The official blog of Leigh Whannell! Welcome to my blog! I am officially screaming into the void!! http://thewordinthestone.com/ en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Weblog Editor 2.0 This past weekend, thousands of metalheads got together to watch a milestone event (if your idea of a milestone is four metal bands who held vague grudges against each other in the 80s deciding to finally go on tour together, that is). Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeth. The so-called Big Four. Playing a few hours from my house. And I wasn't there. I missed it. My excuse is so lame I can't even really recall it - something to do with a friends birthday, I think. I badly wish I had been there though. After reading a few of the more hilariously vitriolic reviews of 'Insidious'(and I quote:"The ludicrous plot comes to us from the less-than-spirited pen of director Wan's favorite collaborator Leigh Whannell, who also lends his acting services...perhaps if he had paid more attention to the script than his irksome performance as 'Specs,' he might have noticed certain idiocies"...that's just one line from a real cracker), I could have used some love. And that's what the Big Four concert would have been: a big, sloppy field of love. Allow me to explain. One of the more common misconceptions about heavy metal is that the fans who love it are as aggressive as the power chords employed by its masters. Nothing could be further from the truth. Heavy metal fans may wear a lot of black and have a lot of pierced flesh, but they are an extremely friendly bunch. Some of the nicest people you will ever meet. That is because heavy metal fans were not/are not the popular kids at your school (allow me to speak in the past tense, since high school is...ahem...far behind me). The popular kids - the ones who were good at sport and wore expensive clothes and had lots of friends and were generally great at attracting members of the opposite sex - did not listen to Napalm Death. There was no Morbid Angel in their record collection. There were no Sepultura stickers on their school bag. They listened to the music that was most like them; ie - POPULAR music, otherwise known as pop music. They identified with people who were number 1 on the charts. They knew what it was like to have an entourage - a crew of subservient slaves waiting on you hand and foot. (At my particular high school, the popular guys who got all the girls were the surfers. Yep, if you could stand up on a slab ofpolyurethane foam while moving on a wave, you had an instant passport to the best looking girls. It didn't hurt that being good at this usually meant you were tall and tanned and could grow a beard before everyone else. Anyway, the music of choice for these Point Break extras was the Red Hot Chilli Peppers - for years I couldn't bear to listen to them, so strong were they associated with the everything I hated but secretly desired)Heavy metal seems like pointless, atonal anger to anyone who has life on a keychain. If you love metal, it's because you are outside of that. Metal is a club that will allow anyone in. It's yours. It is not rock n roll, which is a genre whose sexiness allows the popular kids in. Heavy metal is not sexy. It is a unique genre in music because the only time you can listen to it is when you are on your own or when you are surrounded by others who like it. You won't hear it being piped in over the speakers at your local department store. It won't be the soundtrack to your favourite ice cream store. That's what makes it such good outsider music - anyone who doesn't love it will literally block their ears and make a face when it comes on. If I flip it on in my car, people react violently to it. "Turn this shit off!" is the common refrain of my friends. This would not happen with the latest hip-hop album. Finding someone to listen to metal with is like finding someone to watch amputee porn with - very difficult (I assume...I have seen next to no amputee porn, though I'm not against it. Why should someone who has had their leg bitten off by a mako shark be denied the right to have sex with someone called Bambii or TriXXXie on camera?) Metal is also unique because it's rules are so rigid and it's followers so loyal that it has barely changed. In all other genres of music, the trends and fashions change so much from year to year that a photo of a band or artist from ten years ago would be embarrassing to them now. Not so with metal. A photo of Slayer in 1986 is exactly the same as a photo of them in 2011, with the addition of a few wrinkles and the odd grey hair. It is reliable. It is your friend. It is there for you when you need it. Recently, I discovered my first real 'metal friend' in LA. I had become resigned to listening to Napalm Death in my car alone, or on my ipod on a treadmill, when I met someone who shares my love. That man is Joe Bishara - he did the music for 'Insidious' and also played the main bad guy in the film, a first I'm sure (imagine if John Williams played Darth Vader). As per usual for a metal fan, he is the nicest guy ever. I was ecstatic to find someone who could appreciate the finer points of Cannibal Corpse. A typical night of us hanging out goes something like this: I turn up at his house at around 10pm (his house, by the way, is very metal - the walls are painted black, there is very little furniture and his idea of decorating is a life-size statue of the creature from Alien). We then proceed to...um... 