Leigh Whannell achieved a memorable breakout with the low-budget horror film Noticed, which he co-wrote and starred in (as Adam) alongside Cary Elwes. Each Whannell and director James Wan subsequently shot to the large time in a single day, and the movie’s success spawned the long-running Noticed franchise, even after each males left. Whannell and Wan subsequently collaborated on films similar to Dying Sentence, Insidious, and The Conjuring, with ongoing horror franchises being born from the latter two.
Whannell made his directorial debut within the Insidious sequence with Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015) earlier than persevering with his profession as a director with Improve (2018) and The Invisible Man (2020). In 2025, he directed one other horror film with Wolf Man. Throughout his comparatively fledgling profession as a director, Leigh Whannell has continued to scare audiences whereas venturing outdoors the Noticed franchise’s viscera, interlocking his horror tales with new components and themes which have made his directorial work doubly impactful.
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Wolf Man (2025)
Leigh Whannell Revives The Werewolf Legend
After hitting it massive along with his Common Horror revival of The Invisible Man in 2020, Leigh Whannell set his sights on one other traditional monster from the catalog. Nevertheless, he selected to not hyperlink the 2 movies and as a substitute made Wolf Man a standalone horror film. In Wolf Man, Christopher Abbott performs Blake Lovell, a person who decides to trip at his childhood residence along with his spouse Charlotte and daughter Ginger. His father has died, and he needs to make use of this journey to attempt to mend his struggling marriage.
|
Film Title |
Date of Launch |
|---|---|
|
Insidious: Chapter 3 |
June 5, 2015 |
|
Improve |
June 1, 2018 |
|
The Invisible Man |
February 28, 2020 |
|
Wolf Man |
January 17, 2025 |
Nevertheless, that every one goes out the window when a werewolf bites him, and Blake begins to show right into a Wolf Man, placing his spouse and daughter at risk. The movie obtained combined to unfavorable opinions, with a 49% Rotten Tomatoes rating from critics and a 56% from the viewers rating. Whannell tried to make use of the transformation as an allegory of a person with uncontrollable anger who needs to guard his household a lot that he quickly turns into the monster that threatens them himself. It did not work in addition to Whannell’s different movies, although.
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Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015)
The Third Chapter In The Terrifying Supernatural Saga
A prequel to the primary two Insidious films, Insidious: Chapter 3 focuses on the sequence’ mainstay demon knowledgeable, Elise Rainer (Lin Shaye), as she helps within the case of a younger lady named Quinn (Stefanie Scott). With Quinn discovering herself haunted by an ethereal presence generally known as “The Man Who Cannot Breathe” (Michael Reid MacKay), Elise wrestles with confidence in her potential to exorcise the malevolent entity, a shift from her experience within the supernatural first established in Insidious that elevates the scares of Insidious: Chapter 3.
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Whannell and Angus Tucker additionally return as Specs and Tucker, including the sprint of light-heartedness they’ve lengthy given the Insidious franchise. Their story is flipped into con artist demon hunters who unexpectedly turn out to be the real article. Insidious: Chapter 3 is awash within the haunted home environment that made its predecessors join with audiences. Whether it is barely much less potent than the primary two Insidious films, that’s primarily a byproduct of audiences being comparatively accustomed to the Insidious franchise’s world by that time.
Whannell retains the suspense excessive and the scares strategically well-timed. On the similar time, Shaye’s extra uncertain efficiency as Elise reveals a brand new aspect to the franchise’s heroine, maintaining the stress appropriately tight all through the prequel. In constructing the Insidious franchise, James Wan and Leigh Whannell confirmed their mastery of horror was one which didn’t mandate the R-rated carnage of the Noticed films to be efficient, with Whannell making use of these instruments to the story of Insidious Chapter 3 to get off to a stable begin in his directorial debut.
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The Invisible Man (2020)
The Finest Film In The Canceled Darkish Universe Franchise
Rising from the ashes of Common’s discarded Darkish Universe plans, The Invisible Man modernized the traditional horror story whereas scoring one of many final massive pre-pandemic field workplace hauls. When Cecilia Kass (Elizabeth Moss) thinks she’s escaped her abusive boyfriend, Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), she involves query her security and even her personal sanity when Adrian nonetheless appears to be pursuing her after his loss of life.
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The Invisible Man proved a success with horror followers earlier this 12 months, however what is the hidden which means behind Adrian’s surprising loss of life on the movie’s shut?
Absent from the gore of Noticed and the supernatural components of Insidious, The Invisible Man performs on a unique form of horror, utilizing Adrian’s high-tech invisibility go well with as a car for a chilling story of home abuse and gaslighting. With every shoulder brush, veiled whisper, or outright bodily combat with an unseen determine, Cecilia finds herself pushed nearer and nearer to a nervous breakdown, her fixed terror ever seen on her perspiring, sleep-deprived face.
nvisible Man rivals and typically even surpasses the consequences work on Hole Man.
In a film with the title of The Invisible Man, the visible results can solely be top-notch, and Whannell’s movie delivers spectacularly with a mere $7 million finances. The Invisible Man rivals and typically even surpasses the consequences work on Hole Man (2000) in rendering partial visibility to the invisibility suit-clad Adrian. Greater than something,
The Invisible Man‘s fixed rigidity on whether or not Adrian looms unseen is palpably masterful, with a monster of a leap scare utilizing a out of the blue hovering kitchen knife considered one of Whannell’s many hits of sudden terror within the movie. The Invisible Man is an excellent reboot and, by itself phrases, a terrifying horror film expertise good to frighten viewers to their core, with its sci-fi MacGuffin making its horror all of the extra actual amid a story of a bodily and psychologically abusive relationship.
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Improve (2018)
A Man Receives A Technical Improve That Takes Over
Leigh Whannell jumped into the sci-fi-horror combo with Improve, with a revenge story that solely grows creepier the nearer the vendetta involves being achieved. After his spouse is murdered in a gang assault that additionally leaves him paralyzed, auto-mechanic Gray Hint (Logan Marshall-Inexperienced) is outfitted with an experimental A.I. dubbed “STEM” (with Simon Maiden offering the voice). With full management over his physique restored Gray units about to avenge his spouse, which sees him become a flesh-and-blood weapon with the help of STEM.
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Leigh Whannell has graced the horror scene as an actor, director, and author, in movies as fashionable as Noticed and Insidious and as area of interest as Lifeless Silence.
Improve is an ’80s-flavored sci-fi thriller delivered to life within the twenty first century, with STEM’s Hal-9000-like voice reassuring human and unsettlingly technological. Whereas Whannell is perhaps venturing into considerably newer waters with the physique horror components of Improve, he adapts to the transition simply, lulling the viewers and Gray himself right into a false sense of safety with the enjoyable Gray has in his newfound bodily talents. Improve can be Whannell’s first actual foray as a director into motion.
Many likened Improve to Venom with a technological spin.
The movie places a novel twist on Gray’s hard-hitting combat scenes, with STEM absolutely assuming management and eliminating Gray’s opponents with frighteningly exact robotic actions. The story’s darkish tone can be excess of the window dressing it seems to be. Many likened Improve to Venom with a technological spin.
Nevertheless, Gray and STEM’s banter is much much less comedic, and all of it comes crashing down with Improve‘s surprising twist ending, which has a pc program’s impassive effectivity. Improve throws motion, sci-fi, and horror into a mix of a proudly ’80s-influenced techno-thriller, and, with a TV sequence continuation additionally within the works, Improve will get the crown of Leigh Whannell‘s finest directorial effort to this point.
