Leigh Whannell (The Invisible Man / Saw / Insidious / Wolf Man) • #334

LOOK OUT! It’s only Films To Be Buried With!

Join your host Brett Goldstein as he talks life, death, love and the universe with the prolific and well credited filmmaker and actor LEIGH WHANNELL!

A really lovely chat with someone who you will very likely know from films that have come up many times on this very podcast, so you know you're in for some goodness here... A delightfully self deprecating (in the best ways) and entertaining catch up which covers so much, including but not limited to working with James Wan, making films out of pocket and how to handle low budgets, creating a millennial Freddie Krueger, Insidious and Saw and working on such franchises, devilish alchemy, creative uncoupling, healthy fear of disease and the list goes on! And if you came here for an ethereal Sisyphian tone poem, we've got ya covered. OH ALSO - spoiler bits for Invisible Man where he runs through a scene as he wrote it (which is maybe not so suitable for folk of sensitive disposition) - just so you know. Never let death get in the way of a dollar! Enjoy!

Video and extra audio available on Brett's Patreon!

IMDB

WOLF MAN

SAW

INSIDIOUS

BRETT • X

BRETT • INSTAGRAM

TED LASSO

SHRINKING

SOULMATES

SUPERBOB (Brett's 2015 feature film)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Look out the only films to be buried.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
With Hello, and welcome to films to be buried with.
My name is Brett Goldstein. I'm a comedian and actor,
a writer, a director, a slingshot slinger, and I love film.

(00:23):
As Laurie Gottlieb once said, we grow in connection with others,
Like how in the Brady Bunch movie at first they
don't really like being a blended family, but then they
realize they are much better together. Actually, yeah, it's a
lot like that actually, and also in a very Brady
sequel too. Every week I invite a special guest over.
I tell them they've died. Then I get them to
discuss their life through the films that men the most
of them. Previous guests include Barry Jenkins, Kevin Smith, Sharon Stone,

(00:45):
and even What Was. But this week we have the brilliant,
brilliant filmmaker, mister Lee One. Now, all episodes of Shrinking
Season two are now available on Apple TV. Get caught
up on the whole show. You will fucking love it.
I swear down over to the Patreon at patreon dot
com forward slash Brett Goldstein, where you're getting extra twenty
minutes of chat with Lee. We talk secrets, we talk

(01:07):
beginnings and endings. We have some really good stuff in that.
You also get the whole episode uncut and dad free
check it out over at patrion dot com. Forward slash
Brett Goldstein, so Leejeell is a brilliant filmmaker. He wrote
the original Saw film. He's directed the brilliant Invisible Man
Upgrade Insidious three. His new film, Wolfman, starring Julia Garner

(01:28):
and Christopher Abbott, is in Cinema seventeenth January, and I,
for one, am very excited to see it. He's a
brilliant filmmaker. We'd never met before. We recorded this on zoom.
It was an absolute pleasure of talking to him. And
I really think you're going to enjoy this one. I
hope you're all well. So that is it for now.
I very much hope you enjoy episode three hundred and
thirty four of Films to be Buried With. Hello, and

(01:59):
welcome to Films to be Buried With. It is I
Brett Goldstein, and I'm joined today by a filmmaker, a writer,
a producer, a director, an insidious.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
Sir, a sorer, a dead silencer, a so.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Insidious two three, four five sixer.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
A hero, a legend, maker of one of the all
time great sequences in the cinema of all time in
The Invisible Man, and now coming up soon with Wolfman.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Please welcome to the show. It's the brilliant is leeve?

Speaker 4 (02:30):
What else?

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (02:32):
Did you have to mention dead silence? I mean that
was the only Flora.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
It's very nice to meet you, Lee.

Speaker 4 (02:39):
Very nice to meet you. Thank you for doing this,
Absolutely great to be here.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Tell me, is it true? May I ask? I've got
many things to ask you.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Is it true that the original Saw, which is an
excellent film, the idea was from you nearly dying and
wanting to live?

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Is that true?

Speaker 4 (02:57):
That's a little more dramatic than the real story. So basically,
James One, who you've already spoken to, he and I
had finished film school. We were in Melbourne, we were
working in these jobs we weren't particularly enjoying. We decided
we were going to make a film with our own
money rather than wait for somebody else's money to fall
into our lap. Fantastic and so we thought, well, we

(03:19):
could probably save up maybe ten thousand dollars between the
two of us over the course of a year or two,
But what movie can you shoot for ten thousand dollars?
So we thought, okay, well it has to all be
set in one room. So we actually put these restrictions
on the story before we ever came up with the
idea for the story. So we decided it had to
be set in one room with two characters, and that

(03:41):
was it. Those were the rules, and so it took
us a long time to come up. I mean, if
try coming up with a movie set in one room
with only two characters, it's pretty tough.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
I love it.

Speaker 4 (03:51):
And we went through every variation of a locked room
thriller that we could. And it was actually James who
came up with the first idea that to saw. He
was the one that called me and said, it's two guys.
They're chained up in this bathroom and there's a dead
body in the middle of the room, and he sort
of pitched me this outline and I immediately I remember

(04:13):
the phone call like it was yesterday. I immediately hung
up the phone. This was in the early two thousand,
so it was a landline. Ladies and gentlemen. You might
have to have a separate segment later explainings, but exactly footnotes.
I remember hanging up the phone and knowing that this
was the one, and I called him back and said, Yeah,

(04:35):
they're going to have hack saws, and they're going to
have to the only way to get out of these
chains is going to be cutting their own feet off,
and the film's going to be called Saw. And I
remember he was a bit skeptical about that at first.
I think it sounded it sounded a bit Texas chainsaw
to him at first. And then when I went off
to write the script based on this idea, that was

(04:56):
when I got to what you talked about. I was thinking, well, Okay,
who's the villain of this story? Would why would this
person take two people and chain them up in a
room and play this game with them? So I was
trying to figure out, like, what's the motivation here? And
at that time, I was suffering these migraines, and I
remember going in and having a cat scan. I mean,

(05:18):
I was twenty three years old. Like, when you're twenty
three years old, you shouldn't be getting catstans, you know,
it's very unnerving. So I remember I remember being in
the hospital that day and looking around and you see
people who have lost their hair due to chemotherapy. And
I remember how unsettling that was, just the fear that
you have of like, oh god, what if this is

(05:39):
bad news? What if the doctor looks at the scan
and says, I got bad news for you. That idea,
that thought was so terrifying to me that I suddenly
attached it to this screenplay and I was like, Okay,
what if this character is suffering from brain cancer and
is so angry about that diagnosis. That's his reaction to it,

(06:01):
And what he wants to do is take people that
are healthy and in his eyes, ungrateful and put them
to the test. And so that's really the backstory of
what you talked about it. It wasn't quite as dramatic
as I was dying and I but the mere thought
that I could have been dying was enough to scare me.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
Yeah, it's so interesting. I'm going to come back to
Invisible Man.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
But I saw then became bigger and bigger and bigger,
and this now behemoth. And I'm sure it blows your
mind how big it's become starting from there. But how
involved you are you still all over all of that
or do you have you stepped away?

Speaker 1 (06:38):
How does that work.

Speaker 4 (06:39):
Yes, you can ask for sure. I am not involved anymore.
I haven't been involved in the Sare films for a
long time. Okay, I think you were correct in your
use of the word bohemouth. This film that James and
I cooked up in two thousand and three has metastasized
just to keep it going in the cancer feet into

(07:02):
this beast of a franchise, and people around the world
love it, and I don't begrudge its existence. Of course,
it wasn't intentional. James and I never went into that
first movie thinking, Wow, I can't wait to get started
on the sequel. You know some filmmakers, do you know
some filmmakers are like, it was always a trilogy. I
planned it that way, and I planned the prequels too,

(07:24):
and that was very much not the case with us.
We actually thought of the ending of that movie as
being very definitive, Like, if you remember the ending of
that original film, not only is the character dying, you know,
this is a guy who's going to be dead in
a minute, but he slams the door. It's a literal
and metaphorical door slam. And you know, the hardest thing

(07:45):
in movies is to have a great ending. You know,
movies with great endings are celebrated, you know, and it's
so difficult. And so we felt like whatever flaws that
movie had, and whatever shortcomings we had at that age
as filmmakers or writers, as actors, whatever it was, at

(08:06):
least we had a great ending. We always felt confident
in that. And I feel like fifty percent of the
box office for Saw was due to the ending. So
if they had left it there, I would have been happy.
But of course this franchise wouldn't exist, and they resurrected
this character, you know, even though he was dying. You know,
I should have learned this from Jason Vorhes and Michael Byers.

