The Big Picture - Why Horror Is Bigger Than Ever, Plus: Gary Dauberman on ‘Annabelle Comes Home’ | The Big Picture

Episode Date: June 25, 2019

The horror genre spent decades as the lowbrow stepchild of the movie industry, but now it’s the vehicle for exciting young filmmakers like Ari Aster and Jordan Peele. Chris Ryan joins the show to help make sense of how we got here (1:00). Then, Gary Dauberman stops by to discuss his path from writing spec scripts to becoming the director of ‘Annabelle Comes Home’—the latest movie in the 'Conjuring' universe, a series he helped grow (21:31). Host: Sean Fennessey Guests: Chris Ryan and Gary Dauberman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by M&M's. Have you tried M&M's caramel yet? Caramel has been square for far too long, and M&M's is doing their part by giving you that familiar flavor in a package you love, surrounding the smooth caramel and delicious milk chocolate. As always, M&M's knows how to bring spontaneous fun. Just like, I don't know, going out to the movies and getting a good scare.

With M&M's caramel, we can all agree that caramel is more fun than ever. Go grab some M&M's caramel today and let your taste buds go for a ride. I'm Sean Fennessy, editor-in-chief of The Ringer, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about ghosts, ghouls, and expanded universes. I'm joined today by The Ringer's chief paranormal investigator, Chris Ryan. Hello, Chris. Many people say that I look like the guy from Jeepers Creepers. Is that a fact? No, I mean, like that guy had a tough beat. You know,

he was basically made of other people's body parts. So I think I'm doing better than him. Chris, you're here to talk about Jeepers Creepers because that's what you always talk about when you talk about horror movies. But we're also here because this week, a movie called Annabelle Comes Home comes out in theaters. That movie is the third Annabelle film, and I believe the seventh, possibly the eighth film in the Conjuring universe.

Later in the show, I have a very cool conversation with the writer-director, Gary Dauberman, who has been the author of many of these movies. And this is his first directing effort. It's a very clever and interesting all-in-one-night, all-in-one-house kind of a movie. And it had me thinking a bit about the state of horror movies this year. Last year, there was a big topic of conversation

when John Krasinski had his directorial debut, which was a horror film, A Quiet Place. The year before that, we had Jordan Peele's directorial debut, of course, Get Out. And there was all of this energy around horror movies. It, of course, last year came out. That was one of the biggest horror hits in the history of movies. This year has been a little bit more even-tempered.

There, of course, was Us, which was Jordan Peele's follow-up to Get Out. And there's been a smattering of horror movies throughout the year, among them Escape Room, which is a low-key one of the bigger hits of the year. Did you see Escape Room? There's a bunch of horror stuff from this year, among them Escape Room, which is a low-key, one of the bigger hits of the year. Did you see Escape Room? I didn't. There's a bunch of horror stuff from this year that I think fell in and around the Thrones period of time, so I kind of missed. But I still probably have seen way more horror movies than any sane person should this year. Yeah. So the way that you consume horror movies may be different from the way that I do. And I

see a lot of movies in theaters, obviously, But you have, you watch a lot of VOD horror. Yeah, so me and my wife really love horror movies as like a, you know, like if we're home on a Friday or Saturday kind of thing. And what we tend to do is just troll iTunes horror, the genre page, and look for it, usually on like recent discoveries. And we actually go through a really, really funny, very 2019 process, which is try to ascertain whether or not it's a movie of any quality without giving away anything about it. So it's essentially looking around, scanning the reviews, but not reading them. And then playing enough of the trailer to determine whether or not it looks like it was shot on a guy's iPhone on a trip to Palm Springs.

Or it's actually really good and you just have to like dig into it. And we've gotten pretty good at it. Sometimes we'll get about 30 minutes into something and be like, oh shit, this is a bunch of like Instagram celebrities who can't act. And we just kind of have to turn it off. But more often than not, we find some good stuff on there. We just watched a really good one this weekend, actually. Okay. I want to hear about that. Let's just say that there are three categories of horror in 2019. Yeah. Number one is the tippy-top,

kind of big studio, glossy, let's try to make this an event kind of a film. It 2. It Chapter 2 is coming out later this year. I think Dr. Sleep also falls into that category.

That's the sequel to The Shining. Mike Flanagan is directing. It comes out later this year. I think Us certainly falls into that category. When we saw Us at South by Southwest, it was notable that Universal chairman Donna Langley was there, or used to be the domain of the disreputable, and now it has become big business and very respectable. I think the second tier is, and this is not necessarily a

qualitative analysis, it's just the way that these things are organized. I think sort of the Blumhouse style, still a big studio, but smaller, smaller budget, a little bit sharper around the edges, a little bit more rough-hewn, very high concept, usually very fun, usually also part of some sort of expanded universe in many ways. Earlier this year, they released Happy Death Day 2, To You, which is a second film in that series. I actually quite like that movie. Me too. I think Pet Sematary kind of falls into this category, which aspired to be maybe a little bit glossier

than it actually was, but that was a Paramount movie. Not too many people saw Brightburn, but I thought Brightburn had a couple of cool moves using the superhero construct to make a movie like this. And then the Dead Don't Die, we had Jim Jarmusch on the show last week, ostensibly a small movie from Focus, but you know,

shitload of famous people in a zombie movie. And then that third tier is the tier that you're talking about, which is horror movies are among the easiest to make on the cheap. And all you really need is a good idea, maybe a handful of creature effects or blood effects, I guess,

or even just sort of ghost sounds. And you can make something pretty impressive for very little money. I think that there's a rule that applies to all tiers of these movies that you're talking about, which is essentially that horror is one of the most reliably successful genres of our modern era.

