Editorials
[Set Report] We Visited the Filming of ‘Insidious Chapter 3’
Insidious 3 Set Visit
By Alyse Wax
Sequels get a bad rap. Not quite as bad as remakes (where the hatred is usually well-deserved) but it seems like people look down on sequels. And of course, the returns diminish as the sequels increase. Insidious seems to be one of the few franchises where the second one held up to the first, and after spending a day on the set of Insidious Chapter 3, I am excited that it looks like the tradition will continue.
Tucked into a dusty town far north of Hollywood, with nary a trendy cafe or boutique in sight, is the small cluster of soundstages that Insidious 3 has made its home. Quite a difference from Insidious 2, which filmed in the infamous (and some say haunted) Linda Vista Hospital. But once inside, we are transported into a new and disturbing vision of The Further.
Chapter 3 is set in 2008, making it a “prequel” to the original Insidious. But the Lambert family does not make an appearance in this film. “I didn’t think there was much left to tell with the Lambert family,” admits writer/director Leigh Whannell (who will also reprise his role of Specs). “I think it would have been weird for the trailer to be like, ‘They’re back. And they’re being haunted. Again.’ If you put Rose Byrne and Patrick Wilson in this movie, and a teacup moves, their response is ‘Oh shit, it’s a ghost again.’”
Unit publicist James Ferrera gives us a vague idea of the plot: “The protagonist is a young girl named Quinn who has just lost her mother. She has a brother and a father, and the whole family is feeling the loss. It particularly touches her. She is trying to communicate with her mother, and in doing so, she unwittingly disturbs something in The Further. That is what sets off the events of this film.”
“When we took [the Lamberts] out of the picture, I started thinking about what the connective tissue would be,” Whannell says. “If it is a new family, who would be familiar? And of course, Elise, Tucker and Specs came up. The thing is, James [Wan] and I wrote ourselves into a corner in that Elise dies in the first film! I really wanted Elise back, but I didn’t want to deal with ‘ghost Elise’ – I want her alive! So then I started thinking about an origin story for her, a prequel set before the first film.”
Whannell promises there will be “little strands” that connect Chapter 3 to the first Insidious film, but promises that audiences can walk into Chapter 3 and enjoy it without having seen the first two. “I liked that slate-wiping aspect of it, but I think there is room between this film and the first film [for more stories].”
Getting Whannell to direct Insidious Chapter 3 was not a slam dunk. “We were begging Leigh to direct it, but he just wanted to write the script,” states producer Jason Blum. “There was a two-minute window where I was like, ‘I don’t want to direct part three of anything,’” admits Whannell. “Not even The Godfather made a decent part three. But after that two-minute window passed, I told myself I was an idiot, that I have to do this. This was before I wrote it. Once I started to write it, I fell in love with it. I do remember saying, ‘I don’t know if I want someone else to fuck this up. I want to fuck it up!’”
Into The Further we go. The scene we watch them film today, as they enter the last week of principle photography, involves Lin Shaye, reprising her role of Elise, as she and Quinn (played by Stefanie Scott) race down a long, Gothic hallway as they try to escape the film’s demon. The demon is a horrific vision, even in person: he is skinny and bald and hunched, dressed in a filthy hospital gown and an ominous breathing apparatus. If he looks familiar, there is a good reason for that: “He is played by Michael MacKay, the guy from Seven, who played Sloth,” explains Whannell. “I remember saying to the casting agent, ‘I want him to look like the guy from Seven, who was tied to the bed. Sloth.’ So she got him! He looks exactly the same, but a little older. That guy plays our main villain! It’s awesome to have him, given that that character was such an inspiration for our villain’s look. Imagine if that character, Sloth, got up and was walking around.”
A walk through “Sloth’s” apartment is disgusting, to say the least. We are in the 1970s version of his apartment – I guess when he was a living, (barely) breathing person. The demon in his human life was very ill and a shut-in, as evidenced by mounds of prescription bottles, oxygen tanks, cigarettes, and multiple towers made of playing cards. Of course, there is a creepy doll in the demon’s living room, but what is even weirder are the stacks of photographs spilling out around the decrepit piano: closeup photos of other, equally-creepy dolls. A stack of “Wanted” posters are mixed in, but I cannot get close enough to see who is wanted, and what for. Judging by the police sketch, I have to believe it is a pedophile.
“The lights on the set are low and gloomy,” says Dermot Mulroney, who plays Quinn’s father. “I’m just doing a scene about breakfast, getting the kids off to school – and there is a guy sitting behind me, this demon, in full regalia, ready to go on to do his part. He’s just lurking in the corner.” That wasn’t the only time Whannell scared his cast – and they have William Friedkin to thank for that. “I used an airhorn once,” Whannell confesses. “This all comes from William Friedkin. Before I started shooting, I sent William Friedkin a Tweet, and asked for advice, and he said, ‘Let’s go out to lunch and talk about it.’ So I ended up going out to lunch with William Friedkin. It was surreal! I’ve never met the guy, and he barely says hello before he starts off by saying, ‘You’ve got to scare your actors for real. Every time someone jumps in The Exorcist, it was because I was just off-camera, firing a gun. That’s what you must do.’ I couldn’t do that, so the airhorn was the consolation prize.” Stefanie Scott, who has always wanted to do a horror film and was a fan of the Insidious franchise before signing on, admits that “Leigh scares the crap out of me every day.”