(08:27):
Never let death get in the way of a dollar
in death is a mere inconvenience on the way to
a sequel. I mean, you know, you can stab someone
in their heart and chop their head off and they
can be back for the sequel. So Hollywood economics prevailed.
They kept making them. They kept making them. I was
involved with two sequels. I wrote the second film and

(08:51):
the third film, and then I felt like that was it.
I was like, I think I've said all I wanted
to say here, and it is. It is strange to
see it, to see it go on without us.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
Yeah, and they and if you're a lab to day,
I'm sure you are or not, Like are you are
you consulted on any other sour stuff or is it
they just do stuff without you?

Speaker 4 (09:10):
Guys know, Yeah, it feels like a separates It's That's
another really interesting thing about it is Yeah, this thing that.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
Your kids went off to college and did their own.

Speaker 4 (09:20):
Yeah, exactly. It is. It is like the kids leaving
the house and now they're their own people and you're
sort of responsible for them. You know, you brought them
into the world. Yeah, it does feel a little like
that if I'm driving down the street and I see
a poster for a new Saw movie. It's a little
because this is this is something that was created in
Australia when you know it was our little secret and

(09:41):
now it belongs to someone else. I'm sure there's a
million metaphors we could come up with, like it's like
seeing someone dating your ex wife or whatever. But it's
it's funny, it's strange. I've said before in the past,
I think James and I accidentally created the millennial Freddy Krueger. Yeah,
and you know, a lot of people that I talk
to will say, even on social media, people would say, oh,

(10:03):
I grew up watching Saw movies at sleepovers, you know,
and when I was a teenager, when I was younger,
I would watch night More and elm Street films at sleepovers. Yeah,
and it didn't matter which one I was watching. I
would watch part four, part five. To me, it was
all the same. I just wanted to watch Freddie kill people.
And I realize now in hindsight, that's what we did.

(10:26):
There's a there's a generation of kids that grew up
with Jigsaw, and so there is something cool about that.
But I would say ninety percent of my affection as
it relates to the Saw franchise is directly tied to
that first movie. You know, I've got ten percent of
affection for the rest of the movies, but it's really

(10:46):
about that first film.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
Have you been to the Horror Maze? The Saw Horror
a maze at University?

Speaker 4 (10:52):
Not only not only have I been there the first
year that they did it, I went to Universal Studios
with a bunch of my friends and I walked into
the Saw Maze and the first thing I see, the
first room I'm in, is the bathroom set the main
set for the first movie, and I'm in the room
and I looked down and there's an actor playing me,

(11:15):
and he's on the floor dressed the way I was,
and he's got his foot in his chain and he's
screaming at me, and I'm looking at him. And a
friend of mine who was next to me an Australian.
It's Angus Samson, who acted in the Insidious films with me.
He had never done one of these mazes before, you know,
this was all new to him. So I shoved him

(11:38):
towards where I knew the danger was. I could see
somebody's feet, I could see somebody lurking, waiting to jump out.
So I shoved Angus towards this person. And then I
received a tap on the shoulder. I hadn't even made
it through that first room, and I turn around and
there is an employee of Universal Studios with a clipboard
saying come with me, and I follow him, and the

(12:00):
next thing I know, I'm in an alleyway behind the maze,
and I say, what's happening? Where are you taking me?
And he says, you've been asked to leave. You can't
do you you may not continue, please leave And I said,
I said what and he said, you have to leave

(12:20):
and I'm like what why? He said, you can't interfere
with the performers. And I said, mate, I don't know
how to put this, but this I wrote this film.
That's like, you have to let me of all the
mazes to kick me out of you have to let
me and he was he was like, yes, yes, of course,
of course. And now my friends are piling up behind

(12:42):
me and they're all like, no, it's true. He really
did write this film. And somehow I talked my way
back in, but I was kicked out of my own maze.
So there you go.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
It's all the metaphor fucking hell is the same true
with Insidious? And how that also is another bahema for
or you did you stay more involved in.

Speaker 4 (13:00):
I did stay a little more involved with Insidious the
third film I directed. That was my first film as
a director. So that third film probably has the most
resonance for me of all of them, because yeah, well
just because I was like, wow, where have you been
all my life directing? Like I feel like, you know,

(13:20):
before I directed that film, I was happy being a
writer and I was writing films for James, and we
were this team. That's the way I kind of saw us,
you know, like we're a duo. And then he went
off into Blockbuster world. He went off and did a
fast and furious movie, and I knew when he did
that that he wasn't coming back from that world. It
was like a breakup. I remember thinking, who am I

(13:43):
without James. It was a bit of an identity crisis,
and you know, I felt like, wow, I was in
the Beatles. Do I now have to start wings? Do
I have to go and find another collaborator? And then
Jason Blum, God bless him, he was the one who
rescued from this little breakup funk. He was like, Buddy, Buddy,

(14:03):
what are you doing next? I know what you're doing next.
You're directing the third movie, buddy, And I was like what.
And I think I had plans to direct, but in
my mind it was always going to be like an
original film, something small, something. But he shoved me into
this sequel, and actually it turned out to be a
great first movie because I knew the world, already, knew
the characters, so it was a great way to start.

(14:24):
So yeah, I think I think you're right. I think
I am more involved with the Insidious movies a little bit.
I'm still only an executive producer. You know, I'm not
writing them, I'm not directing them. But I'm still, you know,
definitely more involved than I am in the Saw movies
for sure.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
When again, you don't have to ask if this is
I'm fascinated in partnerships, and I understand everyone evolves in changed.
When James went and did the Fast and Furious, was
it like a conversation, like as in when you felt like, oh,
this is a breakup. Was a conversation had or was
it like I'll see you soon and you thought, no,
you won't. Was it like an official do this thing

(15:00):
on my own? Or did it just kind of happen.

Speaker 4 (15:02):
It definitely wasn't a conversation. You know, James and I
have always had a great creative relationship and we bond
over the same things. We always loved the same movies,
but we were not Maybe it's being an Australian. You know,
I'm Australian, and you know, James was born in Malaysia
but spent a lot of his youth in Australia. So

(15:23):
maybe it's a male thing. But we it's like don't
It's like avoid the sensitive subjects. So it's like there
was never a conversation of like, hey, just so you know,
I'm going off and I'm never coming back. It was, yeah,
there was. It was not the Matthew McConaughey scene from
Interstellar where he drove away from the ranch in tears.
It was like, one day I just woke up and

(15:45):
realized that he wasn't coming back from that world and
that I needed to figure out what I wanted to
do because you know, I was his screenwriter by default before,
because who else is going to write these movies that
he wanted? Now now, when you're playing around in that
blockbuster world, the studio is like, James, you know we

(16:05):
can afford David cap You really want to bring your
film score buddy along, you know, like the time for
charity is over.

Speaker 5 (16:11):
And I think it was good.

