Director Report Card: Leigh Whannell (2025)

4. Wolf Man

After the success of Whannell's "Invisible Man," Universal would announce a whole slate of new films based around their classic monster movies. In the five years since then, only a few of these have made it in front of audiences and none have been especially successful at the box office. One of those proposed projects was a new remake of "The Wolf Man," to be written and directed by the guy who started this new wave of remakes, Leigh Whannell. Scheduling conflicts intervened. Ryan Gosling, of all people, pitched his own idea to Universal and invited along his "Blue Valentine" director, Derek Cianfrance. While a big star like Gosling and an acclaimed filmmaker like Cianfrance surely had an interesting take on the material, this version also fell through. With a new theme park to promote, Universal quickly sought Leigh Whannell back out. I guess his "Wolf Man" was always destined to be the next one. It's the first big horror release of 2025 and, for old monster-heads like myself, a source of major curiosity. 

Blake grew up in the isolated Oregon woods with his survivalist father. While on a hunting trip, the two had a frightening encounter with something inhuman. Thirty years later, Blake is living in the city with his journalist wife, Charlotte, and their precocious daughter, Ginger. He receives a letter informing him that his dad, missing for some time, has been declared dead. Hoping a trip to the country will ease some tension in the marriage, the three head out for Oregon to clean out the property. While driving to the house, Blake swerves off the road to avoid a man-like figure. The family barely escapes being attacked by the creature after fleeing the crash site. Holed up in Blake's childhood home, the three spend the night in fear of what's outside... But what's inside is just as dangerous, as Blake is slowly undergoing a similar transformation, becoming a monster out of legend. 

I suspect that, when tasked to write a new take on "The Wolf Man," Whannell and his co-writer – his wife, Corbett Tuck – searched for a fresh take on the werewolf concept. Most lycanthropy stories go the supernatural route, following in the footsteps of the rules mostly created by Curt Siodmak for the original "Wolf Man." Maybe reality did the inspiring for them though, as the script was supposedly conceived during the COVID-19 pandemic. Whannell presents the idea of the werewolf curse as an infectious disease. It's a bloodborne virus that spreads through cuts and bites, slowly changing the infected's body and neurological state. It's characterized repeatedly as a fever, dispelling most every paranormal association with the werewolf concept. This "Wolf Man" contains no full moons, pentagrams, or blooming wolfsbane. It's as grounded a werewolf movie as you're likely to get, as bold a reinvention of a classic monster as Whannell's "Invisible Man" was.

However, a fear of disease is not what this "Wolf Man" is truly about. Instead, the anxieties that motivate the story are much more personal. The glimpses we get of Blake's childhood shows him frightened of his own father, a strict and paranoid man that clearly kept his son under tight control. Now a parent himself, Blake never wants to be like his dad. He reminds his daughter Ginger, on a daily basis, how much he loves her. When she does something foolish, the way kids are prone to do, he yells at her before immediately apologizing. He wants to be a caring, loving, emotionally understanding and available dad. His rejection of traditional macho tactics are signaled by him allowing his daughter to put make-up on his face or being a stay-at-home dad while his wife is at work. The opening flashback is set in 1995, putting Blake right in the millennial demographic, and he clearly has the common anxieties of that age group: Traumatized by his asshole boomer parent and desperate not to repeat those same mistakes.

In other words, Blake's greatest fear is becoming his dad. The werewolf archetype has often been interpreted as about the duality of man. Whether it is repressed sexual urges or a deeper savage nature, the wolf has always represented the parts of ourselves we are most afraid of showing. Naturally, once he's bitten, this means Blake immediately begins to yell at his wife and kid, causing them to stare in confusion. He's not himself, a twitching and temperamental man who literally can no longer communicate with those dearest to him. By the time he's a hairy, growling beast, his transformation into an abusive parent and husband is complete. The lingering fear that he's just as capable as his dad was of being a beast has come true. 

Which suggest another question: Are we all doomed to become our parents eventually? Being in roughly the same age group as the film's protagonist, it's a neurotic worry I've had too. Have all the flaws of my father that made my childhood difficult been bred into me? Upon returning to the Oregon woods, Blake and family meet a childhood friend of his, who carries a rifle around as an everyday accessory. This concerns city girl Charlotte but Blake reassures her that, in the country, everybody has a gun. The place he comes from is still indebted to older ideas about manly men killing and hunting to protect their own. In other words, this world is still a part of Blake, no matter how hard he's worked to disguise that. Whannell's "Wolf Man" most connects to the Lon Chaney classic and subsequent adaptations with these Daddy Issues themes. Blake is nearly dragged back into the wild by another wolf man whose true identity is no surprise, the need to behave a certain way and do certain things calling to him.

If we are all doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past, perhaps it's a somewhat inevitable fate. The first proper shot of the movie is of a wasp being torn apart by a horde of ants. Stefan Duscio's sweeping cinematography draws attention to the natural beauty of the Oregon woods. There are multiple shots of the mountains in the distance, the fogs creeping around the trees and peaks. It's beautiful but, as Blake's dad reminds him early on, it's also dangerous. A key shot shows the moving van winding through the country roads, surrounded by trees on all sides. Compared to their urban apartment, the country home is without comfort, with rotten meat hung up in the freezer and a rickety generator providing fickle electricity. The opening flashback could be a short film in its own regard, father and son pinned down by some sort of cryptozoological threat deep in the woods. That Blake has a daughter, instead of a son, that he ultimately becomes a threat too seems important. Not only does he fear becoming his dad, he fears becoming a wild man, embracing the savagery of the natural world and inflicting it on the women in his life. 

