James Wan
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Poltergeist (1982)
Directed by Tobe Hooper
influenced Insidious (2011), The Conjuring 2 (2016), The Conjuring (2013)
Themes Plot
From The Old Dark House (1932) to The Haunting (1963) to The Amityville Horror (1979) to Poltergeist (1982) to recent hits like Sinister, Paranormal Activity, and Insidious — to say nothing of their sequels — audiences never seem to tire of things that go bump in the night, especially when it happens in a location that seems familiar, safe, and comfortable.
There’s been a good bit of criticism that Insidious is too like Poltergeist (1982).
What used to be so beautifully easy in The Haunting or House on Haunted Hill or The Innocents became a little bit tougher in The Amityville Horror and Poltergeist — and nowadays you have to break out the video camera if you want to dazzle a young audience with your Paranormal Activity and your Grudge-inspired phantoms.
Whannell’s script ties together a number of tropes that will be familiar to anyone who has seen The Exorcist (1973), Don’t Look Now (1973), The Amityville Horror (1979), and Poltergeist (1982), but let’s be honest: We don’t go to horror movies for originality.
His 2007 thrillers “Death Sentence” and “Dead Silence” failed to impress, so he rejoined “Saw” writer/actor Leigh Whannell in this formulaic, clichéd venture into the spiritual world that evokes memories of the far-better “Poltergeist” (1982).
Insidious isn’t a particularly original film; the fingerprints of other movies are all over it, especially Poltergeist (it doesn’t just ‘homage’ movies.
The Exorcist (1973)
Directed by William Friedkin
influenced Insidious (2011), The Conjuring (2013), The Conjuring 2 (2016)
Themes Visuals
With its minimal use of digital effects, its strong, sympathetic performances and ace design work, the pic harks back in themes and methods to The Exorcist and The Amityville Horror , not quite attaining the poignancy and depth of the former but far exceeding the latter in sheer cinematic beauty.
While it owes an obvious debt to the likes of “The Exorcist,” “Poltergeist” and “ The Amityville Horror ” (itself inspired by the Warrens’ most famous case), this exuberantly creepy supernatural shocker is in many ways the film Wan has been working toward his whole career; it not only incorporates elements from his 2007 demon-doll thriller “Dead Silence” and his 2010 haunted-house saga “Insidious,” which felt like a warm-up exercise by comparison, but also taps into the sly, self-aware vein of humor that has long been one of Wan’s trademarks.
The movie is the result of years of work by producer Tony DeRosa-Grund, who assembled an ideal team and delivered a horror movie that can be favorably compared to classics like “The Exorcist,” “Rosemary’s Baby” and “Psycho.”
One of the scarier haunted house/demon possession movies in recent years, it brings to mind '70s supernatural horror films such as The Exorcist with its stillness, steady build of suspense and handsome cinematography.
There's some degree of religiosity in the picture (The Exorcist, after all, is like Top Gun for Catholics--or vice versa, I don't know; can you believe it was a witch?) that's echoed in interviews with the real-life Warrens, but, honestly, this thing is so allergic to anything like complexity that it's not worth anyone's time to dig around in there, either.
On its way toward a conclusion that manages to recall 1973's "The Exorcist" while taking the treatment of a real-life exorcism in a whole different direction, "The Conjuring" doesn't quite explore the tragic, malevolent backstory of the Perron farmhouse with the level of detail hoped for.
The Shining (1980)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
influenced Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013), Insidious (2011), The Conjuring (2013), The Conjuring 2 (2016), Malignant (2021), Saw (2004)
Plot Themes Visuals Characters
In less of a nod than a flat-out rip-off of The Shining , the affliction can only be cured by the wholesale slaughter of Josh's family, as his own soul is stuck wandering the afterlife.
If Insidious Chapter 1 was little more than a classy and respectful homage to Poltergeist, then Insidious Chapter 2 borrows a few pages from “loony dad” thrillers like The Shining and The Stepfather.
What’s left is for genre fans to pass their time checking off the filmmakers’ borrowings (Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, Steven Spielberg’s Poltergeist) while home-renovation buffs can ogle the bizarre clutter of Lorraine’s residence.