Speaker 4 (16:12):
I mean I think it's good to be shoved out
of the aeroplane when you're learning to skydive or whatever.
It's like, yeah, oftentimes we won't change ourselves until someone
pushes us into this uncomfortable place, and then in hindsight,
you think, why was I ever afraid to do this
or what was you know. Thank god I didn't get
myself stuck in a rut, you know. So I'm kind of,

(16:33):
you know, in retrospect, I'm glad that it all happened
the way it happened. I do feel a little bit
like I came to directing late. I feel like James
got such an early start. He directed that first Saw
movie in his twenties, when there was still a monoculture,
you know, like he caught the last gasps of like
driving to movie theaters on opening night and seeing like

(16:56):
a line around the block, like the whole Star Wars thing,
these nostalgic photos of this bygone era when movies were
important and people would would line up patiently to see
them on a Friday night. He got that, and I
feel like I'm making up for lost time now, like
trying to make movies and get as many as I

(17:16):
can done, you.

Speaker 1 (17:18):
Know, all fascinating. Here's the thing.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
Invisible Man is fucking brilliant. I think it's a brilliant,
brilliant film. And I also think it may be similar
to the Thing of Sauw Invisible Man on paper. It's
a really hard film to do, really like it sounds stupid.
It's like, you know they did The Mummy wasn't good,
you know what I mean. It's a character that you go,
I don't know how you're going to do this and

(17:42):
not make it silly or you know, there's been so
many versions in and when I heard someone's doing in
Visible and I was like, Okay, this will probably.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
I don't know. I had no take on it, you
know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (17:53):
And then I watched your film, and not only is
it fucking brilliant, it's so brilliant, but it also is
like and the way that when you talk about the
original sore it's about something, it's really deep. Your Invisible
Man is is like profound, Like it's a serious subject
done in a very entertaining way, but it's like, for real,

(18:16):
legit serious. It's an issue movie. It's basically an issue
movie that's really fucking fun and scary. And the beginning
of there's two sequents in it that I think a
musterpiece is the opening is a musterpiece.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
One of the great openings to a film.

Speaker 4 (18:31):
Oh thank you.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
I love that.

Speaker 2 (18:32):
In Stories, the beginning of the film, we're in the
middle of the film and we have to catch up.

Speaker 1 (18:38):
It's like, what the fuck is going on?

Speaker 2 (18:40):
I feel very excited and I don't know why, and
I'm having to piece together what is happening here? Why
is she? What's going on? And you're kind of piecing
it as it's happening, and it's thrilling. And then you
have the amazing, amazing sequence in the restaurant, which is
like one of the great junk scares shocks, Like right,
it's so brilliant because it's like such a rare thing

(19:04):
to achieve where it essentially comes out of nowhere, and
yet of course it doesn't come out and know where
it's all been set up, and it's so shocking. God,
it's good. It's a very very good film. Congratulations to you,
but gosh, curious. And now you're making wolf Man or
you've made it and it's coming out very soon, and
again it's like, I don't know what you do with that,

(19:26):
And I'm now, having seen Invisible Man, very excited to
know what your take is on wolf Man.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
Do you want to tell us or is it all secret?
Would you rather not talk about it?

Speaker 4 (19:35):
I could talk about it a little bit. I mean,
I guess my take on it was much like The
Invisible Man, to ground it in our world and to
take it out of a supernatural realms, something that was
driven by the occult. I love that stuff. I just
think this I wanted to push it in a more
humaniust direction, something that was you talked about Invisible Man,

(19:58):
and I appreciate all those complim by the way. I'm
wondering if I could just get that bit of audio
from you and somehow liquefy it and inject it into
my face, you see that exactly, if we can find
a way to put your words in a blender. But
like you said, with The Invisible Man, you felt like
it was about something, and I felt like the film
was on rails for me because that was the story

(20:21):
that immediately presented itself in my mind. When I thought
about A Visible Man, the very first thought I had was, well,
this film has to be told from the point of
view of the Invisible Man's victim. You know so many
Invisible Man movies. It would be it would be his story,
and you know, it's hard to be scary when you're
so close to the antagonist. I felt like a scarier

(20:42):
movie would be one where someone was sitting in a
room and was sure that someone else was in the
room with them, they couldn't see them, And that to me,
you can make a movie out of that idea. And
so once you start building that idea out, you say, Okay,
so someone's sitting in a room and they're not sure, Well,
if someone's there or someone's not there, in what situation

(21:03):
would that happen? Okay, So it's a woman afraid of
her her ex partner, he's an abusive partner, and the
story starts building itself brickbride brick, and it becomes about
what you said it was about. Suddenly you're talking about
someone being stalked, abused, tortured, psychologically, gas lit, and pretty
soon you have a movie. Hopefully. It was the same

(21:25):
with wolf Man. I was thinking, okay, so.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
Can I sorry, Can I stop me for one second?
Were you were you approached like, hey, do you want
to make a monster movie? You can have any of
these titles? Or did you say I want to do
Invisible Man, I've got this idea.

Speaker 4 (21:38):
I did not say that to anyone. I didn't say
to anyone I've got an idea, or I have to
make the Invisible Man. I'll tell you the story quickly
what happened because it's hilarious. Now the story has to
be hilarious. Geez, I really set me up my profoilia
with Alan. What happened was I had just finished making Upgrade.
I don't even know if I had finished post. I
was still putting the finishing touches on it, Butsill had

(22:00):
seen it. And then they called me in for a
general meeting, Peter Kramer, the president of production. So of
course I thought, he's just seen my film and he's
calling me in for a meeting. He must want to
tell me how great the film is, and by extension
of that, how great I am. And so, you know,
as a screenwriter in desperate need of compliments, I got
to the meeting as fast as I could and sat

(22:22):
down ready for my compliment bath. And I think Peter
spent maybe eight seconds on Upgrade. He was done with
Upgrade before. And then we were chit chatting about the weather,
and I was sitting there thinking like, wait, what happened
to you telling me it's the greatest film you've ever seen?
And he did none of that, and so I just
remember thinking, what is this meeting about? You know? And yeah,

(22:47):
I was just thinking what's happening? And it felt like
we were just having a chat like two friends catching
up for lunch. And I'm thinking, that's fine. He's a
great guy. But and then out of nowhere, he says,
you know these monster movies. God, you know, we really
we merely made a misstep with the Mummy. And I'm
sitting there going, oh, yeah, it was it was fine,
you know he said, no, it wasn't or whatever. And

(23:08):
then after a few minutes, talking about the mistakes he
felt Universal had made trying to launch this Monster universe,
he just said, to be fair to the writers of
the Mummy, these movies are difficult to write because if
the Invisible Man is the good guy, who's the bad guy?
What scares the invisible Man? And I just said, well,

(23:31):
he's not the good guy, he's the bad guy. And
that was all I said. And it was just something
to say in a meeting. And then I walked out
and my agent called me and said they love your
take on the Invisible they want to hire you to
write it. And I was like, what take And he
said whatever you pitched them in the room, and I
said I didn't pitch anything. All I said was he
should be the bad guy. Why would you make the

(23:52):
invisible man the good guy. He's a villain, he's a monster.
And my agent said, well, whatever it was, he said,
they really love it and they want to commission you
to write it. And so the whole thing was an accident.
And I guess it's proof that, especially in the film
businesses in LA there's so much stuff flying through the
air at all times, people throwing ideas that you're buying

(24:13):
IP and buying books. It's just this like whirlwind of stuff.
Sometimes it's not a passion project that's lived with you
for five years. Sometimes something just buonks you in the head,
you know, And like I think, in all honesty, I
think within two weeks I was writing that movie within
two weeks, and I have I don't know if this
is good for a podcast. I just want to see

(24:34):
if I can pull it out, because hang on, one second,
where is it. I've got a stack of scripts here
of my scripts, and then I also have other people scripts.
By the way, listeners, I don't sit there reading my
own scripts. But you mentioned that scene before, the throat
cutting scene, and to me, screenwriting is tough at the
best of times. I'm envious of people who will go

(24:57):
on podcasts and say, oh, it's fun, it's fun, because
I'm like, you're so lucky that. But there are moments
when you are having fun, when you're locked in and
you write something and it's like I write freehand first
in a notepad, and sometimes when you're really locked in
and you're loving it, it's like your hand is can't
move as fast as your brain is moving. But that

(25:18):
scene with the throat cut, I remember writing that, and
I remember thinking it was so fun to write because
I can I just read. Can I do a disclaimer
for anyone listening. I'm not reading this to say, like, listen,
listen to this extraordinary writing, screenwriting like this should be
etched in stone in a museum. I'm not doing that.