The conflict between men and women represents probably the most underwritten part of the movie. Whannell's "Wolf Man" is ambitious, about disease and parenthood and marriage, meaning one of its themes was always going to be underserved. Charlotte expresses a concern that she can't relate to her daughter anymore, while clearly referencing some growing tension with her husband. Why Charlotte and Blake are having problems is never exactly addressed. Clearly, however, we are meant to believe that they love each other anyway. The characters say as much. Julia Garner, while believable as a mother determined to protect her kid, never sells the idea that she is in love with this man. A key moment involves Charlotte attempting to communicate with a bedridden Blake, who is already undergoing his transformation, recalling many examples of people desperate to talk with loved one's on a ventilator during the pandemic. Blake can't hear her though. The film will periodically give us glimpses into his head. He's seeing and hearing things like a wolf now, with extra-sensitive hearing and smell, seeing fields of light and color invisible to a normal human's eyes. Notably, he can see the veins under the skin of his wife and daughter, the blood his wolf side craves right there. 

This is paired with a heavy dose of body horror, Blake's teeth falling out, his fingernails being torn off and replaced with talons, his jaw cracking into a new location. Like all modern body horror stories, "Wolf Man" owes something to Cronenberg. To learn "The Fly" is one of the films Whannell had his crew watch before filming began is not surprising, as you can see it's a clear influence. (Especially in the climax, which clearly recalls the 1986 remake.) However, "The Fly" works because it's a believable love story. The bond between Blake and Charlotte never seems to come to life. That his transformation happens over the course of an entire night seems to rush the characters' through their emotional arc. That the film will take us inside Blake's head suggests a story split in two. Whannell wanted to make a Cronenbergian story of a man changing into something else. He also wanted to tell the tale of the man's wife and daughter surviving this change. The split in focus damages both elements of the film, the love story and the sense of what is being lost never quite coming across. 

The half of "Wolf Man" that's a tragic story of a marriage falling apart, amid a virus-induced wolf out, doesn't totally succeed. The half that is a siege picture, about a trio trying to keep a werewolf out of the strange house they're locked inside, works a lot better. Something incredibly smart the movie does is quickly establish the settings that most of the story will take place in. There's a deer blind that bookends the film. On the property is a triangular, quietly foreboding farm house, a barn, and a simple green house with vinyl walling. Each of these locations are used in a suspense sequence, with the green house setting up a rather clever way. Limiting most of the movie to so few locations was both a smart budgetary decision. It also allows the audience to be more aware of the limited resources the characters have at their disposal. These are the only places they have to hide and all of them have few defenses for a clawed beast eager to get inside.

The mastery of fright and suspense sequences that Whannell showed off in his previous monster reboot is still on display here. The director has a good eye for when to keep stuff off-screen and when to viscerally thrust it into our face. This is very true of the opening scene, in which we get nothing but brief glimpses of a hairy humanoid and see its breath over the edge of a tree house wall, a rather tense sequence. The scene where the family is locked in the crashed truck, as the creature approaches, builds fantastically, also only giving us small peeks at the monster. A later moment is built around Charlotte desperately trying to start up a truck. It's a drawn out scene, a series of mundane actions, that builds towards an excellently revealed shocked and the first proper look we get at the title monster. From that point on, “Wolf Man” is an in-your-face monster movie, featuring some disturbingly gory gags. Including a bit that plays as both a homage to the 1944 “Wolfman” and Whannell's first horror hit.

Keeping the cast so limited is another example of how economical the film's writing is. There's truly only about five characters in the film, with most of the scenes only being concerned with the central trio of Blake, Charlotte, and Ginger. Christopher Abbott, quickly becoming the go-to leading man for genre projects in need of a neurotic star, projects Blake's anxieties as he succumbs to this sickness. He also has strong chemistry with Matilda Firth as Ginger, an adorable little moppet that you immediately want to see protected. That the script lets Julia Garner down a bit is no fault of her's, as she certainly shows off a strong spirit whenever facing down a werewolf, wielding a rifle, or trying to get an engine to turn over. One imagines, if given a more proactive role like the heroine in Whannell's last monster movie, she would have gotten far more chances to shine. 

I'm already seeing reviews from classic monster movie fans expressing disappointment with this new “Wolf Man,” for being such a radical reinvention of the classic character. When a glimpse at a costume of the new make-up was revealed at one of the Universal theme parks last year, many people were disappointed. Indeed, by taking such a grounded approach to the idea, Whannell has delivered a beast that is far more man than wolf. The make-up is, as far as these things go, fairly low-key. It's the kind of physical transformation that, if not for the speed with which it occurs, would probably be quite plausible. However, within the context of this approach, I believe it works. The subtle shifting of Abbott's face is nicely uncanny, implying a wolf-like state through the shape of the bones under the skins. It might not hurt if you go in expecting something that looks a little more Henry Hull than Lon Chaney Jr. though. 