So whether you want to say it starts a paranormal activity or whenever you think the horror boom kind of starts, I think that there are a lot of things that wind up getting dubbed horror movies that are essentially just like a filmmaker had a story they wanted to tell and whether or not they shoehorned it into a horror story or whether or not they kind of always envisioned it as a horror story and there's no Trojan horsing involved. If it says horror on the sort of genre topic bar, you at least have my attention for me. And I think there are a lot of people out there like me. I think we've talked about this before on Big Pick where it's like being scared is just still one of the most basic call and response things that you can do at a movie theater or at home watching on your laptop or on your TV.

It is still one of the most fundamental and like primal experiences you can have with a story. And there's a lot of like, oh, well, it was funny, but then the story fell apart or it was the action was great, but the story was stupid for all these other genres. But horror, you allow a lot of like, it doesn't really matter as long as I had a couple of scares. And what happens because there's that leeway, you see so many different kinds of filmmakers making so many different kinds of films within the horror tent. Yeah. It was interesting to talk to Gary about making Annabelle Comes Home because on the one hand, I think you could say, oh, a third Annabelle movie, like, is this something we really need? Right. But those movies are so malleable that you can

redefine what kind of a movie it is every time you make one. All three Annabelle films have basically taken place in different decades. They're all kind of period pieces in a way. And they all aspire to a different kind of thing. They're all secretly kind of about faith. They're very Christian films under the surface. But this new one, I think, really effectively makes it sort of like a gallery of horrors kind of movie where you have a series of artifacts that are haunting a house. And, you know, it doesn't seem like it's necessarily that expensive, even though it's released by a big studio. And it does give you

the thing that you're talking about. It gives you a few good scares. It makes you feel safe. You're kind of around people that you don't mind being around. The way that it ends is sort of satisfying, but also if another one never happened that'd be okay if we got five more that would also be okay it's oddly not larded with the same continuity intensity that comes with like the mcu and there's something really satisfying it seems like they're also working at a certain margin so that they've never gone out past the patrick wilson vera farmiga level of star they've not incorporated some whole new like level of special effects. They're essentially like just really good jump scares. Yes. And you

can do that at a budget that works and have moderate success and have that moderate success be really, really beneficial for the people who are making it. Yeah. No one is ashamed of it. There's nothing. Gary even said, he's like, I like creaky floorboards as a storytelling device. You know, there's something refreshing. So does Michelle Haneke, you know what I mean? Like, yeah. Totally, yeah. For sure. It's not that far away from some of your artier filmmaking. But what

are some movies you saw this year that you really liked? Yeah, you know, I mean, just stuff outside of the list that you gave us, and you know, I think that what's interesting now is also like seeing things like Velvet Buzzsaw, or even like us to some extent, which are kind of psychological thrillers that are being presented as horror movies. Um, I, I would say, you know, I just saw two really interesting different, uh, versions. One is, uh, a movie called Starfish, which, uh, is kind of a post-apocalyptic thing where a woman goes to a funeral of a friend,

goes to sleep in her friend's apartment that night, wakes up the next day, and something has happened. There's been some sort of alien invasion or something. It's basically a mystery for the rest of it. The reason why I'm not very clear on that is because it's really like a meditative, like Terrence Malick-y one-er of like,

one-hander of a woman in an apartment, kind of like going through a bunch of different belongings and sort of trying to figure out what happened. But it's like very fetishistic about like all the objects and cool, like kitschy knickknacks that this person has in their apartment that you realize as the story goes on is kind of a mystery box to sort of figure out what's happened to the world. It's not that scary, although there are some scares in it, but it's like an example of an indie filmmaker shooting something.

I think it looks like it's in like Montana or Wyoming. The woman, the star of it is, the character is like a radio DJ. So she's just kind of like going through these tapes that her friend has left behind. So Starfish was pretty interesting. The one that I really liked, which is admittedly a

little bit pulpy, is this movie called Headcount, which has a really good setup. It's just a bunch of teenagers getting high in the desert on a weekend away in what is essentially Palm Springs. They tell each other ghost stories around the fire pit one night, and one of the ghost stories comes true because they tell it. It's basically like a Candyman type of thing. They said the name too many times and it's got a real Twilight Zone feel to it. The scares are really sincerely good. And even though the CGI isn't that good, if you're looking for something small like that, Headcount is really excellent. Those are two great recommendations. Two films I haven't seen. Where can you get those? iTunes.

Both on iTunes? Both on iTunes, yeah. And so you watched approximately 30 seconds of both of those trailers and said, I'm in? So Headcount has the setup that my wife and I will literally watch anything of. If it's like a teenager's on a camping trip story, we're in. I don't know why. It's just always been my favorite. From Friday the 13th on, it's always been my favorite genre. Were you a

horror movie, sort of a horror fan as a kid? Well, not really. It didn't bother me, but I remember going to see Shocker. You remember that one? I do. And kind of being grossed out and just a little bit like, this is beneath me and stupid. Because when

you're a teenager, you're trying... I think one thing that was a real hallmark of being a teen back then was like, you were always trying to be older than you actually were. Cause you didn't have a lot of stuff being like directed directly at you. So I remember just kind of thinking it was pretty stupid. Also horror was considered like trash back then. Absolutely.

You know? And so it wasn't like, I didn't have a lot of friends who were like, let's go check out like this. Like, let's go check out this cool Blumhouse movie. It. You know, and so it wasn't like, I didn't have a lot of friends who were like, let's go check out like this, like let's go check out this cool Blumhouse movie. It was like every, like six times a year

there would be a real, it was pitched as a piece of shit. You know what I mean? Slasher movie. Even if it was like a good Wes Craven thing, when you would see, what was the name

of the Wes Craven one? Like the Serpent and the Rainbow or something. That's it, yes. And you would just be like, what the fuck is is that and then like your dad would be like no you can't watch that yeah it's funny that you point out shocker because shocker came out after a nightmare on elm street so if a movie like a nightmare on elm street an original movie huge success not just cult-like but like genuinely authentically into the culture came out every

movie that the person who made after that would be a big deal. But Wes Craven had this six or seven year period where he was still basically an underground, overground filmmaker. Some of those movies are good. Some of them are not. The Serpent and the Rainbow, I remember being pretty good.