(25:42):
I am Australian. I'm genetically programmed to be self deprecating.
But I just want to read it because I had
so much fun writing it. So it says Cecilia, Adrian's
brother lied to us. He's not dead. I can prove it, Emily,
Howe Cecilia. I went to his house today and I
found something, something that proves what I'm experiencing. Emily, what
are you experiencing, Cecilia, I can sense. And then she

(26:04):
stops talking because the strange look has come over Emily's face,
a look of sudden shock. A knife, the same kitchen
knife Cecilia found in the attic, is hovering in midair
over Cecilia's right shoulder. Cecilia turns to see it, and
as soon as she does, the blade arcs through the
air and slashes Emily's throat. It's so quick and silent
that it doesn't seem to have happened. A look of
surprise rather than pain on Emily's face until the skin

(26:27):
on her throat opens up, blood gushing out so quickly
that there is no drama to it, just immediate emergency.
Emily can't speak. She coughs out one last protest before
gripping her neck. The knife smacks into Cecilia's hand before
she has time to register any of this, and then
the screaming starts. It's fun to write, like sometimes it

(26:47):
doesn't always happen. It plays, it reads, I know. It's
it's like there's those moments. There's those moments when you're
writing when you're like, oh, I cannot wait to shoot this. Yeah,
and then and then there's many many other moments where
you're like, how the fuck are they going to shoot this?

Speaker 1 (27:01):
How did you shoot that? Was? Was it a man
in green? Like how did you?

Speaker 4 (27:06):
Yeah? It was like a green body suit and it's
very like comically practical, like a stick holding the knife.
But anyway, I feel like I got us off so
far off track. But because you were asking about Wolfman.

Speaker 1 (27:20):
But Wolfman, Yes.

Speaker 4 (27:22):
It was very, It was very I'm telling that story
about how Invisible Man came about. Wolfman was was something
they pitched to me, and it was a similar thing
of thinking like, Okay, what's this movie about? And does
these seem to be the thing that presented itself? Like
that's just something that scares the hell out of me
in real life, like degenerative illnesses, whether it's cancer or

(27:46):
Alzheimer's or whatever it is. It's terrifying to me. And
I think it's come up in all of my work.
I mean, Saul was about a guy with brain cancer,
like in Upgrade, the guy in City as the kid
won't wake up, like I have this peep ski here.
Every every film I've ever made, you know, there's always
some disease, and so that that of course is where

(28:07):
my brain went.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yeah, so it's like Body Horror.

Speaker 4 (28:10):
Yeah, and I think and I think probably Wolfman's the
first time I've like leaned all the way into body Horror.
I think there was flashes of it in Upgrade, and
but Wolfman is like the fly in like all the
way you know, you know, like Cronenberg in. So so yeah,
hopefully it resonates with somebody fascinating.

Speaker 1 (28:35):
Oh, this is fascinating. But I've forgotten to tell you something.

Speaker 4 (28:39):
You know, this is the great problem of all podcasts
whenever you know, what I find really annoying, and I
hope I haven't done this to you, is when the
person asks a really interesting question and then the person,
with the freedom of time that podcasts have, people will
go off track, which is how people really talk, and
I'll be like, as a listener, I'll be like, no, no,
go back to that question, because I really wanted to

(29:02):
hear the answer to that question. So I hope I
am now not portrating a crime that I have accused off.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
I took you off track because I asked you about one,
but we did come back right right on the rails.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
But I did forget to tell you that you've died,
You're dead.

Speaker 4 (29:19):
Oh I've died, I'm dead. Huh okay, great, this is
the twist at the end of the sixth sense.

Speaker 1 (29:24):
How did you die?

Speaker 4 (29:26):
How did I die?

Speaker 1 (29:27):
How would you like today?

Speaker 4 (29:28):
How would I like to die?

Speaker 1 (29:29):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (29:30):
Oh, I mean this is easy for me given my fear.
I was reading the other day.

Speaker 5 (29:35):
I was reading the Wikipedia page for like, was it
Gregory peck or maybe it was Jimmy Stewart, but it
was one of these old Hollywood rates, these Hollywood actors,
and it said, you know, they had the Wikipedia's like
early life, you know, education, career, and then death.

Speaker 4 (29:51):
And I remember it said, whether it was Jimmy Stewart
or Gregory Peckett, said so and so died in their home,
in their sleep, surrounded by family of natural causes. I'm
like film, That's what I want my Wikipedia page to be.
I want to be. I want to be surrounded by family,
still be able to talk and be like, it's been
really great knowing you, and then go to sleep and
just drift off into the God. That is it. That

(30:14):
is what needs to be achieved.

Speaker 2 (30:15):
Okay, So you have a nice bobe of everyone and
then you die in your sleep. What I mean, we
don't know what happened in your sleep you die?

Speaker 4 (30:23):
No, Yeah, i'd say that it's like super something and
eat super painless, super painless. I want it to be
like when they give you a general anesthetic. You know,
I don't know if you've ever had one, but you'll
be in there. They always say to you like, all right,
so we're going to count down from ten or whatever,
and you're like, every time I've done one of those,

(30:44):
I'll be like, before I do the countdown, I'll be like,
you know the funny thing about and then I'll just
it'll just edit, It'll just jump up to me in
a room and I'm like, when do we start? And
then some person's like, oh you're awake, and I'm like,
what just happened? That is what I need death to be.
Just needed to be like three two, like I don't
let me get to one. Just oblivion.

Speaker 1 (31:05):
Okay, all right, this is a good death. And what
do you think? Do you worry about death? I mean
you do? You're so worried about disease.

Speaker 4 (31:11):
I do, I think I do? I mean, yes, I
don't worry about death itself being dead because being dead, Look,
it's either one of two things. I'll say I'm agnostic.
You're either in the afterlife, which means you're some ethereal
invincible entity floating around talking to your grandparents and maybe Elvis.
Or death just feels like that general anesthesia. It's just

(31:35):
we've already been dead, all of us. You know, I
was born in nineteen ninety nine. Now I was born
in nineteen seventy seven, and that means I was dead
in nineteen seventy six. So it's not being dead I'm
afraid of. It's dying. It's the pain of It's that
moment being alive and knowing that you're dying is the

(31:57):
fearful part and the pain of that. So I guess
lucky for me, I think either option is great. If
I'm floating around talking to my relatives and all the
dearly departed in Beetlejuice Land, I'm okay with that. But
I'm also okay with it just being oblivion. And because
you won't. The good thing is all these people that

(32:18):
put their entire life's faith into some afterlife, they'll never
get to find out they were wrong if they are wrong.
I almost wish there was a five minute period between
where bodily death and brain death where someone showed up
with a with a letter and said, I hate to
tell you this, but you wasted your life. There is
no heav I'm exactly none of those None of those

(32:42):
people will will never have the satisfaction of them being
told that they were wrong, that they killed others for
a god that doesn't exist.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
You know, Well, it's actually door number one. There is
a heaven.

Speaker 4 (32:55):
Exactly, there is Oh, good, good, good great.

Speaker 1 (32:58):
There's filled with your favorite thing. What's your favorite thing?

Speaker 4 (33:02):
My favorite thing in the world of all the fiends
in the world. Yeah, I love because you said thing
that's such a wide the other thing you would, but
it's filled with it. Well, nostalgia is my favorite thing.
So I feel like I would walk through that door
into like a nineteen eighties pizza hut, and there would
be like then and I would be I would just

(33:24):
be on a loop in like nineteen eighty seven. And
my other favorite thing is food, so then the food
would be great in this realm. Like you know, we
spend so much of our lives eating. So I think
it's okay to be someone that loves food, because it's
if you don't love it. You're in for a hell
of a time because you're going to have to spend
a lot of your life. So there would be great

(33:44):
food in this nostalgic realm that I've invented.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
All right, so you're in heaven. It's the nineteen eighties
pizza hut, but it's got food of all types. And
there are characters dressed as teenage mutant ninja turtles serving
you food.

