The movie that “scarred” James Wan and changed his cinematic direction
When he’s not directing billion-dollar superhero movies or orchestrating explosive action sequels, James Wan can be found in his comfort zone of horror, where he’s become one of the genre’s most important 21st-century figures.
Having co-created a pair of the most lucrative scary sagas in cinema history through Saw and the Conjuring universe, it goes without saying that the writer, director, and producer is among the most influential filmmakers big screen spooky storytelling has produced in decades.
More often than not, there tends to be a disconcerting inanimate object along for the ride, whether it’s Billy the malevolent puppet from Saw, the terrifying doll Annabelle, the creepy ventriloquist dummy from Dead Silence, or the titular companion from his Atomic Monster-produced M3GAN.
Sure, they may be staples of horror that have been used to send shivers down the spines of audiences for years, but Wan laid the finger of blame for his obsession with the trope on one film in particular, one that united a pair of powerhouse purveyors of genre fare to launch a lucrative money-spinning enterprise that’s given rise to sequels, remakes, reboots, and TV shows.
Tasking the director of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to helm a supernatural spooker developed, co-written, produced, and ghost directed by one of the best in the business if anyone chooses to buy into the rumours surrounding its production, Tobe Hooper and Steven Spielberg’s Poltergeist sparked Wan’s imagination to such an extent that his career would look markedly different without its influence.
As he explained to Entertainment Weekly, Poltergeist was “definitely a very influential film for me, and I saw it at a very young impressionable age”. Not only that but “it made a huge impression” on the youngster, setting the stage for what was to come when he was afforded the chance to mount his own take on inexpressive playthings as beacons for nerve-shredding terror.
“That creepy clown doll definitely scarred me for life, but I also like to say that I’m a big collector of these kinds of things,” he reasoned, outlining that it was much more than a traumatic, formative experience. “I love my collectibles, my action figures, and so naturally, the idea of making movies based on one of these things coming to life is exciting for me. It’s thrilling, and, of course, in the horror genre, it means I can have a lot of fun with a story like that.”
Moreover, Wan has also described Poltergeist as being the film that “sent me down my obsessive path towards all things evil doll/puppet-related,” doubling down on just how heavily it impacted his creative thinking. For anyone left haunted by Annabelle, Billy, Megan, or any of the rest of the characters he’s had a hand in creating, there’s really nobody else to blame besides Spielberg.