If the first “Insidious” often felt like an affectionate hat-tip to “The Shining,” with its gifted child able to commune with the undead (via the nocturnal art of astral projection), “Chapter 2” continues the homage by having Wilson go full Jack Torrance on us, as the seemingly upstanding Josh starts to seem less and less himself, and possibly turning into something quite dangerous.
When I realized that “Insidious: Chapter 2” was going to borrow liberally from “The Shining” (and stay tuned to the site next week for an early review of Steven King’s highly-anticipated sequel, “Doctor Sleep”), I got a little excited.
The other is Wilson’s low-key impression of Jack Nicholson in The Shining .
Taxi Driver (1976)
Directed by Martin Scorsese
influenced Death Sentence (2007)
Plot Visuals Characters Themes
"Dead Silence," about a malevolent ventriloquist's dummy, was an amusing homage to the cheesy matinee thrillers of yesteryear, and "Death Sentence" culminates in a highly accurate re-creation of "Taxi Driver."
Perhaps it’s supposed to resonate the same way that Travis Bickel’s bloody finger did in Taxi Driver, but Wan isn’t out to make some metaphysical point.
That's Violent with a capitol "V." Rhyme that with "T," and that stands for "Taxi Driver," a movie that has nothing to do with "Death Sentence" except a graphic and gory ending sequence that the new movie follows nearly shot for shot.
It all ends (blessedly) with a rip off of Scorsese’s magnificent Taxi Driver.
Then, when the tragedy occurs, he becomes the equivalent of Robert De Niro's Mohawk-cut avenger in "Taxi Driver."
With a title whose clumsy brutality echoes a Steven Seagal film, Death Sentence is a roiling nightmare of Straw Dogs meets Taxi Driver at the Death Wish corral, and it may be the most depressing action movie ever made.
After the near death experience of Justice League, it appears the thinking went something like this: the DCEU has to storm back with a movie of such crowd pleasing bravado and scale that the audience, though their brains will naturally resist, will ultimately surrender to its relentless action and a sub-aquatic succession drama modelled on proven templates, sorry hits, like Thor and Black Panther.
Whereas “Justice League” was a feeble attempt to deliver the DC answer to “The Avengers,” Wan’s “Aquaman” imitates Marvel’s “Thor” to an embarrassing degree.
The people who made three “Thor” films never seemed to have this problem.
Very much mirroring Tron (visually, all of Atlantis has some strong hints) and the Bifrost in Thor —the highway beautifully merges classicism with technology—as fish-shaped ships glide through beams of light-like street lanes over a glittering glass road with giant classical statues surrounding them.
Don’t worry that it practically tells the same story as Thor and Black Panther (and has more than a few echoes of Wonder Woman too): Aquaman is too much of a goofy stand-alone to be called a rip-off, and it’s also playing with decades of comic book lore that likely predate its more recent cinematic predecessors.
It has echoes of an underwater Thor, which is probably where its tone should have sat, but it wanders off into Tomb Raider territory, and even has some horror elements.
The Mummy (1999)
Directed by Stephen Sommers
influenced Aquaman (2018)
Dialogue Visuals Characters Plot
At its best, Aquaman channels family-friendly action adventures, with Mera and Arthur's argumentative back-and-forth being particularly reminiscent of Rachel Weisz and Brendan Fraser's chemistry in 1999's The Mummy (the new movie even manages to insert a desert set piece in among the underwater adventures).
Scenes in the Sahara—where Aquaman and Mera jump out of a plane for seemingly no reason—meant to be like “Indiana Jones” ends up feeling like something much cornier akin to Brendan Fraser’s “The Mummy.”
Instead of a brooding mess of muddled deconstructionism, Aquaman just wants to be a light-hearted swashbuckling adventure flick in the vein of Pirates of the Caribbean or 1999’s The Mummy .