That's sort of like a voodoo. Yeah, yeah. It's totally terrifying. Yeah, it's a funny thing that the genre has just changed so much and what we deem respectable and not respectable is unique

because you know there's a movie we're going to talk about next week that you and I saw together called Midsommar how do you pronounce it Chris?

Midsommar Midsommar I mean I know it's Midsommar but like you feel too pretentious saying it is that the problem?

I just don't want to hit the same pronunciation every time where I'm like I have to like do the right intonation so I'm going to let you get it right. And I'll just be the ugly American.

And that works for this movie. It's very true. If you want to hear more about Midsommar, please tune into the show next week. Chris and I will talk about it. I'll also talk to the director Ari Aster, who is perhaps a very depraved individual, has made a fascinating movie.

I asked him about fandom as a kid because there's a movie coming out in August called Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Is that Guillermo del Toro's? He's a producer on the movie. Did you read this book as a kid? I didn't. I didn't. So this was a very... Bobby, did you read this book as a kid? Oh, I'm shocked. This is a very successful series of short story collections that were popular when I was seven, eight, nine, ten. And it was just an anthology series, but they were extremely vivid stories.

And they each came with illustrations inside them. The illustrations were very upsetting. And it looks like a very faithful adaptation of this book. And I don't know why I'm so excited. Maybe it's just that... Is it like an anthology movie? Like within the movie, it's like each story is different, right? Yes.

And so you reminded talking about Headcount a little bit, talking about the idea of telling campfire ghost stories. Those stories and scary stories to tell in the dark has a very similar feel. I'm kind of excited to see what they do with this movie. And it's, you know, very kind of low-key buried on an August 9th release date. But if it ends up making like $40 million,

I won't be surprised because I think there are a lot of nostalgia- 35 year olds like me, you know, trying to get back to that feeling. I'm kind of curious because your relationship to movies has changed so much over the last couple of years. Obviously you've always been like a really big fan, but now you're so invested in the mechanics of not only how they're made, but also how they're distributed and sold and marketed and what goes into the thinking behind those things and for me one of the reasons why i go trawling for these like unheard of movies that are just kind of sitting on streaming services is because i still kind of like to

think of horror stories as ghost stories and part of that is that feeling of discovery and also just like uncertainty as to whether or not like, am I supposed to be seeing this? This is really happening. It's like, like there's that Blair Witch thing where like if you, if a horror movie is good enough, if you're actually scared, you can forget everything around you for a second and just be like, I'm completely, this is, this is reality to me. And it must be hard. Like the more, like I, you know, we'll talk about this when we talk about Midsommar but like I feel bad for people who are watching the like second and third trailers of Midsommar it shouldn't be like that it should be something that you like are brought in you get like black boxed and then put in the

theater and then that's what you see it's a very interesting point and I think that's why the two recommendations you made are so great is because I think most people know very little about those movies and the absence of hype can be a very powerful drug. I think that, I think that Us was a pretty close experience for you and I when we saw it at a festival. And I think seeing horror movies at festivals where they can surprise you is a slightly better execution. But for most people, you're right, the level of exposure that movies need to get out in front of, and you know, we've talked about this so many times on this show. It's just really hard to get people to come out to the theater in general. Yeah. I mean, even something that's as well known as Pet Sematary, I think suffered from the amount of stuff it gave away in the trailer. And, you know, you even wonder down to something

like Ma, you know, which I am the perfect person to go see Mom and I haven't caught it yet and I will see it. But it does seem like I was like, I got it. I know, I know what this is about. Whereas like if there was some way, it's almost like the way it was back when we were kids, where you would go to the video store and like creep over to the horror section and just like, look at the back of the box and just be like, I guess I'll just get this. You know what I mean? I know. I miss that feeling. That's the one thing I wish I could take away from all of this incredible exposure I have to the world of movies, which I love and I enjoy. And I love going to the movies almost every night at this point in my life. But just that sense of discovery. Yeah, that's why festivals probably become so fun for you.

They do. One thing I think you and I share in terms of horror taste is a good, like messy creature movie. Sure. And soon Crawl is coming out. Yeah. Are you excited about Crawl? There's no way for me to express properly how excited I am about Crawl. For those of you who don't know about Crawl, this is Alexandra Aja's new film. Alexandra Aja was part of a, he was kind of a part of it. Was it the Splat Pack? Was that that group of directors who kind of came around? Hills Have Eyes.

Very highly stylized. Like there was a bunch of guys around that time. I mean, I don't know if Zombie was in that, but just like this idea of bringing like really high art cinematography and mechanics to horror genre stuff. Yeah. His breakout film is a

French film called high tension. It is deeply fucked is the best way to describe it. Really great, great horror movie. And he hasn't made a movie in some time.

And I'm really looking forward to this. It's basically an alligator escape tale starring Chris Ryan, all-star Barry Pepper. Yes. Maybe we'll be back on this show

to talk about Crawl when it comes out. And it's Kai Escalero, right? Kai Escalero, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And here's the thing about this movie. If you see the trailer, and this is a movie where it's like, it's okay to see the trailer

because it's about a fucking gator. They went for it it like you can sometimes see these creature movies or like horror movies and you can see everybody involved is kind of like i'd rather be making a joe swanberg movie here we go they're just like put the gator in the house with the woman and let's go and it is it is% committed. They shot it like Blackhawk down. So you're just like, holy shit. And I can't wait for this movie. I'm looking forward to this more than The Irishman.

