Leigh Whannell is a legend in the horror and genre film community. Since writing and acting in the first Saw film, he has written Dead Silence, Cooties, the Insidious movies, as well as even more installments in the legacy of Jigsaw. Now he is debuting his movie that he has both written and directed: Upgrade. Much like the first Saw movie (a welcome surprise that literally no one saw coming), I think Upgrade, produced by Blumhouse Studios, will be a surprise genre hit as word-of-mouth spreads, after it won the Audience Award at SXSW this year.
After a recent pre-screening (read my review here), I was fortunate enough to get some time to sit down and discuss Upgrade, Saw and some very specific questions about director’s commentaries with Whannell.
These responses have been edited for clarity and conciseness. Mostly on my part.
Super Kaiju: You’ve been pretty focused on straight horror in the past and this is kind of a different beast since it is more science-fiction and action-based. How was that for you when writing and directing?
Leigh Whannell: It was great. I think if I kept making films in the horror genre, I would become bored of my own interpretation of the genre … and the horror genre would become bored of me. So I feel it’s really healthy to go out and try new genres and exercise different muscles. And so this was something that was a bit out of my comfort zone. I’m not the guy that claims to know everything about every sci-fi film ever made and I’m not somebody who reads up on potential futuristic situations. But I knew that I had a story that I liked.
And so that’s the thing that keeps me going through the making of a film. It’s just the passion for the story. And I was passionate about the story.
SK: There were things in this movie that felt like HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey and the guns in the arm felt very Cronenberg-esque. Were there any films that you used as inspiration?
LW: Well, I definitely didn’t want to make a straight homage. I didn’t want to just make a solid tribute to a movie I loved.
I always remember this Francis Ford Coppola quote: “Filmmakers don’t make films about real life anymore. They make films about other films.” And that sticks with me. Not to say this is a movie that represents real life in any way. It’s still a genre film: it’s not a drama about my relationship with my father but I do take a quote like that to heart and I want to add something new to the conversation.
If I’m going to put a film out there and go through all that work, I want people to come out of it thinking, “Wow I hadn’t seen that before.” Even if it’s just one element of the film that stays with them as unique. And so I try to steer away from direct homage to other films.
I was, however, Inspired by some movies’ sense of bravado and their punk spirit. I came of age in the 80’s in the age of video stores. I remember going to the video store to rent movies before the advent of CGI, before Jurassic Park and Terminator 2. Films like RoboCop and the original Terminator, Scanners, Videodrome and The Fly. These are movies that had big sci-fi ideas but were contained because they had to utilize practical effects and had to make the film on a budget. That was really inspiring to me.
So definitely those movies are in the DNA of this movie.
SK: This isn’t your first Blumhouse film, since you’ve done all the Insidious movies with them. But since this not a franchise, what were some of the constraints you had to work with, under the budget that Upgrade had?
LW: There were a lot. I mean, you are given an allotted budget and you have to squeeze the movie into that box. There was a lot of bargaining with the producers. I remember at one stage in the script there were ten police cars in a car chase and they were all smashing into each other and it was this smash-up derby on the freeway. Of course, the producers came to me in pre-production and said “So … umm … what if it’s just one car?” And my initial reaction was, “That’s not a car chase!” But eventually you come around and realize even with one car you can make a big impact. So it was a lot of that bargaining to get it where it was, but I’m happy with the result.
I don’t look at the movie and think I’m missing something.
SK: So the main character is anti-technology. Is that something that came out of your own personal life? Are you hesitant with new tech?
LW: I am a little bit. I mean, I wouldn’t consider myself a luddite, I have an iPhone in my pocket. We actually screened the film at Apple. We went to the Apple office in Cupertino and screened the movie and it was amazing to be there, surrounded by these people who are building the world we will inherit five years from now. They are five years in front of us and I really have respect for what they do … but I’m certainly not an early adopter.
I’m someone that is very suspicious on our technology reliance. I still write scripts longhand first. I like using a pad and a pen, before going to a laptop. I still buy physical discs, instead of downloading movies. I like to hold a physical object. So there are certain things that I think about in my personality that reject the digital form of something. I guess I would fall somewhere in the middle of luddite and someone who loves technology.
SK: He talks to his A.I, “STEM”, throughout the movie and it’s almost like a more advanced version of Siri or Alexa. Do you have something like that where you live?
LW: Much to my wife and I’s chagrin, we do have Alexa in our house … my daughter has ordered so much stuff. All she does is say, “Alexa order me a Barbie” and then it arrives in the mail. So, we might have to get rid of Alexa but it also saves my life in the morning. I have eight-month-old twins at home and when they are crying I go, “Alexa, play nursery rhymes.” And there’s this moment where they are both transfixed, So I give thanks to Alexa, as well.
SK: So do you treat Alexa nice? I know some people purposely talk down to their smart devices.
LW: Ya know I have tried that experiment. I’ve asked “Alexa, do you hate me?” I still think it’s kind of like Skynet. She’s listening and she’s gonna play nice for awhile but eventually she’s gonna launch missiles. I do think it was creepy when someone programmed it to laugh. It would just laugh at random times, like 3 o’clock in the morning. If I was just sitting in my house late at night and I heard that laugh, I think I would run to the nearest police station.
SK: A few days ago I rewatched the original Saw … with the director’s commentary. And it’s really funny with you, James Wan and Cary Elwes bouncing off each other. But there were some times where you brought up how you had to cut things or “cheat” scenes. Everything was filmed indoors, with driving scenes filmed in a garage with fog rushing past the windows. Was there anything like that while filming Upgrade?
LW: Well, instead of cheating on this movie, we sort of just … reduced. Instead of throwing the bad guy through the window, I’m rewriting the script at the last minute so that we throw him through a TV screen, forcing his head down through shattered glass. Originally, he goes through the window and plummets four stories down to his death.
What you realize when you make a film, however, is that the audiences really don’t care if he goes through the window or not. As long as you have made an impact, you’re good.
SK: That same Saw commentary is one of my favorite special features that has ever been included on a DVD. Are you going to do anymore like that?
LW: I would love to. In fact, there may be a chance that James and I will be doing another commentary for Saw on Facebook Live soon. We will re-watch it and talk about it. I really love commentaries. It’s a great film school isn’t it?
SK: Well the one you did for Saw definitely was. You went into the backstory about how you all were friendly on set but then you also went into how you had to improvise because of the budget or re-shoots and how James Wan would just go out and take a bunch of stills and it was very interesting. And it all works. Then you go back and watch it again after the commentary and you can see how all the pieces fit.
LW: Thanks for saying that. I know some directors reject commentaries because they don’t want to demystify their own movies.
I think I heard Spielberg has never done one, nor Tarantino. But I love it. I actually think that audio commentaries for films are a great film school. You can probably learn more from a few good DVD commentaries than you can from three years of film school. Because you are actually hearing from the source, you can take in a lot, hearing it from the person that made the film.
And it’s personal, too. You don’t go to a movie theater and listen to an audio commentary … it’s in your house. It’s just you. I have a really personal relationship with some of them. Some movies I love to this day are because of the commentary, because I feel like the director was talking directly to me and talking to me through it.
I want to thank Allied Marketing for arranging this time, as well as Leigh for taking the time to sit down with us to talk about his new film (and hear me gush about the Saw DVD commentary). And if you have any recommendations for a good audio commentary, definitely tweet at @LWhannell.
