw movie came out. We had done so
well and made money, and James Juan, the director, he
couldn't get another gig, And I said to my agent,
what is going on? This movie was so successful, and
I think people really looked down on horror, like, well,
there's nothing to it. You didn't direct anything. You just

(51:21):
put some gory stuff in front of the camera. And
the Trogolo dites loved it, and I'm like, no, it
was It's well crafted. You know James, he knows what
he's doing. It took them a while. It took people
a while to catch up and be like, oh, this
guy is good, he's great. They couldn't see what I
could see. But yeah, I do think there's a there
was a stigma. It's getting it's the stigma's not as

(51:43):
strong as it was now.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
I would have thought so from the outside from somebody
who hasn't grown up as a horror fan.

Speaker 1 (51:48):
I take it. Took me a while.

Speaker 2 (51:49):
In fact, Saw was a big part of me getting
kind of back into horror a little bit, because I
wouldn't saw a part of it. Was got to support
and yeah, there's buzz about it. Me may make Gatesy
from Tripottery.

Speaker 1 (52:02):
You might know. When long and saw it and this went.
Oh okay.

Speaker 2 (52:05):
Now we're seeing all the horror films together, and we've
kind of done that. Horror film comes out, we try
to see it together and and and you've seen it grow.
I mean I I saw Herodic and Cinemas a few
weeks ago, and it was packed.

Speaker 1 (52:15):
It was packed. Yes, you see, you see there's so
many movies.

Speaker 2 (52:18):
I sit in at eleven o'clock in the morning by myself.
It's in cinemas.

Speaker 3 (52:22):
Oh, that's my favorite. I love. My favorite time used
to be like Monday morning at ten am.

Speaker 2 (52:26):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's the comedian's session or you know.
And but that was that was that was a full cinema.
You know, horror is bringing bringing people in. I do
want to ask, We've got to wrap things up pretty quickly,
but when you're on set and you're dealing with prosthetics,
how do you make sure the tone is that you're

(52:46):
seeing or you're getting what you need because obviously, and
how do you make sure you're getting what you need
and without it tonally it's still being what it needs
to be, that it's not getting either silly or you know,
let's say stays right.

Speaker 3 (53:01):
Well, it's an interesting calibrating act where you you know,
you go by eye. You're using yourself as a barometer.

Speaker 1 (53:10):
Right.

Speaker 3 (53:11):
So I'm sitting there at the monitor on set and
I'm thinking like, okay, can we darken this down? It's
what the act is doing. I can pull him up.
I can say, you know, let's bring that down a
little bit. So there's all these little decisions you make.
But it doesn't end after the shoot. Even in editing,
you're constantly making these little decisions like, you know, one centimeter,

(53:33):
one centimeter, just tiny little calibration decisions that pitch the
movie a certain way. When you glue all those decisions together,
you have a movie and people receive ten thousand decisions.
The color of the shirt, the color of the hat.
It was all thought about for a long time, but
the audience receives it in the blink of an eye,
you know, one frame, right, and the audience brain is

(54:00):
you know, you can receive a film at that speed
and store. You store what's important, discard what's not, keep
track of the plot. Oh, I thought it would be
the sister who did it? You know, And every little
costume decision, it's all going in there. That's what's fascinating
about movies. The jewelry that the characters are wearing. It's
storing in your mind in case it's important for later,

(54:21):
and so you just have to be a part of
that process. It's pretty fascinating to do it because, as
you know, many many movies aren't great and somebody made
a wrong decision. Somebody said let's pump that performance up
to eleven and it didn't work. All, well, let's bring
it down and have it be very dour. And so

(54:41):
you're aware that you could fail, but you just keep
using yourself as a barometer and asking yourself, would I
like this? Would I enjoy this? If I went and
sat down and watched this, I think with it. In
the case of wolf Man, I think I'd like this movie.
I'm happy with this movie.

Speaker 2 (54:56):
Well, yes you should be. I had an absolute ball
watching this movie. And one thing you do, I've noticed
very few cheap scares in your films.

Speaker 3 (55:03):
Oh good, happy to hear say that.

Speaker 2 (55:04):
Yeah, in fact, I can't even think of one like
and watching Man, I can't think of really any there
and and even The Invisible Man, which I just watched
last night. A lot of that tension comes from Elizabeth
musters feeling something behind her or so that was, and
that just gives you a feeling. How you must know
when people when people sit down and watch a horror film,

(55:26):
they're already a little bit tense, unlike any other genre. Really,
watch drama feeling or a comedy. You know, So you
have this thing that you almost get to play with.
How do you make sure you don't lose that? I
don't know, you, it's it's probably their fifteen pages.

Speaker 3 (55:43):
Yeah, it's like you you. What I like to do
is just I feel like the real art of it
is in the tent, the quiet tension, big explosions of
noise or a sudden shock that release. I feel like
that's a hard you shouldn't play often. It's a card
you've got in your back pocket. But my rule is

(56:04):
only do it when it's when we're going big. Like,
if you're going to do it, rip their heads off.
So like in The Invisible Man, she throws the paint
and suddenly he's there right there, like I knew that
I had. I'd been teasing, teasing, and I'm like, all right,
I've teased you enough. Now I'm going to rip your
head off. A lot of horror movies. I think people

(56:24):
equate audience enjoyment with those little stings, and it's it's
really diminishing returns. If you keep doing it, it dilutes
the power of it. And if I'm watching a movie
that just is just peppered with jump scares, way about
halfway through, I'm bored, I'm out. You know, it's a
it's a it's a it's a missile. It's a missile
that you should employ carefully. You know, you got It's

(56:48):
like what the big red button, you know, the nuclear key, Like,
don't push the button unless you better be really better
be a serious situation. So I'm like doing that throughout
the movie, like okay here, and I'm not quite sure
there's no equation for it, like oh, page thirty five,
time to do it. It's more about your own feeling it. Basically,

(57:11):
it's like music, you know, the way musicians sort of
like feel out chord changes and stuff. I feel like
writing movies is like that. It's like we've been doing
We've played this note, big note, big chorus down again,
and it is like music, you know. Aaron Sorkin describes
dialogue writing as writing music, and that's how I feel
about horror.