Speaker 4 (33:56):
Oh yeah, they're running around. There's arcade machines in the corner.
I walk out the movie theater. There's a line around
the block because movies are super important. The Internet isn't
even a glimmer, and yeah, it's inventors.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
I yet the theme tune to Say by the Bell
is blaring through speakers.

Speaker 1 (34:12):
You haven't Yeah, yeah, yeah, great.

Speaker 4 (34:15):
Then I'm having a great time. I'm having a great time.
And the film that they're learning around the block for
is my film. So I'm like, I'm not even viewing
it as a consumer. I'm like, yeah, I did that,
I did that, and I think so, I think so
that this sounds pretty great to me.

Speaker 1 (34:31):
It's pretty great.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
And everyone wants to talk to you, but they want
to talk to you about your life through film, and
the first thing they ask you is what is the
first film you remember seeing?

Speaker 1 (34:41):
Lee? What else?

Speaker 4 (34:42):
The first film I remember seeing is Peter Pan, the
animated Disney film. So you know, it's that funny thing
when you're that young. So I must have been four
years old or five years old, when when you're that
young your memories can get confused. Have you ever had
one of those conversations with one of your siblings where
you'll say, like, remember that time you broke your leg
and they'll say, I never broke my leg. You did,

(35:03):
And you know, all of a sudden, this is crazy
moment where you're like, you know, it's the ending of
the usual suspects, like yeah, exactly, the camera spinning around you.
You're like, what my life is a lie? Like I
quick be wrong, but I do remember my mom. So
I was growing up in the suburbs of Melbourne in Australia.
She came and picked my brother and I up from

(35:23):
a swimming lesson. We were at an outdoor swimming pool
and she said we're going to see a movie and
I was like, that's an option, and she took us
to this movie theater and I remember still to this day,
the animated Peter Pan hits some deep cord of like
the first image you saw that was like magic in

(35:45):
that way that movies are. I guess this was early eighties,
you know, in that time when Disney movies would they
would keep bringing them back into theaters, you know, so
it was it was a magical experience.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
That's freaking great. What is the film that made you
cry the most? Are you a crayer?

Speaker 4 (36:04):
Oh yeah, Oh yes, I'm one of those people that
can cry pondering something up in a second, a commercial
like I'm a quick path to a cry. I have
to admit, et is. I watched it recently. It is
bulletproof when it comes to getting those tear ducts. It's

(36:27):
it's such a great movie. But isn't it? Isn't it interesting?
How I watched a video recently on YouTube? And this
is one of the great things the Internet has given
the world, especially for a nostalgist like me and I'm
guessing you too, is instant access to like every any

(36:48):
any time you're like walking along and you're like, ah,
remember that commercial that I used to love as a kid.
A couple of clicks of your fingers and it's there.
So I was watching this clip on YouTube the other day.
You might have seen it. It's the one where Steven
Spielberg and John Williams are together and John Williams he's
at the piano and he's writing the score to ET

(37:09):
in real time and Spielberg's giving him notes. It's this
incredible video. It's only five minutes long, but that video
made me cry just hearing them, just hearing the music.
So I just think that film has such a power.
And there are other movies that are more tragic, you know,
Dancer in the Dark, you know The Elephant Man. There

(37:30):
are movies that are just so profoundly sad, you know,
The Pianist. These there are movies with greater injustice. But
I've seen ET a lot, and even though it makes
you cry, it's not any less fun. Like, don't I
don't think you sign up for Dancer in the Dark
fun to have a fun time. You know, you are

(37:53):
locked in and god.

Speaker 3 (37:55):
You know.

Speaker 4 (37:56):
I remember watching that film Bloody Sunday Paul Greengrass, and
it was so powerful and affecting and I was sobbing,
but I was angry at the world at this injustice.
I just remember being so angry about it, and I
guess et it makes you cry in a way that
somehow leaves you feeling good about the world.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
Yeah. Fun.

Speaker 4 (38:19):
Sorry, I think I'm giving long answers to these questions.
I should probably be shorter. But anyway, it's fun to
talk about this lot.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
No, I love it.

Speaker 4 (38:27):
We have.

Speaker 2 (38:28):
If we run out of time, we'll just have questions
I'd rather get now. Look, you've made some of the
great horror films. What is the film that scared you
the most?

Speaker 1 (38:39):
Lewero.

Speaker 4 (38:40):
I would say the shining to me, has a power
that it's really interesting with the shining, And I wonder
what your view on this is. I remember showing it.
I remember before we did Insidious three, I used to
have this outdoor movie screen at my previous house and
I would watch We would watch movies in the back
and it was so fun in sitting bean bags and

(39:02):
watch these movies. And I remember I put a little
screening on in my backyard of the shining for the
cast and the crew, the principal crew, and I noticed
a lot of younger people were there were kind of
bored by the shining. I think the pacing of the
shining is very reflective of a different time and the
way younger people experience horror films now because it doesn't

(39:24):
have you know, jump scares have become such an embedded
part of horror movies these days, people always almost expect it.
It's like even studios you work with will say, well,
where's the jump scares? That if you look at a
film like The Shining, it's not trafficking in that type
of sort of historyonic editing. But I just think there's
something about that film that, even if I watched it

(39:45):
today late at night, it gets to me on such
a you know, such a big level. I mean, how
do you feel about the pacing of that and the
way younger people react to a movie like that now?

Speaker 2 (39:56):
I think that's probably true. I mean, The Shining is
such a weird I've seen it a hundred times and
I think it's amazing, But every time I watch it,
I'm like, it's such a weird film. It's very strange,
it's kind of hypnotic. But also when you like break
down the kind of storytelling of it, like it is weird,
like he's mad at the beginning, It isn't a dessent

(40:16):
into madness like scene one when he's at the interview,
like this guy is mad. Yeah, it's sort of weird
because you kind of think, regardless of this source material
of that, you go the story on paper, you got
the obvious way to tell the story is this man

(40:37):
over time becomes mad in this place. But he's fucking
mad day one. And there's this hypnotic thing with the
steady cam and the kid on wheels, and I think
it's utterly terrifying when he when hit the woman in
the bath. That's for me, it's like, oh.

Speaker 4 (40:52):
God, that is so really it's so scary. And also
also the prior scene when the kid stops just looks
up at the open door, it's I don't know what
is going on with that movie. Beneath the surface, And
I agree with you about this strange It doesn't follow
this regular Hollywood arc of like you started in one place.

(41:14):
It's this ethereal tone poem. It doesn't even at the
end the last shot when you see Jack Nicholson in
the photo like he's been there. It's almost like at
that point I question whether the movie even really happened,
like whether it happened in the mind of almost like
you were seeing the movie from the point of view

(41:35):
of ghosts, that they were always ghosts and that he
was like like like they say that or sometimes a
version of hell is just this repetitive, this cycle, this
sort of sysopian cycle of almost like they'll just keep
he'll keep going to that job interview, and you'll get
that job, and he'll go back and then they'll just
get it. And imagine like that's maybe what we're watching.

(41:55):
And obviously people have a million interpretations. They've made a
whole documentary just about Shining theories. I just I love it.
I mean, you can't you can't choose what scares you.
It's just like you can't choose what makes you laugh.
It's an involuntary reaction. I don't know why The Shining
is the film that scares me the most. It just is.
It also happens to be a pretty unoriginal answer, because

(42:17):
if you pulled ten people on your podcast and said
what's the scariest movie you've ever seen, eight of them
would probably say The Shining. I also think like, maybe
the second scariest movie I've ever seen is the Twin
Peaks movie fire Walk with Me.

Speaker 1 (42:31):
That is the scariest movie ever made.