Insidious Chapter 3 is scheduled to hit theaters June 5, 2015.
It’s been 75 years since The Thing From Another World first warned us to “watch the skies”, and filmgoers have done just that by showing up to multiple instances of extraterrestrial contact on the big screen. This makes sense, as a recent CBS news poll estimated that 63% of Americans believe in intelligent life on other planets, and the ongoing disclosure movement aims to raise that number with each passing day.
With Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day leaving many genre fans hungry for more alien footage (preferably of the spooky variety), today I’d like to share a list recommending six underrated alien invasion thrillers for your viewing pleasure. After all, regardless of whether or not you believe that we’re alone in the universe, it can be fun to dream about the worst-case scenario if our cosmic neighbors ever decide to visit.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be focusing on lesser-known invasion stories rather than the popular extraterrestrials of franchises like Alien and Close Encounters of the Third (or even Fourth) Kind. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own alien favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling movie.
While it won’t be featured in this article, I’d highly recommend checking out Dean Alioto’s UFO Abduction/The McPherson Tape if you’re up for some ufology-inspired found footage thrills.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. The Arrival (1996)
Not to be confused with Denis Villeneuve’s Academy Award-winning Amy Adams vehicle about learning to communicate peacefully with extraterrestrial life, David Twohy’s The Arrival is a much more straightforward (but no less entertaining) genre romp where Charlie Sheen faces a global conspiracy involving hostile alien invaders.
It’s not exactly up there with Close Encounters or even Independence Day, but Twohy’s conspiratorial thriller plays out like an exceptionally fun episode of The X-Files that I’d recommend to sci-fi/horror fans who don’t mind a little bit of wonky CGI and 90s excess alongside their alien thrills.
5. Extraterrestrial (2014)
The Vicious Brothers made a name for themselves with the success of 2011’s Grave Encounters, but that was far from the Canadian duo’s only collaboration. And while it’s not exactly a fan favorite, I always point out 2014’s Extraterrestrial as one of their most underrated projects simply because I agree with the filmmakers’ opinion that there aren’t enough ‘cool alien abduction movies’ out there.
Admittedly, the majority of the picture functions like a run-of-the-mill creature feature with paper-thin characters and familiar horror tropes, but I’d argue that the cosmically-terrifying final act elevates the experience to new and memorable heights. The movie also boasts great performances by both Michael Ironside and Emily Perkins – a combination that more than makes up for the occasionally janky CGI.
4. Alien Raiders (2008)
Director Ben Rock has gone on record lamenting how his John-Carpenter-inspired creature feature was forcefully renamed from Supermarket to the painfully obvious Alien Raiders (a change which likely resulted in many potential viewers skipping out on the experience), but the new title doesn’t change the fact that this single-location thriller is something of a hidden gem.
Taking place entirely within a supermarket, Alien Raiders tells the story of an ensemble of customers and employees who are taken hostage by a group of armed men looking for something far more dangerous than an easy payout. I won’t get into details in order to avoid spoiling the experience, but I’d highly recommend this criminally underseen flick to fans of John Carpenter and the Resident Evil games.
3. Phoenix Forgotten (2017)
You’d think that a Ridley-Scott-produced retelling of one of the most infamous real-life UFO sightings of all time would have a bigger following, but I rarely see Justin Barber’s Found Footage period piece brought up during discussions about extraterrestrial-focused horror movies.
This is a huge shame, as Phoenix Forgotten is just as spooky as it is convincing, with this well-researched dive into the Phoenix Lights incident benefiting from surprisingly believable special effects as well as an appropriately horrific finale.
2. Communion (1989)
I wouldn’t blame you for disregarding Whitley Strieber’s controversial book about his alleged close encounter as sensationalist slop, but I’d argue that Phillipe Mora’s 1989 adaptation of these events is much better than the source material. After all, the movie works as a standalone piece of speculative fiction while also benefiting from an incredible performance by the one and only Christopher Walken!
Mora’s take on Communion may not be particularly scary, but the film is still an unforgettable character study regardless of whether or not the abduction really happened. Not only that, but the flick also paved the way for plenty of future sci-fi stories where the extraterrestrial invaders aren’t as evil as they initially appear.
1. Altered (2006)
Originally envisioned as a Sam Raimi-style horror-comedy titled Probed, Eduardo Sánchez (of The Blair Witch Project fame) eventually realized that it would be much more interesting to turn the film into a serious exploration of the emotional aftermath of a traumatic abduction incident.
That’s how we got Altered, a clever inversion of the standard abduction narrative that follows a group of troubled friends as they capture and experiment on an alien in order to enact revenge for their own abduction years prior.
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