Put it on the poster. One more to cite for people down the road. Well, a couple more. Zombieland Double Tap. Completely unnecessary Zombieland sequel, but I don't care. I love Zombieland. I think the whole cast is back.

They got Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, and Woody Harrelson back to make this movie. It's delightful. You read much about The Lighthouse? I don't even know

if you could adequately call this a horror movie, but it made a big splash at Cannes. It was not in competition. It was director of The Witch, right? It was director of The Witch,

Robert Eggers, and it stars Robert Pattinson and willem defoe as a lighthouse keeper and a young apprentice and it's essentially a two-hander shot inside of a lighthouse in an incredibly contrasty black and white style and apparently it's quite funny quite strange and somewhat upsetting um this is an a24 movie i'm very excited about it i'm super excited where do you stand on the sort of more high art end of the horror film? Down for it. I mean, I think sometimes they can be a little ponderous, but

I think that Hereditary is a really good example of a movie that it just depends on what your expectations are going into it. If you think that you're about to see an exorcism movie or a possession movie, you're going to be a little bit disappointed. If you go into it just being like, what if the most real thing that could happen happened? What if the most terrifying thing that your imagination

could come up with actually happened? Yeah, I agree. I'm with you. Chris, thanks for coming by. Oh, wait, can I ask you about It too? Yeah, what do you want to know? Do you think it's going to be like a complete blockbuster? I certainly do. Yeah. Yeah, I think they did a very savvy thing, which is they brought in some famous people to supercharge the potential. Whether it makes as much money as the first movie,

I don't know, because that was one of the most unexpected box office success stories ever. But, you know, we talked a little bit with Gary Dauberman about it, and they just have a feel, I think, for modernizing Stephen King. And his next project is actually an adaptation of Salem's Lot, which is among my favorite King novels.

Yeah. And I don't think that it's going to be wholly faithful to IT Chapter 2, the sort of adult part of that book. But because if they did, that would be also incredibly depraved. You know, the thing is, is that like as we were talking about with the Trojan horsing and using horror as kind of like a banner to do all sorts of stuff, I think that was actually the failure of Castle Rock was the fact that not only TV series, yeah, the Hulu series that was supposed to sort of be based on the expanded King universe was, it was essentially a really ponderous small town drama that happened to have like Cujo in the background. And that can be cool, but it almost felt like everybody involved was like keeping King at arm's distance rather than being like,

yeah, we live in Derry, dude. Like this is crazy. I think New Line and Warner Brothers and James Wan and all the people who make all the Conjuring movies and all the people who make all the It movies and all of these Stephen King adaptations have a real feel for what mainstream horror is and what people want. You know, The Nun was not my favorite of all of those movies, but that movie was a huge success. And they've been able to tap into something very unique with all of those films. So I'm looking forward to it, Chapter 2. Also, James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Bill Hader. Who says no?

Nobody. Chris, thanks, man. You got it. Thanks to Chris Ryan. Now let's go to my conversation with writer-director Gary Dauberman. Delighted to be joined by Gary Dauberman, director of Annabelle Comes Home. Thanks for being here, Gary. Thanks for having me. Gary, I was just telling you, I don't really know very much about you. I certainly know your films. I know the films you've written. I've seen all of them. I really love them, but I don't know where you came from. There's not a lot out in the world about you. You're a mysterious figure. Yeah. As if by choice. Well, but now you got to do press.

You're a director. And I'm so interested in how you got into horror film writing because you just sort of appeared to me in a series of these new line uh conjuring universe films so what what was your path to getting to writing these movies you know my path well you know i i uh i've always loved horror i grew up outside of philadelphia it you know it it felt like um you know growing up kind of surrounded by ghost stories i guess just because of the history there um but i've always yeah i don't know why i always gravitated towards, you know, um, you know, the darker side of things. Uh, but, uh, you know, I did and I always, you know, I know, you know, I've, I've other filmmaker friends and they go, Oh, when I was a kid, I'd run around with my friends and we'd make these movies and these horror movies and all

this stuff. And I, I did not have those, those kinds of friends. Um, but what I did have was a, you know, was it IBM PS2 or, you know, Commodore 64, pen and paper. You know, those things were accessible to me that I started to write. And then eventually I started to draw. I was very much into comics. I wanted to be an illustrator for a little bit. But my heart was always in the movies

and entertainment. And I mean, still in comics, but I knew I wanted to try to take a swing at coming out here and trying to get into the entertainment business. What was that like then? What year did you come out here? I came out here in 2002. Okay. I saved up enough. I came out with like three grand and moved out here and did out here and, and was a, you know, you, you did the cater waiter thing, did the bartending thing, the server.

Uh, I did all that. And then, uh, you know, I, so I do that at night. And then during the day I would intern for, uh, for, for various places. And, um, you know, one of the places I interned was, um, was for a woman named Catherine James who, uh, she really, you know, she worked with, she worked with Quentin Tarantino doing the Pulp Fiction stuff. She was a literary manager, you know, Roger Avery, those guys. And, you know, she taught me a lot about what, you know, the business was like as a, just the day-to-day of what it was like to being a writer. But eventually I got tired of working for, for you know other writers and i wanted to write my own stuff so i took some time off i wrote a a spec that was like my love letter to uh

big trouble in little china and the carpenter movies i loved in the 80s and uh that that was the thing that really got the ball rolling what was that film called it was called death county okay yeah yeah and that just got you in the door that just got me yeah it got me my representative yeah it got me my agent that got me my manager that got me in the in the door to start talking about hey uh what else do you want to do um and that was written around the time it was very much in the same tone as like shawn of the dead okay um but it's uh it's always been one of my favorite scripts uh something you want to try to make at some point yeah i think i think yeah i still think i think there's a movie there yeah yeah it's always you know it's one of those

scripts that you know one a couple times a year, people still go, hey, is that still available? And so there seems to be always an ongoing conversation with that script. So yeah, I hope one day it'll see the light of day. What period of time is this then when you first get representation and you start kind of making your way in the business?