Having a lot of ideas on its mind at once is not the worst sin a horror movie can commit. Whannell's “Wolf Man” would probably be a better movie if it was only about disease, or parental anxieties, or childhood trauma, or a dissolving marriage, or simply a siege picture about trying to keep a monster out. The film does performs some of these ideas better than others. However, the reboot still has a committed cast in its corner, several impressively tense moments, and some fine cinematography and make-up. If nothing else, it's a new take on a familiar concept. Unlike the last “Wolfman” Universal made, hopelessly scrambled by executive meddling, it's clear that Whannell made exactly the movie he wanted here. This classic monster nerd found this one to have more positive than negative traits. [Grade: B]

Director Report Card: Leigh Whannell (2020)

3. The Invisible Man

Out of the ashes of the Dark Universe – Universal's latest and most disastrous attempt in a series of failed attempts to retrofit their classic monster characters for modern tastes – arose an actual good idea: Hey, what if we dismiss with the mega-sized budgets and star studded cast and cinematic universe and just, ya know, actually make horror movies about these guys? Jason Blum expressed interest in taking over and Universal jumped right on that suggestion. An "Invisible Man" originally meant to be some superhero-like project starring Johnny Depp was quickly turned into a modestly budget horror movie written and directed by Leigh Whannell. Instead of facing the same fate as “Dracula Untold” or Alex Kurtzman's “The Mummy,” Whannell's “The Invisible Man” received excellent reviews and made a pretty penny against its seven million dollar budget. A few years after the hype, how does this classic monster remake hold up now?

In the dead of night, Cecilia flees the compound where she lives with her aggressively abusive and controlling husband, Adrian Griffin. While living with her police officer friend, she receives some shocking news: Adrian is dead, from an apparent suicide. Cecilia stands to inherit a fortune from his optics engineering company, under the condition she commits no crimes and is not declared mentally ill. That is when strange things begin to happen. Accidents and strange events happen around the home. Cecilia's sister receives an inflammatory letter that she has no memory of writing. Her friend's daughter is punched in the face by an unseen force, Cecilia being blamed. Cecilia begins to suspect that Adrian is not dead at all but is still harassing, stalking, and tormenting her. Which would only be possible if the man somehow found a way to turn himself invisible... Soon, Cecilia is fighting for her own sanity and the lives of those she loves from a threat she can't see. 

Most of Universal's earlier monster movie reboots made the macabre characters threats within an action packed adventure. Stephen Sommers' big budget affairs or the stillborn Dark Universe made the mummy or Dracula threats against action hero stars. Or Dracula himself simply became an action hero. Even Joe Johnston's ill-fated remake of "The Wolf Man" had the titular monster as its protagonist. In an effort to re-enforce his "Invisible Man" as a horror movie, Leigh Whannell instead centers the story on the monster's victim. This is a big change from both H.G. Wells' novel and James Whale's 1933 adaptation, where the unseen madman was more-or-less the lead character. Instead, Whannell touches upon a clever idea: An invisible man is easily a terrifying thought if you are a vulnerable woman. It's an approach that does what so many previous remakes failed to do, successfully reinventing the character for the modern age. 

This "Invisible Man" would come out in a post-#MeToo world, where terms like "gaslighting," "narcissistic personality disorder," and "love bombing" had entered the popular lexicon in a big way. It's become all too clear how many people's lives, and how much of our society in general, is directed by manipulative men telling us to doubt what we know is true. Whannell's film places its protagonist at the center of an elaborate web of deception and control. Her stalker goes to extraordinary lengths to have everyone around Cecilia believe she's crazy or dangerous. This behavior isolates her from those she loves and that care about her, that can protect her from his manipulations. Slowly, this man takes all her hope and freedom away from her, using fear and violence, until she has no option left but to return back to him. It's a story any of us have heard before, of friends or loved ones at the will of men who seek to rob them of their individuality. 

A key scene has Cecilia, sitting in a seemingly empty house but talking to the stalker she knows is there, asking Adrian why he inflicts this torture on her. Her abuser is a billionaire tech CEO, who surely has access to any woman he could want. It's an exchange that makes this invisible man a much more commonplace type of psychopath than the Doctor Griffins that have come before. Most previous "Invisible Man" stories function on the idea that a man becoming unseen, and thus untouched by society's rules, would make him an amoral monster that eventually seeks world domination. Adrian Griffin is already a sociopath before he becomes unseen and he only seeks to dominate one thing: The woman who refuses to be his. That a tech company leader displays these personality traits is no surprise these days but a man doesn't have to be that rich and powerful to want to break the spirit of his spouse. He simply has to be powerful enough to hurt a single person, the one close enough to him. 