Speaker 4 (42:33):
It is so terrifying in the same way in this Lynching,
you don't understand it. It is not setting out to
tell you a story. It is putting you in this
place that is it is so scary, So I would
I would put that a close second. And maybe that's
maybe that's a more quote unquote original answer, But.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
Shining I've ever seen. Number one.

Speaker 4 (43:00):
Are you are you talking about specifically the movie that
he made, I think all of the series, or are
you just talking about the series.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
I'm talking Well, the series was the scariest thing I
had ever seen when I was young, and then the
film I think is scarier.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
The film is so scary, and.

Speaker 4 (43:19):
They're so deeply scary, just.

Speaker 2 (43:22):
Him climbing through the windows. I'd probably number one most horrifying.

Speaker 4 (43:26):
It's so scary, that whole scene where Laura Palmer is
out and about and that log lady says like there's
a man under the fan, and she goes back home
and she walks to me, you know what. You know what?
Lynch is a master at obviously a master at many
many things. One thing he does so well is capturing

(43:47):
a look of horror on someone's face. I don't know
of any other director when when she walks in and
looks like it's so scary, just the way people look.
I don't know what he's telling his act to do
or whether it's the contrast, it's the sound design. There's
some alchemy, some devilish alchemy that he is working with

(44:07):
that is so scary. Remember the shot in the first
episode of Twin Peaks, there's the last shot of that
first episode is Laura Harmer's mother is sitting on the
couch and she sits in here and just does this.
The look on her face is so scary, it's crazy.
I totally agree with you. So yeah, he's like that.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
I've just thought from what you've said, it's almost like
David Lynch is the opposite of Stephen Spielbergs. The more
I watch Steven Spielberg's films, I'm like, Oh, the thing
he does so well is faces of awe. He does
you know, you think of Jurassic Pipe, think of et
It's people's face yes, going wow, oh my god, this
magical thing is happening. He's so good at faces of wonder.

(44:54):
And then David Lynch is the opposite. David Lynch's like
faces of terror. And that's part of what in the
same way that the the here's the dinosaur and here's
the face. We see the face first, like holy shit,
and then we see the dinosaurs. So we're prying emotionally
like to wonder. And with David Lynch, it's like terror

(45:15):
terror terror face just a fan and you're like.

Speaker 4 (45:20):
And it's it's it's how he like with Spielberg that
that lassic Spielberg shot of someone looking at something with awe.
There's that push into their face and there's you know,
the winds going in their hair, maybe their hat comes off,
and the camera kind of it's kind of moves downwards,
so it gives whatever they're looking at is gargantuan, mind blowing.
It's a it's a dinosaur, it's a spaceship. With Lynch,

(45:42):
it's the opposite. He's not pushing in towards them. The
character is so scared of what they're seeing that you
cut like, you don't even have to see it to
be scared. It will almost ruin it. It would almost
ruin it. Oh man, Yeah, you're totally right. And then
it's funny to see the you know, the it's such
like when David Lynch did that cameo in the Bablemans.

(46:03):
It was like, yeah, it's like you can of them
as vastly different, but then what you pointed out it
kind of puts them in the in a similar cat
You know.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
The thing of the Shining that I was thinking is
you know another film that started small and then became
a behemoth that I really am a huge fan of
his Paranormal Activity. I think particularly the original Paranormactivity scared
the shit out of me. And it's so simple. But
what it does is and I'm sure you did it.
I'm sure all horror does this, but I noticed it
so clearly in paranorm Activity is that it does a

(46:36):
very simple, clever thing of it. Here's this shot, this
locked off shot of their bedroom at night. They're filming
their bedroom at night, and the shot is just it
doesn't move. There's the door, there's the bed, and you
just watch it and then you go back to their
day and then you come back to this shot. So
it's training you to look for trouble. Yeah, it's like,
here's a still shot your your brain.

Speaker 1 (46:57):
You're but you're.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
Nothing happens for quite a long and then the door
slams and you jump because you're you're waiting. You're looking
in this rain, some trouble is going to happen. That
is what you are trained by the film. And in
the shining corridors, corridors, corridors, kid on the tricycle, corridors, corridors, corridors,
and it's kind of the same, and it's the same,
and then when it's not the same, it's fucking terrifying

(47:20):
because you've been trained like something's coming, something's coming, something.

Speaker 4 (47:22):
Coming, Yeah, you're right, and it's And it's also this
big empty space. The hotel is supposed to be filled
with people. So if you think, if you think about
a corridor with all those doors in a hotel, each
door has people behind it. When when the hotel is
supposed to be empty, that's where the film plays this
great psychological trick on you, because you're looking down that

(47:45):
corridor thinking somebody's there. It's the same reason if we
go down stairs at night to get a drink or something,
it's the middle of the night, it's supposed to be empty.
I always think that my horror screenwriter's brain does this.
If I go downstairs, I always think, like if I
looked up and just saw someone in the corner, of
the kitchen just looking at me or someone outside pressed

(48:06):
up against the glass, do you know what I mean? Like, yeah,
that's that's what the shining can do. Like, yeah, there's
not supposed to be anyone there, but the possibility of this,
of there being someone there is scary. So that was
a genius move on Stephen King's part. And then I
think Stanley Kubrick really just executed the idea of an
empty hotel really well.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
Overy good stuff.

Speaker 2 (48:27):
All Right, what is the film that you used to love?
But you what's too recently? You're going, I don't like
this no more. Maybe you've changed.

Speaker 4 (48:36):
You know, a movie I loved when I was a
kid who watched a lot. I really wore out this
VHS tape, saw it recently, and look, before I say this,
can I just start with the disclaimer that I usually
hate anything negative because it's so hard to make a movie,
and I've made a film about a killer ventriloquis puppet,
so I'm the last person in the world who could
criticize anyone. But okay, I'll say this a movie I watched.

(49:00):
It doesn't hold up. Conan the Destroyer, the sequel to
Conan the Barbarian. I loved that movie as a kid.
Bought it recently, I was like, Wow, this isn't what
I remember. And I still love Conan the Barbarian the original,
but it's just I feel like the sequel was really
rushed and just I guess when you're a kid, you're
so forgiving about certain production things. The cheapness of something

(49:21):
isn't really hitting you, and then all of a sudden
you can see the wires a bit more. And so
I'm sure that film was rushed into production, you know,
to capitalize on the first movie, but it just didn't
have didn't have it didn't have that power of the
first movie.

Speaker 2 (49:36):
Yeah, what is the film that means the most to you?
Not necessarily the film itself is good because the experience
you had seeing the film makes it always important to you.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
Lewell, what's that?

Speaker 4 (49:49):
Oh okay, I would say, look again, it's probably not
an I know it's not an original answer, but the
original style I saw in theaters. I'm old enough that
I saw it in theaters. It was doing that, you know.
Obviously it came out in seventy seven, the year I
was born. But obviously back then, pre VHS movies would

(50:12):
have a much longer time in theaters. So the power
of that experience, the power of that opening shot, you know,
the spaceship cruising over, it's such a religious experience, especially
for that time. You know. I think now kids are
spoiled with movies that you know, CGI, the movie, every

(50:35):
movie utilizes CGI in a huge way, and so it's
it might be hard for someone who's ten years old
now to imagine a time where it wasn't possible to
just do anything. But in a way, I think the
danger with CGI is that if you can do anything,
nothing means anything.

Speaker 1 (50:52):
I agree with that, I completely agree with that.

Speaker 4 (50:54):
Yeah, it's there's a certain numbness. If I meant the
movie theater and I see a trailer for a movie
and there's a shot of the city of London being
wiped out by a tidal wave, it doesn't impress me anymore.
It doesn't fill me with awe because I'm aware that
there was a team of visual effects artists who achieved that,

(51:16):
and now that I might still love the movie. The
movie could be good.

Speaker 1 (51:19):
You know.

