Leigh Whannell’s come a long way since he was the film critic on the ABC’s Recovery. Together with James Wan (last seen directing Aquaman), he created the Saw franchise, and went on the play a major behind-the-scenes role in the Insidious series. But it wasn’t until he wrote and directed the science fiction thriller Upgrade that he really made a splash – and with his name now attached to a remake of Escape From New York, it’s clear his career is set to hit a whole new level.
In Melbourne to talk up his new take on the Invisible Man (which he’s written and directed), he’s clearly happy with his work. As he should be; it’s a smart, suspenseful film that constantly cranks up the tension, exploring a handful of locations in a way that leaves audiences jumping at things that aren’t there – or at least, things they can’t see.
“I’d just finished Upgrade,” Whannell says when asked how The Invisible Man came about, “I was really happy with that, and I didn’t know what I was going to do next. And I went into a meeting and the Blum house and universal people started talking about the Invisible Man and they kind of incepted me with this idea. They asked me what my take on it would be. And the first thing that popped into my head was, well, I would tell the story from the point of view of the victim of the Invisible Man. And from that whole movie was born.”
There’s been a lot of takes on the Invisible Man over the years, and not all of them have been successful (remember Hollow Man?). For Whannell, the secret was to have a clear vision – as it were – of what he wanted to do with the character.
“Invisibility in and of itself is not enough to sustain a movie. You need a story, and I thought the best story to tell was the one told from the point of view of the person who’s being stalked and tortured by the Invisible Man. With horror, the less you know about the threat, the scarier it is, and so I wanted to make the Invisible Man a mysterious presence, a real villain.”
Having the focus on the person being tormented, and with the monster invisible for much of the film, made casting the right actress vital. Enter Elizabeth Moss.
“When I finished the script, I had this sudden realization that the lead character was in every scene but to like two scenes in the entire movie. That’s an intimidating idea that the whole movie rests on the shoulders of just one actor. There’s a shortlist of actors I think who can really pull off this type of harrowing distressed performance with real credibility and Elisabeth Moss is on the top of that list.”
“It’s a very constrained film as well,” he adds. “You’ve only got a handful of locations, so it’s it’s not just that she’s the main character. It’s that we’re in the house with her. She has to do a lot internally, she has to have a lot of conversations with herself in the movie. And, again, not a lot of people will be capable of that. If acting is reacting, as the saying goes, then what do you do when there’s no one else to react to? What do you do when you’re having a conversation with the wall?”
That approach opens the door to the idea that perhaps all this is inside her head, but Whannell felt if there’s one thing a movie about an invisible man has to deliver, it’s an invisible man.
“There’s a version of this movie that we could have made where you left the audience hanging, wondering, did that happen or was it all in her mind. But given that I was writing about an existing character, so you know, with a cinematic and literary history, I felt like I had to deliver on that I call it the promise of the premise, and part of living up to it was letting the film build to a chaotic point. I think of this movie like a kettle – at first, it’s just boiling and then it’s getting the pressures getting stronger and then suddenly it starts shrieking”
To get to that shriek meant the tension in the film had to be continually cranked up. “I had to keep escalating things, so each scene had to be an escalation of the last. I never wanted to tread water in the same mood for 10 scenes, it was like we wanted the movie to be happening to her and the audience simultaneously, so we’re going through the story at the same pace as she was, and she’s getting whiplash from the chess pieces of this game constantly moving and shifting.”
While it’s a film that tackles the always topical issue of abusive relationships, for Whannell it was more important to make sure the film was honest in the moment rather than sit down and plan out the themes he wanted to tackle. ‘I concentrate on the story first and let the themes exist on a more subconscious level. When you make a feature film, you really make 50 short films. And then at the end, you have to glue all those short films together and hopefully, it’s coherent.
“I don’t know how other filmmakers work, he says, “but for me, it all has to bubble at an unconscious level. It’s part of the joy of making a film is how one tiny movement or one close up, can change the audience’s perspective of the movie in a microsecond.”
The Invisible Man is in cinemas now.
Written by Anthony Morris