'medicate' together (weirdly, we both suffer from glaucoma and, tragically, have had to resort to medical marijuana to solve it). When the effects of our medication kick in, we proceed to watch hours of Swedish black metal videos. That is my idea of awesome. He recently took me to a metal show at the famed Whisky Club on Sunset Blvd. This legendary haunt, once frequented by the likes of Jim Morrison, now has to rely on bands with names like Goatwhore to keep it alive. We were there to see the satanic band Watain. These adorable Swedish boys decorate their stage with inverted crosses and cow skulls and dress in zombie make-up. When they were about to come on, an indescribable stench wafted into my nostrils, one that Joe and I assumed was a stink bomb. We were wrong - it turned out that the smell was rotten meat. Meat that Watain was dragging around with them on tour. THAT is metal. It may not be PETA-friendly, but it's metal. I had a ball. It reminded me of my one true 'metal friend' from high school, a young chap called Mark Gordon. He is the one who introduced me to Metallica. As teenagers, he and I would spend our Saturday nights thrashing around his living room, air-guitaring with fury (instead of going to parties, where the popular kids were). I remember that at one of the few parties we actuallydidget invited to, he and I lost our collective shit when a Helmet song came on and began head-banging like possessed sock-puppets. The party was taking place on the boards of an indoor basketball court and the DJ had decided to cave to one of our insistent requests. As I thrashed about, I heard a laugh and looked up - only to see Wayne Hourigan, a guy firmly entrenched in the 'popular and good at sport and comfortable talking to girls' crowd, pointing and laughing at me. "Look at him", he said, with all the disdain he could muster. I slowed down, duly chastened and embarrassed. Years later, when Mark and I finally got old enough to possess fake ID's and one authentic drivers license (it was Mark's - he was both a motorhead and a Motorhead), we made the journey out of our dull suburban neighbourhood and headed for the mythical lights of 'the big city'. Melbourne - a great live music town, then and now - was dotted by pubs where you could see three or four bands in a night. We headed straight for one where our favourite local metal band was playing - Suiciety (still one of the all time metal band names in my opinion). After a pulse-pounding wait to get past the bouncers with our less than convincing ID's, we launched ourselves into the fray as Suiciety's opening chords rang out in this sweaty little watering hole. Men much bigger than me were swinging their arms like they were doing an impersonation of a helicopter during a particularly frantic game of 'Cranium'. It didn't take long for a puny guy like me to get knocked down - and it didn't take long for the stocky, shaved headed guy who had struck me to reach out and lift me up. It didn't matter. I was smiling anyway. I was home. http://www.thewordinthestone.com/#!106 The following story is true. One night in the not-too-distant past, my beautiful wife Corbett and I went out to a restaurant called Opaque. Our favorite thing to do is to go on date nights to restaurants we've never been to before, and it's even better if the restaurant is notable in some kitschy and/or quirky way. This particular establishment was 'notable' for its total lack of light. It was literally pitch black inside - an illogical hook for a restaurant given that seeing what you're eating is half the fun. I do not jest when I say that you could not see your own hand in front of your face - so yes, that lobster bisque I ordered could have been goat sperm mixed with orphan snot and I wouldn't have really known (save for instantly recognizing the salty texture of goat sperm, of course). The waiters in the restaurant were blind (I'm serious) and I can only hope the same didn't go for the chef. Not that blind people don't make good chefs, it's just...forget it. Anyway, to find out for myself just how pitch dark the place was, I took my pants off (much to my wife's protests). I thought I was pretty funny until a hand tapped me on the shoulder and I looked up to see the tiny, glowing red 'POWER' light of a pair of night-vision goggles, glaring down at me like Buffalo Bill from 'Silence Of The Lambs'. "Please put your pants back on, sir", said a curt male voice with all the "We've got another pants-remover who thinks he's real funny and original, but he's not he's the fourth tonight" disdain he could muster. The point is that sometimes when you think nobody is watching, they are. This is a thought that swims through my head as I sweat out the last week before 'Insidious' is unleashed upon the public. The company releasing the film have all been amazing and there have been some fantastic trailers and promotions for the film; but really, the success of a film relies solely upon one intangible force - the public's desire to see the film. I have moments of self-doubt when I think nobody's watching - that they are not tuned in to our little film. It is in these moments that I have to remind myself that unless I possessed some X-Men-esque ability to leap into the minds of everyone in the world who's not me, I'll never really know what they're thinking. So I try to relax. The other thing that gives me pause is what the critics at large will think of the film. Critics are one of those double-edged swords of the film world - if they love you, you love