Leigh Whannell explains how grief, lockdowns and a sick friend shaped his horror movie Wolf Man

Aussie director Leigh Whannell reveals what inspired his new horror flick and reflects on the legacy of his accidental breakout hit Saw.

While other people were making sourdough and learning how to play the bongo drums during the Covid lockdowns, Aussie Leigh Whannell and his American wife Corbett Tuck made the most of the nightmarish scenario by turning it into a horror movie.

Writer-director Whannell established his horror credentials more than 20 years ago when he and his Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology classmate James Wan came up with the sleeper hit Saw, which made more than $US100 million from its paltry $US1 million budget and spawned an astonishing nine sequels, with another due for release in September.

After further success with the Insidious franchise, Whannell was coming off the back of another horror hit with his acclaimed 2020 interpretation of The Invisible Man – which made 20 times its budget – when the movie world came grinding to a halt due to the pandemic.

Although he was initially reluctant to take on another classic monster when the same studio suggested he make a move based on the Wolf Man, he found the themes of isolation and disease he was wrestling with in his adopted home of Los Angeles provided a fresh take on a character that made its screen debut way back in 1941.

“It was almost impossible not to put that stuff into the screenplay,” says Whannell, relaxing in a cinema in his home town of Melbourne. “My wife and I were co-writing it and we were in lockdown. We had three young kids and we were isolated in our house and the feeling … was very unsettling and discombobulating, and we just poured it all in there.”

While he admits that jointly “writing a screenplay could probably kill a relationship”, Whannell says that is was a perfect solution for that very challenging time. And there wasn’t much else do to.

Leigh Whannell back in his home town of Melbourne to promote his new horror movie Wolf Man. Picture: Josie Hayden

“It was also very cathartic to put all our anxiety and our frustration about what the world was going through into this story, so we had a place to put it and it worked really well.”

Whannell’s version of the Wolf Man centres around family man Blake (Christopher Abbott) who has inherited the farm in remote Oregon he grew up in when his long missing father is finally pronounced dead. On the way to reclaim the property with wife (Ozark’s Julia Garner) and daughter (Matilda Firth), he’s attacked and scarred by a mysterious and savage creature on a full moon.

Over the course of a very long night barricaded in the house, Blake gradually loses his humanity as his despairing wife has to decide whether the monster outside is in fact more dangerous than the one that’s transforming into something terrifying right before her eyes.

While prepping for the film, Whannell did extensive research into conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, and also drew on his experience of watching a good friend battle amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Christopher Abbott as Blake in Wolf Man, directed by Leigh Whannell.

“For anyone who’s had experience with these degenerative diseases, be they mental or physical, it’s a very slow-motion nightmare,” Whannell says. “In the movies we experience things at a breakneck speed, but in real life someone’s walking with a cane for a few months and then suddenly they’re in a chair, and it’s very slow and insidious. I watched that first-hand and it was awful.”

By the time he got around to filming in New Zealand last year, Whannell was also mired in grief after the death of his brother-in-law – to whom the film is dedicated – and was wondering whether he would be even be able to complete it.

“I had a unique perspective on grief because I was living in it at that time,” he says. “So, the film definitely is infused with this idea of losing people and how much time you really have with people. How much time do you really have with your parents before they are gone?”

Director Leigh Whannell, Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner on the set of Wolf Man.

Whannell grew up a movie nerd in suburban Melbourne in the 1980s – he’d sneak out of his room to secretly watch whatever his parents were looking at on TV – and distinctly remembers going through a monster phase. Two classics of the era made a particular impact, An American Werewolf In London and The Fly, and he freely admits that both influenced his take on the Wolf Man.

Although the look of the creature was inspired by Heath Ledger’s Joker in as far as it was an unexpected look that “still paid homage to the character”, Whannell was determined to do as much as possible with practical effects rather than computer graphics. And, like The Fly, he wanted the make-up and prosthetics as the transformation progresses to be an integral part of the drama rather than for shock value or cheap laughs.

“A lot of times with prosthetic makeup throughout the ‘80s, you’re using it to watch the cheerleader’s head roll down the hill after it’s been cut off and it’s something to either gross you out or make you laugh,” he says. “What I love about The Fly is it’s a tragedy, and it’s a really strong parable for a disease and watching a loved one die, which was very much what I wanted to do.”

Davd Cronenberg’s 1986 horror classic The Fly was a big influence on Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man.

Although he’s no longer connected with the Saw franchise in any hands-on sense, Whannell says it’s been astounding to watch its impact and the endless sequels it spawned, particularly given that he and Wan – who went on to direct The Conjuring and Aquaman movies – had such low expectations for the original.

“James Wan and I really didn’t have any expectations of that first movie beyond maybe getting our next movie,” he says. “What we were doing was shooting our best stepping stone. For the stepping stone itself to become a thing is very unexpected. And it’s resonated with people. I’m not ashamed of those Saw movies.

“I love that James and I inadvertently created the millennial Freddy Krueger. I grew up going to sleepovers and watching Friday the 13th Part 6 and A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors. So I know what it’s like to be a teenager obsessing on these on these movies and I’m proud of that.”

Whannell agrees that he’s picked a good week to be away from the city he’s called home for two decades and says his heart goes out to those affected by the terrible Los Angeles fires. The blazes caused the Hollywood premiere of Wolf Man to be cancelled last week and he says that “every single person I know either knows somebody who lost their home or they lost their home”.

Saw creators James Wan and Leigh Whannell in the early days in Hollywood 20 years ago.

Whether the fires – and the prospect of staying in a country that is more divided than it’s ever been – are enough to entice him to move back home with his wife and three children remain to be seen.

“It’s interesting because now that I have children … you start to think about where you want to raise them,” he says. “It’s no longer about you, it’s about their experience and because I grew up in Australia … I feel an urge to give them the childhood I had.

“I think all parents do that if you had if you were lucky enough to have a good childhood. Because I didn’t grow up in LA I do feel that urge and so my wife, who’s American, we have that discussion. I would like my kids to know Australia – it’s part of them, they’re half Australian. I want them to know it so we do talk about that.

“The world has gotten very strange post-Covid and I think, politically, things are in a strange place. It definitely makes me think about how I can best raise my kids without them running up against this turbulence so much.”

Wolf Man is in cinemas now

Originally published as Leigh Whannell explains how grief, lockdowns and a sick friend shaped his horror movie Wolf Man