You can certainly argue that Whannell's "Invisible Man" is the type of well intentioned but misguided sort of story men write, that bring attention to how women are abused by showing all that suffering on-screen. I would argue that the film stays on the right side of that divide by always making sure the audience is feeling the same things Cecilia is. Like her, we all know that the seemingly improbable thing she believes – that her ex is still alive and is now invisible – is true, despite everyone around her saying it can't be possible. That is, after all, exactly how a woman being gaslit feels. Another way the film grabs that feeling is with a solid suspenseful story structure that keeps you guessing. Each surprise feels like a personal betrayal, another rotten thing that Adrian has done to hurt Cecilia. When she discovers he's been hiding in the attic of the new home she's living in, revealing that information to her in an especially cruel way, the viewer feels as much as the mercy of this scheming sociopath as the character does. This continues in the second half, with more sharp surprises coming, each one catching us off-guard.

At the center of the film is an outstanding performance from Elizabeth Moss. Moss, with that glare of perpetual exhaustion on her face, certainly seems like a woman on the edge of breaking. As the script has her ranting about scenarios that seems impossible, it certainly seems like she's gone crazy. However, Cecilia is stronger than that. Throughout the film, as the situation escalates, she continues to keep fighting. The character only reveals herself to be more resourceful as the story progresses, going to some extremes to reveal her tormentor and get out of increasingly desperate situations. Moss strikes the right balance, between a woman thoroughly traumatized by what she's been through without losing her need to survive. She is both a victim, suffering through a lot, and a survivor, eventually emerging triumphant. In other words, Moss makes Cecilia a real person, complicated and with layers.

For a monster movie, "The Invisible Man" is kind of long, running over two hours. That slightly longer runtime does allow the movie to invest its supporting cast with a degree of heart. A lesser movie would play the relationship between Cecilia and James as a romantic one, a "good" man appearing to save her from the evil one attacking her. Instead, the two are strictly platonic friends, feeling more like a brother and sister. The quiet way James, as played by Aldis Hodge, makes it known that he cares about Cecilia are well-done. I also liked Storm Reid as Sid, his teenage daughter. The rapport she has with Cecilia in a few of the movie's more light-hearted, low-key moments – which a tighter runtime would have clipped out – makes you care about this sweet young girl. Moreover, the cast and script walk a fine line, making James and Sidney sympathetic after Adrian's manipulation drives them apart. You understand where they are coming from, without Cecilia seeming any less sympathetic. 

H.G. Wells' original novel and James Whale's movie both go with the idea that the invisibility is caused by a potion. This occurs throughout more modern homage too, such as "Hollow Man," where an injectable drug causes the transformation. Whannell finds a clever reinvention for this idea that feels more down-to-earth in a modern setting. Our invisible man wears a full-body suit, covered in camera lens and monitors, essentially broadcasting what's behind and in front of it at all times. While you still have to allow for a lot of creative license, this is still more-or-less the actual kind of technology militaries are using to try and create high-tech cloaking devices. If you miss an easily overlooked line about how Adrian Griffin runs an optics company, the exact nature of his ability comes off as a clever subversion too. It also allows for some clever visual moments, of this Invisible Man blinking in and out of the visible range of sight. 

The design for the suit brings with it some intriguing ideas. The suit Adrian wears renders him as a faceless silhouette. This takes the visual presentation of the original film – a man wrapped in bandages, which receives a cute homage here – far further. Now the impression of eyes, a nose, and a mouth are gone too, turning this Invisible Man into a vague silhouette both in and out of costume. The design of the suit, with its "skin" made of glassy and orb-like lens, brings internet memes about trypophonia to mind. It also makes this invisible figure clearly a man. When the expected shot of a silhouette of the attacker's body in the rain comes, it's a clear indicator that the design for this creature makes him a vague outline for any and all men, driving home the feminist themes. That this Invisible Man is as much a symbol for all abusive men everywhere as he is a very specific reflection of this dynamic.

Some may call bullshit on the themes that the movie presents. Maybe trying to cook these ideas into a classic monster reboot is too elevated for some. Or maybe they will find the underpinnings of the story, Whannell's thoughts on men and women and control and abuse, to be insincere. The ending could easily be read as either empowering or a cautionary tale, of a victim absorbing the habits of the person that hurt them. I'm mixed on that myself, seeing it more as a cathartic pay-off. In the horror genre, people can be consumed by their demons but they can defeat them too. Sometimes we need to see the latter, even if it's coming from a place of a man patting himself on the back for being one of the "good ones." At least the degree of ambiguity in the final climax gives the impression that we aren't suppose to think if Cecilia's actions are good or bad exactly, suggesting Whannell was more self-aware than that. Either way, the character of Cecilia and the film more than earns it. 

Whatever high-minded ambitions the film might have had for itself, none of them would matter much if it wasn't scary. Luckily, Whannell's years in the "Insidious" factory have given him an almost scientific formula for generating high-quality shocks. The cinematography, from Stefan Duscio, often assumes a distance and still approach, inviting the viewer to observe the frame for anything unusual happening around the characters or with the sets. This creates one of the film's quieter chilling moment, where you can spot a puff of breath over Cecilia's shoulder as she opens the door to her home. In other words, the film successfully creates a similar paranoia in the viewer as to what the character is feeling. The unseen attacker could be hiding anywhere or it could be nothing at all, creating a good sense of tension. 