Speaker 4 (51:20):
To me, the question in the age of CGI becomes
not you know, what can you do? You can do anything.
It's how you do it and what you choose to do.
Like Christopher Nolan inception, he chose to use visual effects
to like fold Paris in half. So there's an image
I haven't seen before. I've seen a million, I've seen
a million alien races. Try to wipe out Manhattan, you know,

(51:46):
I've seen that. But he's utilizing it to do something
you haven't seen, and I think that becomes the more
important question. So in the year of Star Wars, that
opening shot was just mind blowing that this is where
you were, and it just affected me in a huge way.
Back then, I wouldn't say I'm like a hardcore Star
Wars fan.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
Now.

Speaker 4 (52:05):
I still love those original movies that I grew up with,
but I think the experience of watching Star Wars that
first time was so important, just shaped for millions of people.

Speaker 1 (52:17):
You know.

Speaker 4 (52:17):
You know, so, yeah, pretty good, that's probably it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
I just am always like, I know, and I feel
disrespectful because I know how hard people work on it,
et cetera. But for me, I'm often like when I
watched that King Kong, I'm like, there's something about if
the actor is not touching the thing, no matter how
good the thing is, drawn, is articulated. It's like, I
know it's not there. It doesn't feel like it's there,

(52:42):
no matter how good it's rendered. It's like there's no
Like the original original King Kong is better because it's stop.
You can see it's there, even though it's a miniature,
it's a thing. It's like it's physically in the room physically.

Speaker 4 (52:56):
Yeah, I know, I do. Yeah, I really do agree
with you. It's funny because the original Jurassic Park film
is hailed as this milestone in visual effects. It was
the birth of the CGI era, and that's what everybody
points to. Like, my god, but the most effective sequence
for me in Jurassic Park is the t Rex attack

(53:16):
on the cars, and a lot of it's practical. All
those that foot, that stomps down in the mud, that
iconic shot, the breath blowing, that's all. That's a huge
puppet built by Stan Winston. Like what was beautiful about
it was the marriage of the CGI. So like there
was a big wide shot when the t Rex first

(53:37):
crashed through the fence and we see the whole thing
that's obviously CGI, but it's being beautifully used with these
practical elements. So, like you said, if my brain knows
that that creature isn't really there, it's hard for me
to attach emotionally to it. I don't know. I don't know.
It's a tough question because when I see snol and

(54:00):
films and I see how much he does practically, still,
I realized that, oh, you can still do it like that.
People will tell you it can't be done that way,
but he's doing it, so it's obviously still an option.

Speaker 2 (54:12):
I think it's it's right, it's the mix. You have
to mix them up and just hide it more. But
I think if it's all, I don't know. Listen, I'm
sure people are very annoyed hearing this.

Speaker 4 (54:21):
I know CGI has become such a boogeyman, and yeah,
I don't want to pick on it. There's such talented people,
and I see I saw this video online recently where
it was basically calling out all these actors who would say,
you know, this whole film is practical, and then meanwhile
they would cut to all the visual effects and it
was like is it? And so I would never like
wolf man that I just made. It's very practical, but

(54:44):
you know there's a visual effects component. It's not necessarily
it's not the look of the wolf that that is
not CG. That's practical, but CGI has to be used.
It's the most valuable rule in so many ways. Oh god, yeah,
you're adding more trees, like just really practical things that
no one ever talks about, Like, oh shit, we caught
the boom operator in that shot. Yeah, yeah, yeah, now

(55:06):
you can just painting him out, Like that's crazy that
you can do that.

Speaker 1 (55:10):
Now.

Speaker 4 (55:10):
There wasn't an option in nineteen eighty five. If you
caught the boom operator in the reflection of the glass,
you had to live with it. I give them extra
credit for the amount of mistakes that they avoided back
then because they didn't have that instant fix option.

Speaker 2 (55:23):
And it's physics. It's what you were saying about the
foot in. Often when CDI action happens, there's something off
about the physics of it ground like, especially.

Speaker 4 (55:34):
When when a human body is falling through space, like
when the Superhero is I'm just like, the physics of
that are off. That's not how a human body looks
when it falls to the ground. Yeah. That gets me
every time. It does take me out of the movie.
I don't want to add to the chorus of people
demonizing CGI because I use a lot and I love it.

(55:55):
But I do agree with you about physics. There needs
to be some marriage of CGI and practical so that
each can compliment the other as opposed to relying on
just one of them.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
You know what is the sexiest film I've ever seen?

Speaker 4 (56:12):
All Right, let's talk about this. Okay, let's talk. Let's look.
I think I'm going to go look. Okay. When I
was a younger man, when I was a teenager, I
had my biggest crush was on Jennifer Conley and.

Speaker 1 (56:26):
The film.

Speaker 4 (56:28):
Yeah, yes, I remember seeing the film The Hot Spot. Now,
this is not a well known film, directed by Dennis
Hopper Don Johnson. Don Johnson played the lead. A lot
of people would say, well, of course you loved it.
Jennifer Conley is doing nude scenes in this movie. Now
you might be correct about that. But the movie itself,
it also has Virginia Madson in it, and the movie

(56:51):
itself is sexy. I feel like the whole movie is
just about sex. They're all wanting to have sex, They're
all talking about sex. The mood of it is, and
so that for me, I was so in love with
Jennifer Conley that the movie nudity or not. The movie
had a profound effect on me. You know, they what
was I watching the other night at the Shawshank Redemption.

(57:12):
There's a moment where they're all watching Rita Hayworth and
she flips her hair up and like it's like in
the nineteen forties, Rita Hayworth's flipping her hair was basically
as good as a strip tease, And so I was
kind of I was kind of chuckling about that, Like,
you know, all these guys like check out her dams
and Jennifer Connley emerging from a lake in that movie,

(57:32):
you know, in a bikini or whatever. That's my Reata
Hayworth moment. Like I was so in love with her,
it was I was heartsick. So yeah, it sounds like
you said, we're the same person. You went through the.

Speaker 2 (57:42):
Same I loved Jennifer so much, and I know that
film very well, and it's a great choice. There's a
subcategory traveling. Boner's worrying, why don't a film he found
a rousing that you worked or you should?

Speaker 4 (58:00):
Oh. I feel like there's been a couple of anime
films I remember watching as a teenager where I was
just like, I don't think you're supposed to be feeling
lustful about an animated character. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to
go with them. Yeah. There's a couple of animes where
I'm like, wow, I'm very attracted to this pretend drawn person. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (58:29):
What is objectively the greatest film of all tape might
not be your favorite, but it's the pinniclet of cinema.

Speaker 4 (58:36):
You know, I feel like I am not giving you
interesting because I feel like when you say to me,
what's the scariest movie the shining what movie had the
biggest impact on you? Star Wars, Like, it's kind of like.

Speaker 1 (58:49):
You're giving really interesting detail on each day.

Speaker 4 (58:52):
So it's f Yeah, I think I'm giving the detail
to make up for the fact that the answers are
so standard, like oh really like And I feel a
lot of times when I'll see an interview with someone
like this and they'll say, okay, top five favorite albums
or you know you're in the Criterion closet. The whole
point is to I feel like the subtext of the
whole thing is let me show you how much knowledge

(59:13):
I have, or how let me show you I want
to talk about a movie you've never heard of, and
therefore demonstrate my deep knowledge. So talking about Star Wars,
I'm definitely not in the Criterion closet here. But I
say all this because my answer to this question is
the stock standard answer. I have to say. I agree
with the critics on this one. I do think that

(59:34):
Citizen Kane is a master work of cinema. It still
moves quickly today. That movie still moves, and it's so innovative.
Like a lot of times, when you go back and
watch movies from that era, they're so rigid. Right you're
looking at a camera, the camera's not moving, You're looking
at Humphrey Bogart, and you know they're can fined in

(59:55):
some studio, in some backlot, and the thing that's supposed
to be interesting is the dialogue or whatever. Citizen Kane
was doing things that it's incredible to me that he
was doing it in that era, pushing through windows. It's
really exciting to me. And I give him so much
credit because he was doing it in a time when
that stuff was next to him possible. I give that

(01:00:15):
film so much credit. Objectively, I might say that Chinatown
is the greatest film of all time. It's just a
brilliant ending that resonates. It's this stunning movie. And so
it would be between Chinatown and Citizen Kane, which, again
I know there's stocked standard answers, but I have to
give Citizen Kane credit for the innovations in that time

(01:00:36):
and the fact that it's still I don't know if
you've watched it recently, but it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:40):
Really moves really good. It's not boring. That's what's amazing
about it. You assume it's going to be boring, and
it's really quite thrillly.