Y acertaron: James Wan logró su cometido al robarse, de Ant-Man 2 , el humor, la idea de un universo escondido y de una mamá guerrera perdida (vean el traje de Kidman y el de Pfeiffer); de Black Panther la mitad del argumento, la batalla entre hermanos y la idea de una sociedad escondida con pistas de superioridades raciales (más allá del argumento de Geoff); De Power Rangers lo ridículo de sus villanos; de Uncharted los pequeños puzzles de dudosa complejidad y, de The Mummy , la estética aventurera del desierto; de Thor: Ragnarok el atrevimiento de una estética neón insolente y de Pacific Rim el diseño de un Kaiju que, también, toma mucho del Smaug de Tolkien en su forma de hablar (con una sorpresiva Julie Andrews detrás del doblaje).
If you don’t take it too seriously, “Aquaman” has a variety of delights: Momoa is a natural star, and his charisma makes Arthur appealingly goofy; Arthur’s relationship with the more straitlaced Mera is often funny and brings to mind “The Mummy” franchise from the late 1990s; and the underwater world that director James Wan creates is detailed and impressive, if you can accept that gigantic seahorses are creatures of war.
It’s sort of like The Mummy , though we need a John Hannah.
It's not long before Malignant starts to recall old-time favorites like Brian De Palma's Sisters (1973) and Frank Henenlotter's Basket Case (1982), as well as any other number of supernatural slashers and terrifying tales of imaginary friends (there's even a nod to old "women in prison" movies).
At times the film recalls cult classics including Frank Henenlotter’s “Basket Case” and Tobe Hooper’s “Lifeforce” but also science fiction from the decade.
There are influences at play that range from Lucio Fulci, Hammer Horror, Re-Animator (1985), The Evil Dead (1981), Basket Case (1982), and a plethora of others.
Annabelle: Creation (2017)
Directed by David F. Sandberg
influenced by The Conjuring (2013), Insidious (2011), The Conjuring 2 (2016)
Plot
Annabelle: Creation is an origin story for The Conjuring franchise.
With franchise mania creeping across genres into James Wan’s The Conjuring universe, we were subjected to a mediocre first spin off with Annabelle (2014).
An idiotic, incoherent, cynical cash-in that treated horror fans like fools, it was clearly a lazy and hurried money spinner after the success of James Wan's The Conjuring .
Annabelle was first introduced in The Conjuring, directed by Wan and based in the real-life lore of ghostbusters and demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren.
And for those of you who are curious, Creation does tie into the original Annabelle and we also get nods to The Conjuring as well as the real-life haunted doll, too.
Lights Out proved that Sandberg loves the horror genre so it didn’t surprise me when Warner Brothers announced that he would direct Annabelle: Creation, the next film in what can now be described as The Conjuring Cinematic Universe.
Paranormal Activity (2007)
Directed by Oren Peli
influenced Insidious (2011), The Conjuring (2013), The Conjuring 2 (2016)
Themes Plot
As a result, and especially if seen with a vocal, communal crowd, the film -- like "Paranormal Activity" and others of its ilk -- comes off more like a theme park haunted house attraction where giddy laughs accompany the shrieks and screams.
Smarter and more consistent than all of the Paranormal Activity films put together, James Wan’s interim project between Insidious installments exudes both studio respectability and grindhouse urgency.
Some of the mash-ups make sense -- "Paranormal Activity" segues smoothly into "The Exorcist" -- but does Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" really belong here?
It almost feels miraculous when something genuinely scary finds its way onto 2,000 screens, like the first Paranormal Activity (2009), Insidious (2010), and Sinister (2012).
It’s Paranormal Activity with real cameras.
The Conjuring is a film that doesn’t really deliver anything new, per se, but should be recognized as one of the best haunters since Poltergeist (joining the ranks of The Ring and Paranormal Activity).
Terrified (2018)
Directed by Demián Rugna
influenced by Insidious (2011), The Conjuring (2013)
Themes Characters Visuals
Corpses returning from the grave allude to Pet Sematary while the investigative team of paranormal psychologists will evoke nostalgia for Poltergeist and The Conjuring .
But its well-crafted scenes lift this Argentinian horror high above the recent slew of Paranormal Activity and The Conjuring spin-offs.
Think Lin Shaye’s character Elise from the Insidious franchise, but with a more serious, scientific spin.
Terrified captured my attention so quickly with an opening scene reminiscent of James Wan’s Insidious–another film that genuinely scared me–by the time I reached the second act, I was so creeped out that I had forgotten to retrieve my pen from the desk.