That balance between quiet unease and louder shocks is well utilized throughout. The first time we get a glimpse of this Invisible Man's true form is a fine shock, utilizing the specific gimmick of this Universal Monster in a clever way. That scare was in the trailers but a later one decidedly was not, a good choice as it's an excellent bit of misdirection that successfully had me stunned when I saw it in theaters. A rewatch deludes that effectiveness a bit, if only because you know it's coming, but I still appreciate the craft on display. In the last third, Whannell and Duscio use some of the same action choreography tricks they used in "Upgrade" during an effectively hard-hitting display of what an invisible man can do to unprepared people. 

In other words, Whannall's "Invisible Man" is about as good a modern reboot of a classic horror property that you could hope for. It takes the seed of the original idea – one man, invisible – and finds a thoroughly modern take on it that appeals to contemporary audiences without losing what made it scary in the first place. It's also, so far, the only one of these reboots to really connect with audiences. As remnants of their Dark Universe plans, Universal announced that Elizabeth Banks was also attached to direct a remake of "The Invisible Woman" and it's unknown to what degree that one was meant to tie into this one. (The ending to this film certainly seems to set-up that idea but the original spin-off was a comedy, and humor is what Banks is best known for, I can't imagine a follow-up to this being a light-hearted romp.) I think COVID derailed plans for that and, as of now, Whannell's "The Invisible Man" remains a surprisingly clever and scary reinvention of a classic film with an excellent lead performance. [Grade: A]

Director Report Card: Leigh Whannell (2018)

2. Upgrade

Jason Blum has managed to turn his business model of modestly budgeted genre films, all but guaranteed to turn a profit within days, into a miniature empire. Blumhouse Productions has grown so successful that spin-off divisions of the studio now exist. The name brand has extended to television, gaming, and books. In 2014, Blumhouse would launch BH Tilt, a label dedicated to “generating projects for multi-platform release,” whatever that means. Tilt has mostly made the same sort of stuff regular Blumhouse puts out, with slightly more emphasis on action. Easily the most high-profile of Tilt's releases is 2018's “Upgrade,” an original script from Leigh Whannell. After showing he could make a successful movie with “Insidious: Chapter 3,” this would be the director proving himself apart from James Wan's creations, Whannell establishing his own distinct brand as a filmmaker. 

In the not too distant future, police drones fill the air, self-driving cars are standard practice, and cybernetic implants in human beings are becoming common. Grey is a mechanic with a devotion to the old ways, rebuilding classic muscle cars for a dwindling list of clients. His wife, Asha, works in tech though. His last client is genius inventor, Eron Keen, who has recently created a computer implant known as STEM. On the drive back, the couple's car mysteriously crashes and a group of men arrive, leaving Grey paralyzed and Asha dead. His life ruined, Grey attempts suicide... Only to be met in the hospital by Keen, who offers him use of STEM as long as it remains secret. The microchip enables him to walk again. It gives him much more than that, the computer system communicating with Grey and giving him extraordinary abilities. This gives Grey a chance to hunt down the men who killed his wife. The two uncover a conspiracy but STEM soon proves itself to be far more dangerous than Grey imagined. 

On paper, “Upgrade” doesn't seem to be more than a science fiction variation on a type of story all action movie fans are familiar with. Being the most macho of all genres, action movies often disregard female characters, to the point that they frequently exist for little reason than to motivate the hero's violent rampage. Women are disposable victims, made to be leered at or to die in order to justify every horrible thing the “good guy” does. “Death Wish” is the modern trope signifier and most of the films to follow in its footstep aren't as self-aware as that morally dubious classic. “Upgrade” doesn't cast an older man as its vengeance seeker, having him be in his prime and barely avoiding the Dadsploitation label. However, the script's doesn't exactly resist the exploitation tendencies of the action genre either, going so far as to include a random car chase in a roaring muscle car halfway through. 

At the same time, “Upgrade” is a lot smarter than its B-movie set-up suggests. Grey allows STEM to be implanted in his body in hopes that it will improve his life. This is for the same reason we accept all technology into our lives. To get places quickly, to find information more easily, to distract ourselves more expediently. STEM offers a miracle cure for a quadriplegic. However, throughout the film, Grey has to give permission to STEM for it to totally take over his body. When in a life-or-death situation, he willingly cedes control to the computer to do something difficult. This isn't that different than the way any of us blindly click accept on the user agreement for any new application or software. That's before STEM takes full control of his body, whenever it wants and without asking for permission first. In other words: “Upgrade” is a movie about how all of us, far too easily, allow tech to control our lives without realizing what exactly we are giving up.

That made “Upgrade” slightly ahead of its own time in 2018. It feels like it's only been in the last five years that people have started to realize how detrimental letting digital technology into every corner of our lives has been. The brain rot that has grown from non-stop exposures to screens and social media, a hundred algorithms designed to keep the dopamine flowing at all times, is impossible not to see now. By following this instinct, “Upgrade” looks like one of the few sci-fi projects predicting a more accurate future. Self-driving cars, bio-mechanical implants, and fully automated homes already exist, after all. The film simply exaggerating them a little bit. One can't help but notice that the high-tech cars in the film resemble the hideous Cybertrucks that are starting to haunt our freeways and stalling out in the snow.