You know, I'm trying to think. I would say, I don't know, 2005, 2006 know, I'm trying to think, I would say, I don't know, 2005, six, maybe trying to think of, you know, like when Sean and the dead came out,

I'm terrible with, with these things I can. Um, but yeah, I would say, I would say it's around there. Um, yeah,

somewhere around 2005, 2006. But the thing that actually, you know, got me into the writer's guild when sci-fi channel was still hiring, uh, and maybe they still hire, I don't know,

but, but they, the thing that got me into the guild was they they would have these you know it was when they would have the saturday night like sci-fi movies uh you know event movies like every week there'd be a new movie they'd release that they produce that they made and um you know one of the things that they did was they would have a title they would have a cast they'd have a location and what they didn't have was a script so they'd call me they say hey we, we need a script in a week and a half because we're about to shoot. And here's the title. So, you know, please just write something

very quickly. That's very old school sort of Roger Corman style. That's what I tell people. It really, it really helped me build up this sort of muscle of being able to deliver things pretty quickly, which I still do. Um, so, so, you know, and I did a couple of three or four of those, but, you know, I was able to, you know, I was able to quit, um, you know, waiting tables and stuff and just focus and be a full-time writer. Um, you know, I wasn't making as much as I was when I was waiting tables, but, but it was enough to be like, okay, now I can just focus my days on writing. Interesting. Uh, yeah, yeah. And it's still, you know, it's still really, really helped me, um, build up that, that, that muscle of, of,

of, uh, just being able to write through a problem and get to the end as opposed to sitting, you know, having the luxury of going, well, I'll just wait for the inspiration to strike. I know you wrote a handful of independent films that were produced and you're working on these sci-fi films. So how do you make the leap, so to speak? Is there some sort of like inner sanctum of acceptability where like you can now be brought into this? That's exactly what it is. Is it? Is it like that? Tell us about it.

You know, how I made my, you know, I, there is, you know, they, they have these, you know, you write a couple of scripts that people like and they're fans of, and they can't make for whatever reason, or it's not right for the right time, but you know, the people start to know who you're writing, you know, what your writing, um, voice is like, and they start to bring you in for these, these round tables. So it's either they've made a movie and they need to fix it or have some issues. So they bring a bunch of writers in, they watch it, and then everybody sits around a table and, you know, they you know they talk about ideas can you tell me about the first time you had that experience were you nervous were you were you willing to share your ideas what's that like yeah it was it was it was uh you know it's nerve-wracking because you know i always i still feel you see whatever that you know what is that the imposter syndrome or you know you feel like a i'm not supposed you're looking around i'm like i'm not

supposed to be here you know it's like one of these are not like the other and that's me. So I, you know, I still feel like that to a certain extent, but I felt like that going into these, into these rooms. But I had to, I, but with the, you know, the, actually the first one I went in or the one I went in on was, it was, it was like Nightmare on Elm Street, the reboot. And that was one of the things that actually got me into the New Line family. You know, they liked what I had to say there and they just started to give me work. And that's really, you know, we just, we've, you know, I'm loyal to them. They're very loyal to me. And that's kind of how it started. The relationship with New Line was going into a round table and nightmare and then them giving me other opportunities. Interesting. So who were your, you mentioned John Carpenter, who were kind of your icons growing up? Who are the people you aspire to be like?

You know, yeah, Carpenter. I mean, you know, Steven Spielberg, you know, but it goes beyond movies. I wanted to be Todd McFarlane. I wanted to be Jim Lee. I wanted to be, you know, these guys that, you know, I wanted to be, um, you know, uh, Neil Adams for comics. I wanted to be Frank Capra, uh, was a huge influence on me. It's a wonderful life is still my favorite movie. Um, cause when I saw it, I was like 12 or 13 and this movie was made so many years before and it still was affected me emotionally. It was like magic trick, right? some of these people were alive some of these people were dead but they were still affecting me in a really deep and emotional way

and while movies had done that prior to that this is the first movie that really clicked in my head to go wow this is a really uh magical thing that's happening uh there's a little bit of that feeling in all the movies that you've written i mean that this the whole annabelle series and the the warrens and everything has a similar sort of like, there's a spirit talking to you. It's trying to guide you on a path. Maybe you make the right choices in your life. Re-examine what has happened before,

what could come in the future. It's not that far away. Yeah, you're right. No, there's a little bit of that. Yeah. But,

but it was, you know, so, but you know, it was awesome. It started me, you know, I'm a huge fan of Jimmy Stewart, you know, Hitchcock, like, you know, just growing up in the eighties was really, you know, so, but, you know, it was also, it started me, you know, I'm a huge fan of Jimmy Stewart, you know, Hitchcock.

Like, you know, just growing up in the 80s was really, you know, I feel like it was such a, I guess everybody says this about the childhood. But to me, it was like the perfect time to grow up because you had so many new things happening with video games, with comic books, with movies. I just don't feel that now. You know, I have a son that's, that's nine and, and I'm, and I guess he's experiencing that with YouTube and whatever else. But for me, it felt much more tangible in a weird way. It felt like even when I was growing up, I knew it was a special time. Was, so your hope was to make things like this, that you loved, was it always to be as a director as well as a writer? You know, I always, it was a, the director part of it, I kept a, I kept secret because it sounded