So, once cop-with-a-weak-heart Funes (Maxi Ghione) and the team of greying paranormal investigators (at least one of whom feels inspired by the Insidious franchise) decide to find out what’s going on in these houses, we’re not particularly invested in them and their leisurely conversations begin to drag.
Though it bears a superficial resemblance to Poltergeist and the Insidious films, what Terrified reminds of most is Mike Flanagan's tremendous, underseen Oculus , about a house, siblings, and a haunted mirror.
Aquaman and Mera snack on roses in an Italian market, with Heard tearing into flowers fish-out-of-water style, a bit reminiscent of Daryl Hannah chomping a lobster in “Splash.”
The former plays the hydrokinetic love interest Mera, while the latter recalls Daryl Hannah in “Splash” (1984) before kicking ass in Tom’s living room.
This fantastic vision, something of a blend of Daryl Hannah in “Splash” and Gal Gadot in “Wonder Woman” is, in fact, Nicole Kidman with a touch of CGI to make her look more in her 20s than her current vintage – not that she needs it.
The movie starts out feeling like 1984's "Splash" with Kidman's Atlanna washing ashore and being baffled by the human world before we meet Aquaman.
McGuire also borrows liberally from the playbook of James Wan (who is not coincidentally a producer on the film), messing with the audience's sense of timing with his peek-a-boo terrors (there's even an ominous game of Marco Polo, recalling the first "The Conjuring" and its clapping game).
For a while, this mild, many-angled shocker, produced by horror impresarios James Wan and Jason Blum, seems to emerge from the same wellspring that spawned Insidious, Sinister, and The Conjuring. But unlike those deliciously scary tales of grieving families and ghostly invaders, Night Swim paddles in circles around inchoate human fears rather than diving furiously into a vortex of terror.
But with James Wan (“The Conjuring” and “Saw”) plastered on the poster as producer, McGuire keeps the tone somber even as the dialogue verges on the ridiculous. You’re not laughing with the movie, but at it when someone turns to the camera and says, “Let’s have a pool party!”
Perhaps this is because he's pulling so much from recognizable horror hits that we are inured; even the film's best sequence might be considered a riff on The Conjuring's sensational hide-and-clap sequence, notably constructed by Night Swim producer James Wan.
Given the calibre of horror talent on board with Night Swim (between them, producers Jason Blum and James Wan have such genre treats as the Halloween series, The Conjuring films, M3GAN and Malignant), as well as the fact that the short film it’s based on earned critical acclaim upon its release a decade ago, one would have hope when diving into Bryce McGuire‘s macabre waters.
And beneath that surface is precisely where the terror is meant to hide in Night Swim, the latest collaboration between Jason Blum’s Blumhouse and James Wan’s Atomic Monster film studios (responsible for The Conjuring Universe, Lights Out, Mortal Kombat, Malignant, and 2023’s runaway hit M3GAN).
Helping Hoffman in his machinations - or is she? - is Jigsaw's ex-wife Jill (Betsy Russell), and with these three co-leads in place, Saw VI indulges in the most shameless explosion of flashbacks (yes! from three different perspectives) to various moments from the previous movies and to even earlier points in Jigsaw's life, which is how we learn that not only is Erickson a dick, he's also a dick who was very particularly a dick to a germinal serial killer.
Y, bueno, ese espectáculo visual fue también inspirado por otras cosas (como The Abyss y Godzilla ), mientras que la discusión con Karathen (interpretado por la gran Julie Andrews) es una calca de Smaug y otros grandes dragones refinados con dejos de Lovecraft.
Its inspirations include tokusatsu-style television series and sci-fi stories such as The Abyss , Humanoids from the Deep and especially Journey to the Centre of the Earth .
Visual inspirations run the gamut from The Abyss to Tron , from Journey to the Center of the Earth to Humanoids from the Deep , and from steampunk to Lovecraftian.
That's admirable, and the amount of worldbuilding and lore-crafting on display in this movie is staggering; new creatures, locations, and hi-tech doodads are introduced on the regular, and just when you think you've got your head wrapped around what's going on, an army of lobster people show up, or a massive alien ship (like something out of the end of The Abyss ) breaks through the surface of the ocean so that two impossibly attractive actors can punch each other atop its hull.