In other ways, “Upgrade” already feels like a vision from a simpler time. COVID really did change everything, didn't it? An early scene has Eron arriving at the hospital to see Grey while wearing a simple face mask, something the patient responds to as if it's an unusual or comical sight. Only two years after “Upgrade” came out, that idea is already improbable. Law enforcement monitoring the cities with drones was already starting to come to pass in 2018 and remain a common sight, “Upgrade” clearly reacting to a new change with the kind of fear and paranoia that we're all used to now. Eron Keen – whose first name is rather close to another mogul – still operates from the inevitably disproven belief that big tech moguls are actually smart. As I write this, the west coast is on fire and the east coast is buried in snow and class lines are becoming far sharper, suggesting climate change and income disparity are a much more prominent causes for a dystopian future than out-of-control tech or urban decay. 

Getting some things about the future right and some things wrong are an unavoidable hazard of writing sci-fi. The flubs “Upgrade” does make are not too distracting, as the film ultimately looks back as much as it looks forward. The film fits right in with the new wave of cyberpunk stories we've seen in the last ten years. A scene where a non-binary hacker, in an abandoned building populated mostly by hardcore VR addicts, fits right in with this new wave. While obviously concerned with the cybernetic, “Upgrade” is also a movie about how technology is changing our bodies. The antagonists are implant-outfitted hit men, with biotech shotguns built right into their arms and recording devices in their eyes and ears. Like “RoboCop” – probably its most obvious predecessor – “Upgrade” doesn't back away from showing what happens when soft flesh meets cold steel. Bodies are torn asunder, heads explode, and blood splatters throughout, marking this as a sci-fi story as grisly as it is slick.

Since at least “The Matrix,” the cyberpunk style has also been associated with kinetic action sequences right out of Hong Kong kung-fu flicks. “Upgrade” follows this path too, in especially clever way.  When STEM takes control of Grey's body, he becomes a ruthlessly efficient fighter, practically and easily avoiding his enemies blows, turning the environment against them, and violently dispatching them. Cinematographer Stefan Duscio used a special cell phone camera rig in order to center actor Logan Marshall-Green during these fight scenes. This creates an impressive illusion, as if the audience is riding right along with Grey as his body performs the kind of balletic movements he previously thought impossible. The first time these smooth, thrilling action sequences kick in, while inside a crook's home, is still the highlight of “Upgrade.” 

The brutal beat-downs and kinetic shoot-outs often occur in dimly lit buildings or oddly colored alcoves. “Upgrade” is another modern action flick clearly influenced by “John Wick,” as the film utilizes a neon-soaked color palette. That blends well with a brooding electronic score from Jed Palmer. These kind of signifiers point right towards the faux-retro “synthwave” aesthetic, that cyberpunk is a primary influence on. As derivative as these elements may seem, “Upgrade” makes them all work. The film's theatrical violence, gritty settings, and a cynical story about how you shouldn't trust anyone makes filtering reds, masking purples, and electric greens seem more brooding than stylized. “Upgrade” is as much a sci-fi noir – also evident in the subplot about Betty Gabriel's police detective on Grey's trail – as an Asian influenced action flick and a cyberpunkian exercise. Proving once again that no tropes are bad when used in interesting ways. 

While Whannell's script is clever, the visuals are sharp, and the action is cool and bloody, two performances ultimately elevate “Update.” Logan Marshall-Green is introduced as a throwback everyman, the kind of guy that hangs out in his garage and loves his wife. He's an average meathead but not in a lumbering way, proving likeable from the first scene. He also has a sarcastic wit, that reacts in amusing ways to the increasingly bizarre environments he finds himself in. Marshall-Green doesn't only have the movie star charm though. He gives a stunningly physical performance, moving in a distinctly robotic fashion when STEM begins to operate his body. It is precise and smooth, almost to the point of being unnoticeable, showing the kind of discipline that highlights truly good acting.

The other key performance in the film is Simon Maiden, an Australian character actor who has few flashy or big credits to his name. He voices STEM. At first, Maiden's voice is affable but flat, in that way we've come to expect from our digital assistants and robots. We don't want Alexa or Siri to sound too human, as that would make us uncomfortable. Fittingly, STEM sounds friendly but without human inflection... At first anyway. While the machine's deadpan reaction to everything is a source of dark humor, STEM's toneless speech soon takes on a sinister quality. Without ever raising his voice, with only the slightest change in pitch, Maiden manages to signal the exact point the audience is suppose to go from liking Grey's helpful cyber implant sidekick to realizing it is very dangerous. 

This leads to an uncompromisingly bleak ending, that I frankly didn't expect on first viewing. “Upgrade” takes the point of view that seems all too probable, as dispiriting as it is: Mankind's reliance on technology has irrevocably screwed us. That cynicism is what makes the film truly distinctive. There's a trace of superhero morality and far-out world building here. The skinny and unassuming looking Benedict Hardie, save for a sleazy pencil mustache, plays the leader of the assassins. He's essentially a comic book supervillain, a petty bad guy whose body has been outfitted with robotic superpowers. He's better in a fight than Grey and STEM too, as you'd expect from the hero's archenemy. At the same time, he makes references to being part of “The Upgraded,” clearly considering himself superior to humans without robotic parts in them. Harrison Gilbertson's Eron Keen is ambiguously on the spectrum with stark blonde hair, similarly feeling like a cartoon version of a tech genius. However, “Upgrade” never suggest that it's hero is right or morally superiors to those he fights, Grey getting sucked into more violence as the story progresses. In other words, this is an action film and a sci-fi story with an actual moral perspective, darker and more cynical than a bigger budget version of this story would be. 