so obnoxious to me, you know what I mean? Just going, yeah, when I grow up, it was like, you know, writing was a little bit more because it was, again, it was just something that was always around the pen and paper. It was easy and just something I did and I could share it if I wanted to or not. When I was, you know, when I was a kid, I had a, um, I had an online comic book company where I, where I, where I was, you know, kind of the editor and I'd write stories and I'd, I'd have other kids send in their stories and their drawings and stuff. And we'd publish these little, you know, comic books from kids around the world. You were a publisher. Uh, I was, yeah, it was, yeah, for, for one, uh, one brief instant. Um, but, um, it was just, but I love the idea of making things and I still love, and I love that collaboration too. So it wasn't always about having to be the guy. I liked helping the other people, you know, I liked other people helping other people realize, you know, what they

wanted to do as well, which is why I guess, you know, I've, I've also gotten into producing and things like that too. Cause I, cause I enjoy that process. At what point did it click after writing a handful of these films that you were going to be the director of one? And how does that, how does that even happen? Does, does James Wan say you should make one of these? Do you have to raise your hand and say, actually, I think I can, I can direct this. You know, there wasn't, there wasn't like a, it wasn't a long conversation or it wasn't even like, there wasn't a moment where it was suddenly they come down and they anoint you uh i had been working on these movies for for a very long time and and and had you know gone through them from from start to finish really

from you know from writing then and then and then i'd be around in prep i'd be on set during production and you know so i was able to soak up a lot of the, you know, the other filmmakers sort of wisdom and the do's and don'ts. And when it came time to Animal Comes Home, we were talking about the story and we're just talking about, okay, well, here's the plan. We're going to write it. Who are we going to direct it? And then it was kind of just a question. Someone put, hey, do you want to, is this one you want to direct? And, you know, and then it's, you know, I didn't take too long to think about it.

So the script was not finished before that decision no no no it was yeah it was just hey here's what the here's what the the movie's going to be about and then yeah we thought about like well who once it's you know is this something you want to write to direct i'm very interested to know if you changed the way you write it all knowing you were going to direct the movie you know i did i had a you know you have a shorthand with the director so i felt like i didn't have to be as precise on the page because I really knew early on, you know, I knew James was going to be at my side. I knew early on who, you know, Michael Burge is going to be my DP. I knew who sort of the major players were going to be that I was going to be working with.

So instead of, you know, sometimes you write a scene and you cross your fingers, hoping this can be accomplished. I was able to call people up and go, hey, this is something I really want to try. Is this going to be possible given the, you know, certain things? And then I could talk it through with people. And then they were already well aware of what I was trying to achieve. So I didn't have to be so precise on the page a little bit. I could be a little bit more quick and dirty because I really just wanted to get it out there and then get it on the page so I could start, you know, giving it to, you know, John Fox, who's a brilliant storyboard artist and really thoughtful with things and just start the conversation. Because

I find that that's really where I thrive is when I'm having a conversation as opposed to, you know, I'll see you guys in 12 weeks and when I come back, it's going to be all finished and, you know, we'll go from there um that's just not how i work i'm so interested in what it's like to write in expanded universes so i think people sort of don't realize how wide-ranging the conjuring universe actually is and how many films there are and how successful it is and so there's there's probably some bonuses to that you get to make slightly bigger films you get to take more chances but on the other hand maybe you're held back a little bit by some of the mythology that you've helped

create and you have to stick to certain rules. You know, when you're working on a movie like Annabelle Comes Home, does the premise come first? Is there a character idea that you want to get at? How do you start a movie like this when you're six, seven, eight, nine, ten movies into a series? Right. The, you know, on this movie, yeah, I think the premise did, you know, I think that did come, we thought about, or, you know, James had thought about what it must've been like for the Warrens to bring home the doll for the first time

and bring it to the artifact room and for these other artifacts to be in the presence of such evil. And wouldn't that make for a really fucking cool movie? And I said, yeah, that would be amazing. So from there I go, okay, well, what else is the movie going to be about? i had explored the mythology of the doll in in creation and uh we got a little bit of that in in the first one too but one of the uh corners of the of the

conjuring universe that um we had not explored yet that i really wanted to dig into for for a little while was actually judy warren and i thought a lot about because i've just been thinking you know i've met her over the years and it's always like, you know, and everybody, what was it like to be the daughter of Ed and Lorraine Warren? What was it like to grow up in a house that had this room filled

with all these haunted artifacts? And I felt like that would be a compelling sort of character arc and what she was, what that had to be like. And, you know, when you're a kid, you know, you want to be anything but different. And, you know, you're immediately sort of labeled as different when your parents are paranormal investigators, you know, and you have be anything but different. And, you know, you're immediately sort of labeled

as different when your parents are paranormal investigators, you know, and you have this room in your house. But I got to say, it never feels, you know, as opposed to like the Marvel universe or DC or something, we don't have an already established mythology that we really have to, we can't, you know, veer too far away from, or, you know, we're kind of taking it as it comes a little bit. And I think it's very organic. Like we don't, we, we, uh, so I don't find it very, I don't find it really all that limiting. You know, I think, I think there are boxes we need to check, but those boxes I love, I love creaky floorboards. I love, you know, uh, squeaky door hinges and what's around the corner and things like that. Like those traditional conjuring like scares that I just love.

But then it does allow you to, but then we're allowed to take some risks and some swings that maybe if we were adapting a larger, you know, a mythology that maybe we wouldn't be able to do. One thing it feels like it does have in common with, I don't know, like a Marvel movie, it almost feels like a Sinister Six movie, right? Where you've got the artifact room, so you have the opportunity to have six, seven, eight evil figures that you can spotlight that can torture the people in the house. What goes into deciding what stories to tell there, how to tell them? Because you have

to do kind of a lot of explaining of who figures are throughout the movie so that the scares actually make sense. Yeah. That was the biggest challenge where you're not like, oh man, I got to, all right, everybody settle back. I got to tell you what this one's about. You know, you don't want, you don't suddenly want, you know, six scenes of exposition. So you kind of have to go, it's kind of a rat tat tat sort of thing. And also I never felt like I had to give a very deep backstory to each artifact because you know if people want to know about that they can you know maybe we can explore it in later

movies i just kind of want to tease it out i think also you know once you shine the flashlight too much on the monster becomes a little less scary so i'd rather people leave with questions as opposed to like well i completely know what that's about because i think that's then it's like oh you know but but also provided an opportunity for me to vary up the scare. So I could have one scare that feels very poltergeisty. I could have another scare that feels a little Twilight Sony. You know, I could have one that feels a little, you know, kind of more like, um, you know, like a, a mind, you know, a psychological thing or something. Um, so that I use that to my advantage, I hope, you know, um, where, so it didn't feel like we were experiencing the same thing with each artifact and each one had its own unique kind of rules for scares for each one.

