James Wan’s Top 5 Films
Scott Hallam
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Death Sentence
It’s all about family. Okay, so it isn’t exactly a Charles Bronson, picture-perfect revenge flick, but Death Sentence is certainly a worthy effort that gets the juices flowing… both the adrenaline of the audience and the blood on-screen. And there were definitely some very cool, memorable things about Death Sentence. First and foremost, the portrayal of Bones by John Goodman jumps immediately to mind, as well as an absolutely insane car chase. The action in Death Sentence is top-notch. Sure, it drags a bit between high-intensity scenes, but you take the good with the bad. And horror fans simply had to love the subtle references to Wan’s previous films such as Saw and Dead Silence that appear in this film. Very clever. Perhaps this is a bit of a precursor to what we may get when Wan releases Fast and Furious 7 next year. And btw, if you haven’t checked out anything on that one yet, make a note to. The cast includes everyone from The Rock to Ronda Rousey, Iggy Azalea to Kurt Russell. Should be interesting.
Dead Silence
Oh, those goddamn dolls! There are few things that are creepier than a bunch of marionettes, and Wan was hip to that information and gave us all the puppet horror we could handle with Dead Silence. And he takes all that he learned scaring the bejesus out of audiences with the dolls in this movie and builds on it in Annabelle. The Dead Silence combination of a ton of unsettling marionettes with the Mary Shaw legend was a perfect concoction for a horrific tale. Starring Ryan Kwanten and Donnie Wahlberg, Dead Silence reunited Wan with his Saw writing partner, Leigh Whannell. It wasn’t a box office smash and the reviews were so-so, but you’ve got to admit that as a viewer, at some point during Dead Silence you found yourself a bit unsettled, a bit wary of that wall of dolls. Regardless of whatever else it was, Dead Silence was friggin’ creepy!
Saw
Saw was the film that started it all for James Wan. He wrote and directed the movie which was based on a short film that he also wrote and directed, which is now known as Saw 0.5 and became the infamous “reverse bear trap” scene in Saw. The movie would go on to gross over $103 million on a budget just over $1 million. That’s the kind of results that vault you to instant stardom in Hollywood, and Saw did just that for Wan. The movie blew audiences away, and they kept coming back for more as the entire Saw series would go on to gross nearly $1 billion worldwide. And why is that? That’s because the original Saw kicked fucking ass! When Cary Elwes sawed off his own foot, we cringed. And when Jigsaw, who we assumed was a dead body lying on the floor, stood up, we were all immediately fans of Saw and its brilliant creator, James Wan. And the director has proven that Saw was just the beginning of his horrific exploits as now, 10 years later, he’s still getting under audiences’ skin with films like The Conjuring, and Annabelle is sure to follow suit.