That Whannell was allowed to make “Upgrade” a gory, thoughtful, and ambiguous film is probably because it cost all of three million dollars. Once again, the Blumhouse motto of keeping the budget as low as possible worked out. The film didn't connect with a mass audience exactly, only grossing eleven million, but with such a modest price tag, that was enough. “Upgrade” did immediately get noticed by horror nerds and anime geeks, the audience it was probably designed for anyway, and quickly grabbed some cult appeal. Which may expand further if the proposed television follow-up emerges, though there's also a lot of ways that could go wrong. Truthfully, I'd be happy if “Upgrade” remained as it is: An explosively entertaining genre throwback that is smart and dumb in all the right ways, giving us bristling actions and some big thoughts about the direction of the world. [Grade: A-]

Director Report Card: Leigh Whannell (2015)

Turns out it's been two years since I actually finished a Director's Report Card, which doesn't make me feel great. In hopes of getting myself back in the groove of things, I decided to throw out a short one. Me deciding to do a Leigh Whannell retrospective, you can probably guess, was originally meant to be part of a longer project also covering James Wan's career... And that is coming soon. The two have been writing partners for years, their paths intertwined. However, with the new “Wolf Man” having just come out, I bumped this one up the schedule. Whannell has carved out a niche for himself free of his buddy, after all. 

1. Insidious: Chapter 3

"Insidious: Chapter 2" would be the last time James Wan had a direct hand in the second popular horror franchise he created. While he seemingly brought the story of the Lambert family to a satisfying close, he knew enough about the business to leave the door – the red one, I suppose – open for a third entry. Rather than abandon the ghostly series to the Darren Lynn Bousmans of the world, Wan would hand his baby off to the series' co-creator and his closest collaborator. Leigh Whannall would make the jump from screenwriter to director with the third installment of the franchise. 

This was a smart move all around. One suspects Whannall was eager to break into directing. The third entry in an already popular series he was already writing seemed like the natural place to test out his abilities behind the camera. If Whannall decided directing wasn't for him, there would be little stopping him from going right back to writing only, right? If it did work out, this would be a relatively low risk place, as far as film sets go, to prove his talents. Blumhouse's standard model of keeping production budgets low and spending more on advertisement, insuring the film makes back its whole budget on opening weekend, is a good way for new directors to test out their ability. This worked out exactly as planned. The studio got another hit and Leigh Whannall successfully launched a directorial career. 

Instead of picking up the sequel hook from the end of "Chapter 2," this "Insidious" is set several years before the events of the original. Teenager Quinn Brenner reaches out to medium Elise Rainier in hopes of contacting her recently deceased mother. Elise, reeling from the suicide of her husband, says she's retired. Shortly afterwards, Quinn is struck by a car and flat lines for several seconds. Afterwards, the girl – stuck in bed with a broken leg – begins to experience strange phenomena in her apartment building. She is seemingly being pursued by a wheezing spirit. The haunting gets bad enough that Quinn's skeptical dad calls in ghost hunters, Specs and Tucker. When Quinn is dragged into the Further, Elise appears to confront the evil spirits after the girl. 

It's become an unavoidable cliché in recent years that no theme has been more explored by the horror genre than grief and trauma. However, considering "Insidious" has always been concerned with spirits from the afterlife, it's a natural theme for this prequel to explore. The central idea here is one of overcoming grief and moving on. Quinn feels stunted by the death of her mother, which her blue collar father seemingly can't confront at all. Elise, meanwhile, has sheltered herself from the world after her husband's suicide. These two are trapped in a cycle of being unable to accept the passing of their loved ones and continue on. Of course, through their traumatic experience, they will both learn that life is still worth living, that our loved ones would want us to keep going. Simple stuff but it's a sturdy thematic foundation to build your spook show upon.

"Insidious: Chapter 3" makes another logical choice for the series. Lin Shaye was certainly a stand-out in the first two installments, the genre veteran bringing a likable presence with her. Elise had shuffled off the mortal coil by the time the second film started but, no matter, simply go a little further back in time. Building the series around a spiritual investigator, who clearly had many other cases before the Lamberts, was obviously the easiest way to keep the "Insidious" train rolling. And if it meant we got more of Lin Shaye's comfy, grandmotherly persona, who could complain? Elise had the standard "coming out of retirement for one last gig" arc, which gives Shaye some decent emotional text to bite into. 