Speaker 4 (01:00:47):
It's incredibly not. And you know, sometimes you do go
back and watch a film from that era and it
feels like homework, like even I don't want to name names,
even going back and watching a film like The Big Sleep,
and I love old noir films, I love Doublin Demnity,
but sometimes I'm like, this is so far removed from
my sensibility. It's really not speaking to me, these these

(01:01:08):
static shots of people talking in a room. Citizen Kane
isn't like that. And the performances that the fact that
he used these theatrically trained actors rather than movie stars
who had movie star ticks like today, buddy, like the acting.
I really your question was what is objectively the best
movie of all time? And I really do think the

(01:01:28):
critics got it right with that movie, and they do
with a lot of movies. Seventh Samurai is still brilliant.
But sorry. Anyway, that's my unpacking of my boring answer
to that question.

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
Not boring, that'sinating. Now I've got like six minutes left.
I'm going to we could do a lightning round. We're
going to Okay, let's do lightning round to get that answers.

Speaker 4 (01:01:53):
I want too long answers.

Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
Just tell me the films that that people aren't mad
that we've missed out with Andy, what is the film
you most relate to?

Speaker 4 (01:02:00):
I'm going to go with adaptation. I remember and I
saw that movie The Madness because I'm a screenwriter. When
I watched this person driving themselves mad, trying to just
type something out, I'm like this his neuroses about it all,
and then watching other people just do it with ease.
That movie just speaks to my life.

Speaker 1 (01:02:22):
So there you go, perfect filming. What's the most over
and over again?

Speaker 4 (01:02:26):
Holy shit, I'm going to say the most movie of
all time? For me, it would be it would be
close between Jaws and the Thing, but I'm going to
give it to Jaws because I didn't watch I didn't
start watching the Thing until I was a teenager, and
I started watching Jaws when I was six Jaws.

Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
You can skip this one. If you want worst film
of the worst film I ever saw?

Speaker 4 (01:02:45):
Oh you know what, Okay, I'll give you one. I
used to review movies on a TV show in Australia,
so I would when I was nineteen years old, and
you can see it on the internet if you really
want to look. I watched the film Freddie Got Fingered
starring Tom Tom Is it Tom Green? I think even
he would admit that he was trying to I don't

(01:03:05):
know what's happening with that movie, but it's I would
I'm going to pick that.

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
Okay. What is the film that made you laugh the
most big Lebowski?

Speaker 4 (01:03:13):
Big Lebowski? I think I watched The Anchorman the other night,
which I hadn't seen in a while, and I was
really laughing. I was like, God, this is hilarious. But
the big the big Lebowski is the gift that keeps
on giving, never gets old. In each little line, they're
gonna kill that poor woman like Cher. It's like, it's
just amazing, Dnie, You're out of your element.

Speaker 1 (01:03:36):
Film you love, but there's not physically a claimed.

Speaker 4 (01:03:40):
I love Mad Max beyond Thunderdome. This movie Mad Max
too right is so held up rightfully. So it's such
a brilliant movie. It's it's one of my top five
favorite movies of all time. It will never be out
of the top five, my ever changing top five movies.
It's it might shift from two to four, but it's
in there. I don't know why people don't give Thunderdome

(01:04:02):
the love. I feel like it's that last section they
were like, oh what just another chase with it really
is it continues the world building, and it's it's really
watchable and I just I love it and I refuse
to join the chorus of people saying it's an inferior movie.

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
So you've been brilliant. I've loved talking to you.

Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
However, when you are old, you're lying in bed and
your family is around you, you've got your fan around
and you say, guys, I just want to say I've
had a great time.

Speaker 1 (01:04:29):
You've all been You've been great.

Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
I'll miss you most of all scarecrow, and then you say,
give me that, give me that general, and someone puts
the general and they go put too much in, put
way too much, and they go count count to ten
and you go, yeah, well the thing is and then
you your heart explodes dead and your family are dancing

(01:04:54):
around you, and I hear music and I go, where's leaves?

Speaker 1 (01:04:59):
You're right, I'm with a coffin, you know what.

Speaker 4 (01:05:01):
I'm like, they're just dissecting the body.

Speaker 2 (01:05:04):
And yeah, they come up there and I'm like, what
I think, guys, help me out. We stuff you in
the coffin. There's more of you than I was expecting.
There's no room in this coffin. There's only enough room
to slip one DVD into the side to take across
to the other side and on the other side. In
a ninety eighties pizza hut with the teenage mutant nintertaitles,
it's movie night every night, and one night it's your
movie night. What film are you taking to show? The

(01:05:25):
stars have saved by the bell when it's your movie night?

Speaker 4 (01:05:28):
Have I directed this movie?

Speaker 1 (01:05:30):
No, you're just presenting a movie.

Speaker 4 (01:05:32):
It's just presenting a movie. I might, I might taking tea.
We mentioned it before, because ET, to me, represents the best.
It's actually a little scary and unnerving. It's a real
symphony of emotions. It's not one thing. It is mysterious
and ethereal, but it's real and the family feels real.
It doesn't feel mawkish. The divorced mother feels real. It's

(01:05:54):
it's it's almost like this masterclass in filmic perfection, and
it uses all all the paint brushes available to filmmakers.
The music is the music is fantastic. The the the
acting is fantastic. That might be my one, like Time Capsule,
like for Humanity is like, this is the best we
did film wise for me personally. You know, even if

(01:06:17):
Citizen Kane can objectively be appreciated, ET is like the
peak movie Lee.

Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
This has been such a sagre. I have really really
been so fun. I'm so grateful to you. I'm sorry
we had to wrest some of the questions, but that's
because no, no, I.

Speaker 4 (01:06:32):
Know, I feel bad for my lightning round, but I
was trying tell people.

Speaker 2 (01:06:37):
So. The next thing to look out for is wolf
Man correct coming out in January. Yes, we're all very
excited to see it. I've really loved this and good
luck with your movie.

Speaker 4 (01:06:47):
Yes, thank you, I really enjoyed this, and finally you
finally say shated my goal of answering those questions that
you asked on a podcast of like okay, movie that
you saw that doesn't hold up. I think about this
all day, so I might as well have an outlet
for the thoughts. So thank you very much. Have a
good one and thanks for having me on.

Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 4 (01:07:11):
So.

Speaker 2 (01:07:11):
That was episode three hundred and thirty four. Head over
to the Patreon at patreon dot com Forward Slash pret
Golds team for the extra twenty minutes of chat, secrets
and video with Lee. Go to Apple Podcasts give us
a five start writing but right about the film that
means the most to you and why it's a very
lovely thing to read. It helps with numbers and we
really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you so
much to Lee for giving me his time. Thanks to Screwbys,
Pip and the Distraction Pieces Network. Thanks to Buddy Peace

(01:07:33):
for producing it. Thanks to iHeart Meeta and Wilferrell's Big
Money Players Network for hosting it. Thanks to adamising Them
for the graphics and Lisa Laden for the photography. Come
and join me next week for another smasher of a guest.
But that is it for now. I hope everyone is well.
Thank you very much for listening, but in the meantime,
have a lovely week, and please, now more than ever,

(01:07:53):
be excellent to each other.

Speaker 6 (01:08:00):
Fast back back by the bust Backs of Sack by
LSU six brothers backs out back us back back back

(01:08:24):
back last sack b B backs back back