…silliness, and a hold-your-breath terror pairing World War Z with The Abyss.
Want a giant tidal wave straight outta “The Abyss”?
Aquaman’s jet-propelled splash through its various imagined underwater kingdoms proves genuinely entertaining, offering up differently calibrated undersea realms that recall James Cameron’s Avatar, the eldritch horrors of H.P. Lovecraft (whose story The Dunwich Horror appears as an early bit of set-dressing) and the archly operatic Luc Besson of The Fifth Element and Valerian.
He borrows a bit from The Fifth Element, too.
Esta cinta se siente como una mezcla de Ant-Man and the Wasp con Black Panther , un poco de la cacofonía visual neón de Thor: Ragnarok , algunas tomas robadas de Harry Potter y The Fifth Element , una pizca de Nathan Drake y La Momia noventera.
Wan’s exhilarating adventure makes overtures to a few films, like Indiana Jones , The Fifth Element , The Lord of the Rings , and Jurassic Park.
1985's "Clue" is stripped of its giddy absurdist humor and replaced by a deadly, unsparing seriousness in "Would You Rather," a gripping horror-drama that's far more ruminative than " Saw ," but destined to draw a comparison because of its onscreen game of wits and violence.
This isn�t a blood-soaked charnel-house mind-game like the Saw flicks; it leans more towards psychological violence.
An overly static, dining-room-set variation on the “Saw” movies in which Brittany Snow, Sasha Grey, John Heard and others are subjected to an evil millionaire’s most dangerous, and dull, game.
That’s the question at the heart of 2004’s re-invigoration of the horror genre Saw, a film which went to great lengths to horrify audiences in a new way and spawned a number of look-alike films that have tried their own unique twists on the torture porn subgenre.
The results are a gorgeous, tension-filled thriller that feels a bit like Clue meets Saw meets House on Haunted Hill with an engaging and eclectic cast that makes it almost impossible to look away during the film's many cringe-inducing moments.
Like the coolest moments of the Saw franchise, Would You Rather gives the astute horror viewer some interesting food for thought: is it easier to give pain or to receive it?
Aquaman’s jet-propelled splash through its various imagined underwater kingdoms proves genuinely entertaining, offering up differently calibrated undersea realms that recall James Cameron’s Avatar, the eldritch horrors of H.P. Lovecraft (whose story The Dunwich Horror appears as an early bit of set-dressing) and the archly operatic Luc Besson of The Fifth Element and Valerian.
With its bright visuals punctuated by Avatar-like neon hues of blue, green and pink, the stylistic world that he builds is eye-popping and truly unique.
Not since the ground-breaking work on Avatar has such world building stunned and awed the way it does here.
I can’t say I blame him, considering the stale fight choreography, repetitive narrative structure that feels it’s necessary we visit all Seven Kingdoms of the Sea (yes, even Kingdom of the Brine), lame jokes that don’t land, unintentionally funny moments that made me snort laughing (Patrick Wilson’s King Orm calling himself “Ocean Master” with a straight face, and honest-to-God sharks with frickin’ laser beams on their heads), all of which occur before a visually underwhelming backdrop that at best felt like a video game, and at worst looks like discarded scenes from Avatar that Cameron forgot in the Avid for Wan to find.
Aquaman gives audiences a Lord of the Rings meets Avatar vibe.
There were angry aquarium sharks; a bioluminescent Atlantis, equal parts Gungan city and Avatar planet; an underwater reenactment of the Thor-vs.-Hulk…
It is perhaps inevitable that this unsettling debut from director James Wan will be compared with Se7en.
While the concept is not very original (overall it smacks of a low-rent Se7en), the film could serve as a model for ambitious young filmmakers with limited financial resources.
Indebted to Se7en for its overly intricate murder scenes, as well as to Requiem for a Dream's relentless music-video pacing, Saw doesn't announce first-time director James Wan as a new auteur, but as a media-saturated copycat.
First-time director James Wan is clearly playing by a rule first set down by David Fincher in Se7en ? that everything must be old, bloody, filthy and decrepit.