them. If they hate you, you hate them. It's as simple as that. One solution that has been put to me by others is to simply ignore all reviews - good or bad - and therefore never be affected by what they write. The catch for me is that I really do care what they think, which makes ignoring them impossible. I am an avid reader of film criticism in my daily life and I rely on them to sort out the wheat from the chaff for me. I also think critics play a vital role in bringing recognition to smaller, independent films that may go unrecognized without them. On top of all this, I used to review films myself on an Australian TV show. I basically used my segment as an excuse to tell jokes, but it instilled in me a real respect for what critics do. Even when a critic acts like a snide, self-important punk, they still serve a purpose. Like the movie-going public's decision about what to see, their opinion is out of my hands. I think the best thing I can do is surround myself with people I love the weekend the film comes out. That way, they'll be there to celebrate with me if the film does well and console me if not. So I guess the moral is - the opinion of people you have never met is not as important as that of the people you love, who will be there for you no matter what the New York Times thinks of your film. And also, don't take your pants off in a pitch dark restaurant. And whatever you do, don't order the lobster bisque. http://www.thewordinthestone.com/#!105 This blog is hungry. I am starving it. Obviously I know that are not a great deal of people out there who care what or when I write in this thing, but to anyone who does, I apologize for the radio silence of late. It feels frivolous to muse about the goings on in my life when there is an entire country sifting through the rubble of their shattered lives and the horrific images coming out of Japan are blazing across TV screens 24-7. I suppose the best you can do is help out in any way you can, even with a small donation, whilst remembering that potential disaster lurks around the corner for all of us on this speck of cosmic dust, so try to do some good while the going is good. The other reason for the tumbleweeds blowing through my blog is that I have been in Austin, Texas, at the much hyped South By Southwest festival. I have been to Austin many times before and have always been in love with its laid-back, dusty charms. To me it is a quintessential American frontier town, mixed with a big cities love for all things new and independent. A place where it's okay to wear cowboy boots and worship the Polyphonic Spree at the same time. A place that loves to crack a beer, relax and discuss Plato. The perfect place for an Australian, in other words. This visit to Austin, though, was different. The city was crowded. More frazzled. For SXSW, people jet in from all over the world to seize a piece of magic. They are seeking the NEXT BIG THING. The key word here is next. The present means nothing to these people - it is merely a drab room to pace in while they wait for the future to arrive. The world's mind has already been made up about the present; there is nothing more to say, nothing left to predict. Katy Perry sits on top of the charts, James Franco does public performance art in front of a billion people, Twitter is the drug of choice. Blah, blah, boring - that's so 2011. What these people are seeking are the Monday morning discussions of the future. While we sit at our computers and struggle to come up with a new Charlie Sheen joke, these guys are busy planning our summer of 2014. The standard uniform for these future warriors appears to be skinny jeans and shirts with the sleeves rolled to the elbow. Their weapons of choice are Apple products: i-pads, i-phones and Macbooks. There is an undeniable electric energy in the air as these Starbucks-toting out-of-towners patrol the streets of Austin, trying to sniff out the next big thing in music and film. It got me thinking about the idea of being 'almost there'. That moment before something becomes common knowledge. I have been there before, in my own small way, with the first 'Saw' film. Now, the 'Saw' films are so ubiquitous that they've popped up in everything from 'The Simpsons' to 'The Sopranos' (still my favourite). There was a time, however, when nobody knew of it. James Wan and I turned up to the Sundance film festival in January of 2004 and experienced what it's like to be name checked as 'the next big thing'. I'm not gonna lie - it's kinda fun. When people think you're going to mean something in a few months, you are given the kind of absolute focus and "I'm-listening-to-every-word-you're-saying" attention that usually only occurs at our wedding or our funeral (and I guess you can't really enjoy it at your funeral). There is something exhilarating about being whisked past a long line into a party because you have been designated a 'VIP'. More than just a mere mortal human. Who wouldn't get caught up in that? Then, of course, you get into the party and realize it's just you and Lance Bass picking over a stale platter of sushi while Diplo plays a remix of 'Manic Mondays' to bunch of guys in suits...and that this 'exclusive Sundance party' isn't really that great after all. The fun part already happened - getting past the line. The second problem is that this can't last. Just as the ruthless march of time ensures that we can never be 'forever young' (no matter what a plastic surgeon tells you), you can never be the 'next big thing' in