But it was a challenging process in terms of like, you don't want to get too deep in the weeds on these things because then it all becomes just white noise. You know, it all becomes too much. I think it's effective. Yeah. I think the way that you've done it, it works really well. Thanks. And, but we always start with, I always with i always start with writing these movies is going back to the warren case files they've written you know dozens of books on this stuff and there's you know

every time i go back there's something new i haven't seen or read before you know and it can be the smallest thing that sort of inspires me and that's what i what what what helps me sort of create you know or starts the sort of journey of like, okay, well filling out sort of whatever the backstory of this particular artifact is. Once you were on set as the director, what was the most surprising thing about being in that role that you didn't anticipate? Um, you know, the, the, the thing I was, you know, I was most anxious about, you know, when you're writing, you know, you develop a process and you come to rely on that process. Even, you know, if, if. If you're writing that day and it's not coming, you've experienced that before. So you know, okay, well, I've been blocked before.

I know I just got to come back tomorrow and sort of whack at the weeds and eventually it's going to start flowing again. I had that to rely on when I'm writing. Directing, I don't have that process yet when I showed up on set that first time, I didn't, I didn't have the, you know, that, that, that experience to, to, to, to, to, to lean on. Um, so that was, so, so I was really anxious about what my process was going to be like and how soon I was going to be to find that or, or was it going to take, you know, am I going to be able to find that in this, in one movie, or is it going to take like with, with writing it's, it's, you know, it takes a couple of scripts to finally go, oh, this is what it's going to feel like. And I'm not saying I have a complete process

now, but very early on, I realized, oh, these are the, oh, this is the stuff I can, I can rely on. If I just do this, I can get through the day. And I give all the credit to, you know, the cast and the crew, uh, who are just extraordinary allowing me to have that, to, to find that, that, that, you know, and being willing to be patient and supportive enough for encouraging enough for me to find that really early on. Cause I think it really, it was something I relied on heavily, uh, throughout, throughout production. One of the things that on the one hand you have basically a single location shoot, you're

inside the house for the bulk of the film. On the other hand, so much of this movie takes place in the dark what is it it's it's legible it all works but was it is it really challenging to make a movie in the dark like that i was trying to understand how you could even do it in the way that you did and i could it couldn't quite wrap my head around it like the way that you light a movie like this especially basically the final the second half of the film yeah it's operating almost entirely in the dark yeah well it's uh yeah i mean i give the credit to michael burgess our dp on that but he knows i like i like uh i like pools of blackness i'm not a huge fan of of movie dark which you gotta have right you gotta have some light in order for it to be captured and

we can project it on the screen but i don't like if someone has a flashlight, but I can already see everything without the flashlight. It's not, I'm like, well, why do they have the flashlight? They don't need, I mean, I can see everything, you know, it's, it takes away the scare from me a little bit. So I, you know, Burgess and I talked a lot about that, of how we can make it. So it's not, so we're squinting our eyes, making things out, but just going, you know, where there's source lighting or whatever, that's where maybe the safety is. That's where, you know, you know but but beyond that it's just edges are a blackness i find that really compelling and i go back to like the first conjuring you know one of my favorite scenes really in all of horror but just that match stick sequence where the whole thing's just lit by a match and it's so scary

um that was something i really wanted to try to recreate or try to accomplish in in this movie um but yeah the single location too was was was but I just, you know, we considered it as the context, right? So you have, you know, one of the things I wanted to do with this movie to make it feel a little bit more fresh or different from the others, it takes place over the course of one night, which we haven't done in The Conjuring Universe yet. And I love because it feels like a throwback to the late 70s, early 80s stuff and, you know, slashers.

But you have, you know, the house during the day and as night's falling, and then you have the house at night and the haunted version of the house. So there we treated it as like a second location. So it was like suddenly it's the context makes it feel like a different location. So that was something we tried to exploit as much as we could. There were also a couple of sort of, I don't know about psychedelic necessarily, but, you know, deeply creepy sequences that are fun. I'm thinking particularly of the television sequence in the artifact room. And I'm wondering if there were, were there movies that you watched before you started doing this or started writing it that were particular reference points for you?

That felt like reminiscent of something to me, but i couldn't really put my finger on what it was it's just an effective sequence no i tend to oh well thank you for that uh it's it is it's it's my favorite it was my when i came up with it i was like oh this is gonna you know i came up with very early on it's nice when you come up with something going like oh this is gonna live this is one thing i'm not gonna have to rewrite which is nice it's like okay very cool cool thank you very much but you know i think my son and I've been watching a lot of twilight zone stuff. So I think it's, it's maybe something in there that's sort of in the subconscious sort of that that's what inspired that. Um, I will say one of my weaknesses and one of my strengths is like the same thing is

I have a terrible memory when it comes to what I watch things, you know, I have friends and, and I really wish I was encyclopedic when it comes to, well, clearly that's, you know, X, Y, Z from this movie, which was made in this, and it was directed by this person. And the DP was, I wish I had that, that recall. I've seen a lot of stuff. I have emotional memories. I know what that movie made me feel like. You know, I, I have, I can tell you some moments of that, of the movie that really, you know, but I don't have the, I can tell you from start to finish what it was about or, or, or, you know, um, who, you know, who was in it

and the history and all that stuff. And I, I really, and I read this stuff and I, I really envy people who have that. But that said, I also consider it a strength because when I'm writing, I'm not going like, oh, that was, they did the same thing in this movie and I can't do that. So now I got to think of something completely different because even if we did the same thing and we were both given the same idea it's going to come out completely different because you're you and i'm me but i so i don't have the constant going better i think i don't know about that but but you know that but that's so i consider it a strength too that i don't have that immediate recall of going uh okay i can't do that because they did it in you you know, this 1967, you know, Swedish film.