Calling "Insidious: Chapter 3" a "Lin Shaye vehicle" is slightly misleading. She is not truly the star of the film. That would fall to a photogenic young actress, Stefanie Scott. While you never quite know what you'll get from the leads in horror films, Scott is good. Quinn isn't merely defined by her trauma, also having a dream of performing on-stage as an actress. She also has good chemistry with Dermont Mulroney as her dad, a working man who clearly isn't the best at processing emotions. In fact, the cast is surprisingly likeable overall. Tate Berney is amusing as Quinn's hyperactive little brother and I like the amount of attention paid to her friends and crushes. Quinn is more fleshed out than your standard slasher movie final girl. We get a sense of what her life is like, outside these events. 

Which is not to say that "Chapter 3" isn't a standard jump scares delivery machine, that formula which Blumhouse has turned into such a profitable model. The third installment absolutely continues the tradition of hammering the audience with as many loud shrieks as possible. Every ghostly encounter brings with it a sudden noise or a grisly face being thrusted towards the heroine. It's all thoroughly predictable, the audience knowing that a big shock is about the come the minute everything starts to get quiet. The most ridiculous one is saved for the prequel's final moments, in which the franchise's silliest but most famous ghost puts in a cameo. The way the ghosts slide in and out of frame can't help but bring fun house attractions to mind, showing the mechanical devotion the "Insidious" series has to making people squeal. 

However, it must be said, I think Leigh Whannall is actually a little better at delivering this kind of tired old scare than his old buddy, James Wan, is. Part three does not lean on Joseph Bishara's cacophonous score as much as the previous two entries did. Whannall seems to understand that jump scares are a little less obnoxious when not always accompanied by thundering strings on the soundtrack. A sequence involving the central ghoul – played, by the way, by the same guy who was the Mummy in "The Monster Squad" – being tossed out a window, only for our heroine to foolishly look back out, is quite well executed. I would argue that "Chapter 3" utilizes a bit more subtly than is demanded of this type of boo-show. Setting the story almost entirely within a rickety, dilapidated old apartment building is a sensible updating of the gothic cliché of the dust caked Victorian mansion. Most of us probably have much more familiarity with the former than the latter, making this a reasonably modern upgrade to the haunted house premise. 

While hopelessly retrained within the PG-13 limits of this series, Whannell does make an effort to add more variety to the types of scares delivered here. That Quinn spends nearly the entire film with her leg in a heavy cast makes her especially vulnerable. It also draws attention to bodily deformation and pain. This is extended by the villain, an emaciated spectre who is always struggling to breath and garbed in a stained, tattered hospital gown. This reinforces the idea of a dead spirit, desperate to cling to life. This builds towards some decent body horror in the second act. The image of an eye appearing in Quinn's throat – possibly pilfered from "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2" – was bold enough to make one of the posters. Another gag, truly utilizing that leg cast for some good old fashion cringes, is probably the cleverest scare in the movie. Quinn losing her identity is nicely visualized by her eyes disappearing from her face, a gnarly little bit of make-up.

By leaving James Wan – save a cameo as a casting director – the "Insidious" series can also move beyond the traditional visual look he brings with him. Stepping into the role of cinematographer is Brian Pearson, who has previously mostly worked in the realm of television and low budget horror flicks. Pearson, however, does decent work. “Chapter 3” discards the overwhelming greenish grey look of the first two and introduces a little more color into things. Some rich reds suggests a hellish atmosphere, while blues and blacks bringing some classical, spooky Halloween vibes. Overall, Whannell and his team makes good use of lighting and shadows throughout, with stray rays often breaking through into rooms or barely seen beasties lurking in the dark.

As much as “Chapter 3” does its own thing, apart from the first two installments, this is still an “Insidious” movie. By which I mean, it's going to get really stupid before the end. Once we enter the Further in the last act, the expected funhouse atmosphere takes hold. There's a fine layer of mist on the floor. Elise is presented with different creaking spirits, each one like a set piece in a haunt. The previous installment overcame the inherent goofiness of its “pasty faced ghouls leaping out of the dark” set-up by moving more towards intentional camp. “Chapter 3” does this too, when little ol' Lin Shaye cusses out a familiar spirit and punches them out a window. It's hard to deny that the filmmakers know the material is getting silly when they include a comical moment like that.

“Insidious: Chapter 3” could almost be watched apart from the first two entries, taking place before either happen. This represents an origin stories of sorts for Specs and Tucker, explaining how high-tech hucksters like this became associated with a classical medium. Steve Coulter stops by as Carl, Elise's buddy from “Chapter 2,” for one whole scene. There are tedious acknowledgements of the first two films' trademark ghosts, the Bride in Black showing up for a quick scene. None of this stuff adds much to the narrative and is easy to ignore, if slightly puzzling, if somewhere to want to leap right into this one for whatever reason. 

Ultimately, “Insidious: Chapter 3” does not overcome its status as a disposable piece of entertainment, another Blumhouse product they can mark in their yearly earnings' calendar. This film delivers the expected amount of loud scares and creepy apparitions, scientifically designed to make back nearly its entire production budget during opening weekend. (That's exactly what happened too, “Chapter 3” opening with 10 million against a budget of 11 million.) Within this modest framework, however, I do think “Insidious: Chapter 3” manages to be a little better than the films that came before. It's a tiny bit better done in terms of frights and puts a little more work into its characters. Destined to slip away quickly from the memory but amusing enough while you're watching it. Good job, Leigh. [Grade: B-]