music or film for long. Eventually you are merely 'the thing' - and at that point, it is up to you to survive. The public will decide if you mean anything to them - and the future deciders have already moved on to the new. When James and I turned up at SXSW with Insidious under our arms, we were more like veterans. People have made up their minds about us, they blame us for 'Saw' or maybe they love it. We're just trying to keep making films now and hoping people like them. No one is cutting us any 'new kid' slack. And that's fine. The big rage at this years SXSW was an LA hip-hop group called, aptly, Odd Future. Everywhere you went, people were talking about them. Whispering about where they might show up. The group seems to be enjoying the attention and so they should. Eventually the day will come when they're not the Odd Future anymore, but the Odd Present. The mystique will be gone and all that will be left is their talent. They seem to have a LOT of it, so I'm sure they'll be fine. But just in case things don't go the way they want...they can always turn on the TV and see people in Japan watching their lives wash away, waiting to hear about an impending nuclear disaster. Then, hopefully, they'll realize that no matter how much you plan your future, life has a way of scrapping your plans and creating new paths for you on this speck of cosmic dust. The best thing you can do is follow the Austin example: relax, man. And try to do some good while the going is good. http://www.thewordinthestone.com/#!104 So James and I are now in Chicago and we're going through another round of interviews. The strange art of promotion is in full effect. So far all the interviews have been great and it's all going swimmingly. I'll post some musings about it in the very near future. Until then, I will digress with a shorter piece about something I've been thinking about for...oh, the last hour or so. One particular interviewer asked us about the title sequence for 'Insidious', which I love. I've always been a huge fan of the Saul Bass opening title sequences from 'Psycho', 'The Birds' and 'Goodfellas', but as attention spans get shorter and advertising in movie theatres gets longer, the opening title sequence has started to disappear from films. And it's a dang shame. I love opening titles that set the tone for the film in a creative way. They can become memorable scenes within themselves if executed well enough - I think the opening credits of 'Seven' are a stand-alone work of art that places you inside the mind of the films villain, John Doe. And would 'Jaws' have been as great if it cut out the titles and started with the kids drinking on the beach? I think not, good sir. Below is an example of a recent opening title sequence that I thought was ah-mazing. The folks from Brainbowinc, the guys who built this site, posted a link to it recently and I was reminded of how great it is. It's from the Gaspar Noe film 'Enter The Void', which in itself is a cinematic head trip very worthy of your time if you haven't seen it. It's shot entirely from the main characters point of view, a young man living a wastoid life in Tokyo with his sister. Things get really trippy when he dies early on, and we spend the rest of the film floating around the neon-drenched back streets, spying on anyone who goes near his little sis. Anyway, I saw these opening titles in a theatre and they blew my head off. Check them out - and then check the film out. You've been warned. http://www.thewordinthestone.com/#!103 Imagine being a guitarist on tour with Van Halen, but without any of the gigs at Madison Square Garden or groupies or hard drinking or private planes or screaming fans or autographs or roadies. That's pretty much what it's like to tour around America promoting a film. James and I have done this before - in September of 2004 we hot-footed it around the US, doing interview after interview about our (then) underdog horror film. Ever since I worked on a live TV show in Australia many years ago that featured bands performing in the studio (it was kind of like David Letterman's show...if that show was hosted by a scrappy pierced guy with black nail polish and aimed squarely at teenagers), I have fantasized about being on tour with a band. Possessing no musical talent to speak of - though when I'm drunk in a karaoke bar, I seem to believe I can move people to tears with my rendition of 'Against All Odds' - it is impossible for me to fulfill this rockstar dream. Every band I spoke to when I worked on the aforementioned TV show told me that I was romanticizing the actual reality of huddling in a van with four other people and slugging it out on the road. They told me it was hard. Draining. Sometimes even soul-crushing. That didn't deter me though...but nor did my dreams get me any closer to the main stage at Coachella. So the way I looked at it, James' and I's tour around the US was the consolation prize. The closest I would ever get to a rock tour. And in the end, the rockers were right. It is draining. Even the diet version. On that tour, we found ourselves getting up at 5 every morning (to a screenwriter that's like getting up at midnight) to go to some radio station and the drill was always the same: "Hey there people, you're listening to WKLY The Fuzz, the HOME of ROCK in Denver!! This is JD and we're about to talk to two guys who made a badass horror film, I haven't seen it but I hear it rocks - but before we talk to them let's hear some Hooooooobastank!!" I'm not complaining - it was fun and we got to see a lot of the country. But we were younger then.Now we're...older. I won't say how old. (Just know that the first time you know you're getting older is that you want to take a nap after a big meal. Which I have done.)Anyway, this month we are are staring down the barrel of a similar tour. So far we've been to Philadelphia and New York and I already feel like I just completed a ten hour Shake-Weights class with 80s Robin Williams as the instructor. Last night I went with my good friend Colin to see the Spider-Man broadway show, which I liked (does that make me Glenn Beck?). Afterwards, I walked out into Times Square and was hit by a rush of that very common virus that pours out of the flashing neon signs for Disney and Victoria's Secret and afflicts tourists on their first day in the city - OhmygodIfeelalivefortheveryfirsttime-isitis. The symptoms are obvious. You get a dumbstruck grin on your face like you are a plow mechanic from Yippsville, Texas who just stepped off a bus in the big smoke, and you get a spring in your step like you're about to start singing 'Maria'. The virus leads to common statements like "I need to move here!" and more dangerous statements like "Colin, let's go bar-hopping in the East Village!" Now I am suffering and trying to remember to pace myself. JD in Denver will expect me at my best! Come to think of it, thank the lord that I don't have to walk out onstage with Van Halen at Madison Square Garden tonight. I'd have to do the walk of shame up to microphone and say "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm too tired to perform tonight. I'm sorry. But don't worry - I've booked a replacement act at short notice..." "Hooooooobastank!" http://www.thewordinthestone.com/#!102 Tweets. Facebook posts. Drinking. A dangerous combination. I am in New York City and I'm having the standard reaction of any person who's spent a significant amount of time in LA - "Oh my God, the bars are open past 2am!!" Now I have returned to my hotel room and the computer is growling at me. "Feed me" it is saying. I have realized that I have lit a fire which must eternally stay on. This fire needs to keep having coal shoved into it in case - God Forbid - people tune out. The problem is that I can't just feed it with anything. I need to say something profound. Impactful. Something that can be re-tweeted or forwarded or remembered. The vortex of relevance is drawing into it's evil web. The conundrum is this: write something only when you have something to say OR write anythingstupid just to keep up appearances. I guess I am trying to turn this late-night, half-drunk blog entry into a cake-having-and-eating combination of both - an inane ramble that somehow turns into a commentary on the "This Is What I'm Doing Right Now" twitter culture that we've created for ourselves. What are we really talking about if we have nothing to say? At least Twitter demands brevity - here at The Word In The Stone I can ramble about whatever the hell I want for as long as I want. I like that freedom. Go see Insidious. Lord help me. http://www.thewordinthestone.com/#!101 Ahoy there ladies and gentlemen! I shouldn't be presumptuous - maybe it's just a lady and a gentlemen. Or just a lady. Probably a gentlemen. However many of you there are out there in the slime-filled black hole known as the blogosphere, my name is Leigh Whannell. This is a big moment for me. This is the official first entry of my brand spankin' new blog-slash-website. If this website were a boat, this blog entry is the champagne bottle that is smashed across the bow before it's maiden voyage. Let's hope the seas are kind to my vessel. For a long time, I was that annoying would-be luddite in your group of friends. You know the guy - the one who refuses to get an ipad because books are more 'real', still writes appointments down in a paper journal and doesn't have a Facebook page because 'human interaction' is important to him. Most likely, Ian McKaye is his favorite musician. I'm that guy. I know, I know - not having a Facebook page doesn't exactly make you Abbie Hoffman, but it still felt like a small rebellion in a world where sharing photos of your new puppy in a funny hat passes as interacting with your 'friends'. Well, today that all changes. I have built this website as a place to write down musings, share info with anyone who cares...and maybe even post a photo of a dog in a hat every now and then. And I gotta say - I'm pretty excited about it. Some awesome kids who call themselves Brainbow Inc have built the site for me, and another awesome guy named Benjamin Marra has done the art for it. All I have to do is make all their effort worthwhile by filling in the blank spaces with words that are worth somebody's - anybody's - time. This being my debut entry, forgive me if it is brief. I'm trying to introduce myself. So, my name Is Leigh. According to Wikipedia, the most significant thing I've done in my life is write the film 'Saw'. I went on to write the first two sequels to that film, and I've also written a few other films that are yet to come out. Right now I am in NYC promoting a film that I wrote called Insidious. My good friend James Wan directed it. It comes out on April 1st. Go and see it if you like having the crap scared out of you! Uh oh...my first plug. At this rate, I'll have a Facebook page in a week or two. But I'll still never read a book on an ipad. Books are just so real. Fight The Power, man. http://www.thewordinthestone.com/#!100