Speaker 1 (57:30):
You know.

Speaker 2 (57:30):
Well, my congratulations, like I said, I had an abolutely
ball watching wolf Man.

Speaker 1 (57:34):
Thank you and congratulations for all of the success.

Speaker 2 (57:36):
So the boy from Recovery from Melbourne, we should be
very proud, like what you and James have done.

Speaker 1 (57:43):
It should really be celebrated.

Speaker 3 (57:45):
It really, you know what's funny. I am proud of it.
I realized recently, like we used to be the young
guys on the scene. That was our whole identity. That's
how we were sold, you know. It was like these
two twenty something whipper snappers from Australia made a movie.
And I think when when your identity is formed or
that's how they're branding, you can get frozen, you know,

(58:08):
like they say people developmentally freeze when they get famous.
So like someone who was famous when their six is
always going to be six, you know. And I think
I thought of myself as the young whipper snapp, but
way past the date when that was credible.

Speaker 1 (58:21):
You know.

Speaker 3 (58:22):
Only recently I've realized, like you know, I can say,
like James and I we're the elder statesman now of
the horror. It hits you when young filmmakers and I'm
not talking about aspiring film students. Here, I'm talking about
directors who've made a movie in theaters will come up
to us and be like, I grew up on your films.

(58:43):
I simultaneously want to die inside because I realize how
old I am. But secondly, I'm like, I really think
James and I have had a lot to do with
the direction of the We have helped shape the winds
of the horror genre in a big way where it's
at now. I'm not saying it's all us, but we're
partly responsible for where it's at now, and I'm proud
of that for sure.

Speaker 2 (59:03):
You know, and the movie fans what we want to
see people in cinemas, so and horror is doing that,
and then Wolfman's going to do that.

Speaker 1 (59:09):
Mate. I really appreciate you gaving time to chat and.

Speaker 3 (59:11):
Absolutely this was fun. It's good to talk about movies.
Talking about movies is something I can do.

Speaker 1 (59:18):
I was pretty confident that was going to be.

Speaker 3 (59:20):
If you're doing a footy podcast, yeah, tell me about
the back line for the Weigels this year. What do
you think. I'm in trouble. I'd have to find a friend,
call my dad, But I can talk about movies all
day long.

Speaker 2 (59:31):
So thanks for good thank you. I enjoyed that so much.
I really really did. And we didn't even get the
chat about The Fly because that was a big influence
on Wolfman and I knew that. So I actually watched

(59:54):
it and I'd never seen it before Jeff Goldbloom and
Geena Davis and I got to say loved it. I
really like, I had no intentions of ever seeing The Fly.
I don't know why, but it was a different kind
of movie than I thought, and yeah, maybe by David Cronenberg,
and I can kind of see why that was an

(01:00:16):
influence on wolf Man. I think when you go see
wolf Man, you'll be able to find some things that
Lee may have been inspired buying for from the Fly.
But the wolf Man is in cinemas now.

Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
I really really did enjoy it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
I mean, support Hi because he's an aussy, but just
go see a good bloody film in the cinema. In
the cinema, that'd be great. We are back for another
season after taking a little bit of a break, and
next week it's again a different kind of episode. I
did put this out on my socials. I released my
top ten films of twenty twenty four around New Year's Eve,

(01:00:56):
and I did mention that there could be some changes
because I want to catch up on some films that
I hadn't seen, and there are a couple of little
changes to my top ten that I released on social
media as a result of seeing some films that were
released last year in the interim. So next week I
will be doing my top ten films of two and

(01:01:19):
twenty four in the lead into the Oscars Ease. Some
of these films were involved with the Oscars last year,
so it's not necessarily an OSCAR preview at all.

Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
It's the top.

Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
Ten films that were released in Australia last year, and
I'll be clear on that because sometimes I'm sure there'll
be people saying, hang on, that was released the year before.
All these films I've double checked were released in Australia
in two thousand and twenty four. I cannot wait. A
great year for films. Is what I saw when I

(01:01:49):
wrote my list is fifty about fifty films on the list.
I'll kind of take you through where some of the
bigger films landed if they're not in my top ten,
and the reasons they're not necessarily the best fit to
twenty twenty four. They're my favorite films of two thousand
and twenty four, So that'll be happening next week and
the week after. Very exciting, the white whale that is

(01:02:10):
Ed Cavally. We've been trying to get Ed on the
show for years and we finally found a movie he
hadn't seen. This has given you maybe some time to
check out the film if you haven't seen it. In
two weeks time, Ed Cavallee star of have you been
paying attention, We'll be watching Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut,

(01:02:32):
starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.

Speaker 1 (01:02:35):
I haven't seen it since it was really released, so.

Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
I'm looking forward to checking it out again seeing how
it plays now. So next week my top ten twenty
and twenty four week go after that Ed Cavally Eyes
Watch Shut until then backing out and so we leave

(01:03:00):
Old Pete safe and salt, and to our friends of
the radio audience, we've been a pleasant good night