WOLF MAN: Crafting the perfect scare with director Leigh Whannell

The AU Review

What if someone you loved became something else?  From Blumhouse and visionary writer-director Leigh Whannell, the creators of the chilling modern monster tale The Invisible Man, comes a terrifying new lupine nightmare: WOLF MAN.  As Whannell’s unique take on the classic monster tale arrives in theatres across the globe, Peter Gray spoke with the writer/director on his visit to Australia to breakdown crafting the perfect scare from page to screen, the unconventional manner he used sound design, and which classic figure he may focus on to bring to life next.  #wolfman #interview #leighwhannell #horror #movies #horrorfilm #horrormovie #blumhouse #australia #premiere   http://www.theaureview.com/ http://www.facebook.com/theaureview http://www.instagram.com/theaureview  SUBSCRIBE TO OUR CHANNEL FOR MORE FILM RELATED CONTENT!

Transcript

00:00Peter Gray from the AU Review. Hello Lee. Hey mate. I spoke to you, it would have been last week, at the

00:06virtual junket. Oh right, right, in LA. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you were my, I think, I'm gonna say last

00:12like real-world interview for The Invisible Man in 2020. Oh wow, before none of us lived in the real world.

00:18Yeah, and Invisible Man was like my last like in-person screening. Oh wow. And I'm

00:23gonna say you gave me three great jump scares with that. Okay. And like obviously

00:29with this one, like immediately from the beginning, like you just have that sort of wolf

00:35man figure. And I wanted to know like, because you said there's basically three films, like what you

00:40write, what you film, what you edit, almost four, what you then put together. Yeah, yeah. So like

00:46going from page to screen, like are you always thinking, okay, like you know what the scare is

00:54going to be, you know what the image is going to be, or does it sort of change over time?

00:58It does change, you tweak it in the moment. Like it's strange because I don't write

01:06thinking too much of the movie. I actually write a screenplay to be read. It's a very novelistic

01:10approach. I probably take too much care in the action description and people will say like, well

01:16that stuff doesn't go on screen. But I love the language of, I love writing, so when I'm actually

01:22shooting, it's like I'm adapting this book, this thing that I've written. I'm adapting it and I'm

01:27suddenly realizing that what seemed good to the reader is not so good to shoot. So there's this

01:33constant process of tweaking and changing, you know, throwing things out. I can split my brain

01:39pretty well. Writer me is very precious about what I've written. Director me is brutal. I'm

01:45tearing pages out of my own screenplay, you know, just to make it work, you know, so yeah.

01:50And you've mentioned how you like, you don't really want to do anything unless like it

01:55excites you. And you sort of, you know, pitched this idea of Wolfman. Are you ever sort of thinking

02:02like, how far can I go? I mean with Blumhouse who seem to really like let their directors and

02:09like just have free reign. Are you ever thinking like, how far could I push an idea to actually

02:15see if it gets the not tick of approval? Sometimes. I do have an inbuilt desire for

02:23commercial appeal, meaning I do want people to go and see the movies. I try not to think in terms of

02:34demographics. When I'm writing, I'm not thinking about the market at all.

02:38But there is this inbuilt love of a packed theatre audience. That's my true love is it's not

02:47just movies themselves. It's specifically movies in theatres, in movie theatres. And you know,

02:54some say movie theatres have become an endangered species since COVID and the industry is changing,

02:59which makes me sad. My contribution to keeping them alive is to make great movies that pull

03:06in audiences. So it's, yeah, I must admit that I do seek them out and I do want that.

03:16I mean, it's great to, I feel like every filmmaker that I've spoken to, I very

03:21like want the theatrical experience also. It's so nice that that's still something on people's

03:25minds because I'm the same, like I grew up going to the theatres and it's something that I just

03:30need to have, I need to keep it going. Yeah. I mean, there's a whole, some of my greatest

03:35memories are, you know, going to see Ghostbusters, going to see Gremlins, you know. I think of the

03:45theatres, the smell, you know, the smell of popcorn, you know, it's all, it's so important

03:51to me that like, I think people that do love movies, it's their responsibility to keep that

03:55alive. We have to keep this thing alive that we love if we love it. One of the things that I

04:01really, really loved about this film was the perspective change when Chris Abbott's like

04:05trying to communicate and Julie can't understand him. And like the sound in this film, because I

04:12know in Invisible Man, silence was used beautifully. And in this one, like the spider tapping and how

04:19that was just like amplified. Like, is that one of those things, again, that you're already thinking

04:23of that, or that just kind of happens naturally. And then when it comes to the perspective shift,

04:27like you obviously want it to be that the sound is up close as much as possible. Yes. Yes. I was

04:34thinking about that while I was writing. In fact, I did something for the first time on this film,

04:38I was writing the sound design into the screenplay. I was actually going into great detail.

04:46It sounds like, you know, and I think about sound a lot, but this was the first time I just baked

04:53it into the screenplay. And I was having conversations with the sound designer I work

04:57with before I'd shot a frame. I remember us, we went out for dinner well before we started

05:02shooting the movie. And I was saying, you need to start keeping a library of insect noises

05:08and describing insects. And he was just bombarding me with emails of like insects slowed down.

05:15Like if you take the sound of crickets or cicadas and you slow it down by a thousand times what

05:19that sounds like. There's some really eerie sounds. What's interesting is that's all going

05:24on around us all the time. Yeah. But we as humans, the way our auditory senses work, we learn to tune

05:30things out. Otherwise it would be overwhelming. Yeah. What I wanted to do with this movie in

05:34The Wolf Vision is present the audience with the overwhelming version of what if you could hear

05:39everything at the same volume, you know, so it's, you mix a film. That's the opposite way.

05:46You usually mix a film. And I said to the sound mixes, put the background noise up front. I want

05:53it to be front of house as loud as everything else. No, I mean, it definitely, definitely worked

05:58because I remember just the opening frame. I was like, what the hell am I in for? And you were

06:03saying like, you know, Invisible Man, you changed the perspective of what we think an Invisible Man

06:08story should be. And then with Wolfman, you've done the same thing. And when I spoke to you from

06:12Invisible Man, you said that one of the characters or figures that you were sort of most interested

06:18in is Jack the Ripper. Oh yeah. And I'm just wondering, would you ever want to like turn

06:23Jack the Ripper into a story a la like Wolfman, Invisible Man? I wonder, Jack the Ripper does,

06:29I find unsolved mysteries to be, it's so eerie. Yeah. You know, a solved mystery is that closed

06:36loop. You get that closure. But these true life tales, I mean, they obsess, there are ripperologists

06:43who've dedicated their entire lives to this story. I don't know. I wonder if a great Jack

06:50the Ripper film has been made. I'm not sure it has. Like there's been a few miniseries,

06:55I remember the version with Michael Caine. From Hell. From Hell was, yeah, well, there's a great

06:59graphic novel. God, it's a, it's such a compelling story. I haven't forgotten that. I'm glad you

07:08brought it up. I think, I think, I think someone needs to make it. If it has to be me, I'll try my

07:14best. I'm look, I'm going to say we, I think we should have Leigh Whannell's. Yeah. Like I love

07:18what David Fincher did with Zodiac, another unsolved mystery. Yeah. Maybe there is a really

07:22definitive version like Zodiac of Jack the Ripper. Well, until, until then we'll, we'll settle for

07:28Wolf Manor. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Good to talk to you again. Thanks.

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