So what do you do now? You've got your first film you've directed. You've worked in this series for a long time. You've also written the films. You've got a chapter two coming out soon, which I'm sure no one will see that. Are you eager to do something that is completely original, that is outside of one of the universes? How do you figure out what you want to do next?

How do I figure out what I want to do next? I love the work, and I feel very fortunate I get to work within the genre space. I mean, that's really what I love to watch. It's what I love to do. So it's not, you know, horror has never, it's never been a, you know, it felt like in the 90s and the early, like it felt like a stepping stone. Like, oh, I'll do the horror movies so I can go do my fucking biopic or whatever. Like that's not me.

I love what I'm doing. I mean, if I could just do what I'm doing, I'm very, very happy to do it. There's things I'd like to explore. I love sci-fi, love action adventure, things like that. But you know, it's, it's right now I'm, I'm working on, um, Salem's lot, which is, is, uh, you know, it's another, it's another King thing, but I mean, come on, it's, it's, it's Salem's lot. It's, it's, you know, it's a feature. That's a feature. Yeah. So it's, you know, uh, it's a big story for a feature. It's a big story, but it's so, it's that's a feature that's a feature yeah so it's you know uh it's a big story for a feature it's a big story but it's so is it uh oh it's it's it's i mean it's it's so fun

to to it's so fun you know it's such a great book like it's it's you know again like king does it's just i'm kind of just you know i'm really just riding his coat i mean the guy does all the heavy lifting you're like all right well how do I not fuck this up? But people have for a long time. And I think, obviously, that was one of the reasons why it worked so well. It felt like really one of the best and most faithful but also most creative and modern adaptations of one of his works. People connected with it for a reason. How do you maintain that?

Were there lessons that you learned from writing it and working on that that you're bringing over to Salem's Lot? Well, I think Salem's Lot is, it's completely, it's, you know, near the top of his list in terms of, I think, in terms of, you know, just recognizable titles for him. I think, you know, vampires is something that has worked for ages, you know? And we haven't had a great vampire movie, a scary vampire movie, in a really, really long time. That's true. Why do you think that is? I think Twilight was a huge issue for vampires for a while. Not to say I don't like Twilight. I don't say I like Twilight.

But I just think it put vampires in a different context, and I think it's hard to, when that's out there in the conversation, it's hard to go, you know, right the ship a little bit. So now we have some distance away from a lot of that stuff. So, you know, I don't think that's the only reason why, but I don't know. It's just been, I think, but it's, you know, Salem's Lattice had two, you know, it's been, it was a television miniseries back in 79 or whatever it was, the David Soul version, which is, you know, I remember the Tim Curry It, you know, Georgie at, you know, at the sewer and stuff was in seeing Tim Curry as Pennywise for the first time. It was something that's just, you know, we've talked about, you know, my memory is so selective, the emotional memory. I remember where I was at that time. I still remember the same time where it's the tap, tap on the window and it's, you know, let me in, let me, you know,

that is another, I remember being on the edge of my, you know, my, my parents' bed watching that at night and just being so compelled by it and so freaked out by it. So to be able to write that now and give it the big screen treatment is just, it's, it's, you know, it's just really, really exciting. So Gary, at the end of every episode of the show, I ask filmmakers, what's the last great thing they've seen? Are you an avid movie watcher? What is the last great thing you've seen? Does it have to be a movie? It doesn't have to be. Okay. It probably shouldn't be a painting. TV is okay. Yeah. I was going to say TV because I just finished it, uh, last or two nights ago. Uh, but I am an avid movie watcher. I, you know, with kids,

it's, it's my, my, my movie going experiences has veered a little towards, by the way, just did see Toy Story 4, which I, which I thought was fantastic. It's amazing. Um, but the other thing I want to give mention to is Cobra Kai. Have you seen this? Uh, I haven't seen it. You're the second person who has recommended it. Chad Stahelski, who made John Wick 3 also noted this movie.

Oh my, it is a, it's on the, so now it's on itunes i didn't do the youtube red thing and now it's on itunes and i watched the first season and it was just note perfect all the way through for me i mean there's not you know i think of these you know when i'm when i'm thinking of my stories and and and i'm always thinking i don't know in terms of a musical thing where it's like it's like you listen for the bum note right and like i you're like, I got to tweak that because that sounds a little out of tune. This thing was completely in tune from start to finish. I absolutely loved it. I mean, it's like, you know, it's one of those things we watch with a smile on your face the whole way through.

So I just thought it was so well done. But, you know, I encourage people to seek that out because it's amazing. I can't wait to get into season two. I don't think people will have a smile on their face throughout Annabelle Comes Home, but I'm sure they'll enjoy it. Gary, thanks for doing this. Thanks so much, man. I appreciate it. Thank you to Gary Dauberman

and of course, my pal Chris Ryan. Please stay tuned to The Big Picture this week. We've got a double ep coming on Friday. Amanda Dobbins and I are going

to break down her long-awaited Yesterday, a movie about what happens if the Beatles don't exist. And then after that, I'll be chatting with Adam Neyman about the very best movies of the year so far. So please tune in then.