Tyro director James Wan, who also concocted this story with screenwriter/star Whannell, is obviously a huge David Fincher fan as "Saw" ransacks both "Se7en" and "The Game" albeit in bargain basement fashion.
The set-up and premise are undeniably clever, but this marks the second time in the past few months that a filmmaker has been spectacularly unsuccessful in trying to mimic the style of 1995's "Se7en."
Lights Out (2016)
Directed by David F. Sandberg
influenced by Saw (2004), The Conjuring (2013), Insidious (2011), Dead Silence (2007), Furious 7 (2015)
Music
Now, courtesy of producer James Wan (Saw, The Conjuring), Sandberg and his screenwriter, Eric Heisserer, have the difficult task of extending three minutes into 81 without exhausting a smart concept or losing the snap of a compact “Boo!”
Produced by horror impresario James Wan of “ The Conjuring ” as an expansion of Sandberg’s acclaimed, less-than-three-minute-long 2013 short , “Lights Out” sounds, on paper, fairly preposterous: A rebellious young woman and her dutiful little brother (Teresa Palmer and Gabriel Bateman) are terrorized by a woman — who may be dead, supernatural, metaphorical or some combination of all three.
The monster looks like the demon from the first Insidious; the jump scares match The Conjuring in structure (quiet, quiet, quiet, LOUD PIANO CHORD, SCARY THING VERY CLOSE TO THE CAMERA) and like The Conjuring and The Conjuring 2 – both of which have done massive box office – its main focus is on female characters.
In a disappointing summer for films, halogen horror Lights Out looked like it could be movie heaven sent - cool title, strong word of mouth and fan favourite James Wan (The Conjuring, Insidious) among the producers.
Directed by David Sandberg from an idea introduced in a previous short film of his and produced by James Wan (“The Conjuring,” “Insidious”), the horror movie opening Friday takes a common fear and fleshes out a simple idea for full-blown scares.
Horror auteur James Wan, who launched a horror resurgence in the mid '00s with the low-budget "Saw," and tells his own ghost stories with "The Conjuring" films, lends his stamp of approval to the film as a producer.
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995)
Directed by Bryan Spicer
influenced Aquaman (2018)
Visuals Plot
The design of Atlantis and the underwater kingdoms is gorgeous, with the bioluminescent environments and lavishly gaudy costume designs giving it a real “ Flash Gordon under the sea” vibe; seriously, this movie features dresses made out of jellyfish and henchman uniforms straight out of a series of Power Rangers , and yet it all somehow just works.
Some of the film’s fight scenes are truly impressive in nature, but others look lifted off a Power Rangers battle.
That angry son becomes the revenge-driven baddie Black Manta (Yahya Adbul-Mateen II), who looks a little too much like a Power Rangers sidekick in live-action and about whom the movie seems to forget entirely partway through.
Once Aqua put on his best Club Monaco jet-setting fit, the film really let’s go and somehow the same journey takes him through the Sahara, Italy, on a boat fighting Power Rangers demons and finally, a Crash Bandicoot level.
The director James Wan ("Saw," "The Conjuring," "Furious 7") has concocted an action-packed story that is partly a redemption tale and partly a coming-of-age story but with an entertaining low-stakes feel that can be best described as a mix between a "Power Rangers" movie and the classic 1982 Disney movie "Tron."
Y acertaron: James Wan logró su cometido al robarse, de Ant-Man 2 , el humor, la idea de un universo escondido y de una mamá guerrera perdida (vean el traje de Kidman y el de Pfeiffer); de Black Panther la mitad del argumento, la batalla entre hermanos y la idea de una sociedad escondida con pistas de superioridades raciales (más allá del argumento de Geoff); De Power Rangers lo ridículo de sus villanos; de Uncharted los pequeños puzzles de dudosa complejidad y, de The Mummy , la estética aventurera del desierto; de Thor: Ragnarok el atrevimiento de una estética neón insolente y de Pacific Rim el diseño de un Kaiju que, también, toma mucho del Smaug de Tolkien en su forma de hablar (con una sorpresiva Julie Andrews detrás del doblaje).