From Dictionary.com:
Wan – adjective – Lacking in forcefulness, competence, or effectiveness.
Fitting.
James Wan’s a director whose best film is Death Sentence, which isn’t dogshit but it is akin to a substance that could feasibly have been found in or around the posterior of a mutt. His best film is still almost a steaming nightmare. In addition to the Kevin Bacon/Garret Hedlund near-atrocity, he directed Saw. A film which created a cottage industry built around stealing money from 20-somethings and setting a genre back twenty years. He also was a producer on many of its subsequent installations/inflictions. Good for the wallet, bad for the soul.
But he’s a good businessman and I’m sure he’s electric in a pitch meeting. Plus, look at his hair. How are we even supposed to try and compete.
Icon Entertainment apparently loves him, locking him down to an eight picture deal to produce two horror films a year for the next four years [MATH].
So I guess the quality of the films will be up to Saw standards, since they projectile vomit one of those a year. I see no reason for these chaps not to unload underdeveloped ideas in pairs annually. He may even direct one provided enough human sacrifices happen somewhere.
I’m all for people making the best lives for themselves. I’m all for people who see an opportunity and take it. It’s not like he held these people and gunpoint or put them in some dumb over-designed trap that forced them to sacrifice something they love to escape from. They willingly made the deal.
It just sucks. You know, because his movies all do.
14 comments
I strongly disagree with you there. I thought Death Sentence was pretty bad ass and I didn’t mind the first Saw.
What made Death Sentence work so well was the awesome performances by both Bacon and Hedlund. I barely even recognized Hedlund! I really liked how the movies first 3/4th’s were spent connecting you with the family and throwing in some cool action bits and then the last 25 minutes if filled with tons of awesome violence and a brief scene with John Goodman!
I will say that Dead Silence was horrible.
His car chases improved tremendously between Saw and Death Sentence!
eh, good for him. Just sad to see guys like David Twohy and Alfanso Cauran having trouble making films.
He’s just at the right place at the right time that’s all. I have no quarrels with the first Saw, Death Sentence was kickass and I think Insidious will change your mind about James Wan I hope, that was a scary flick.
Wait, so was it HIM that set a genre back 20 years, or was it the fault of the Lionsgate folks that felt that there had to be a new Saw every year after that? Good for Wan if he got a check every time they made a sequel, but you could hardly hold him personally responsible for the endless sequels or for making that first film the IT that everything tried to be for the next 5 years.
Death Sentence was one of the biggest pieces of crap I have ever seen, and I eat at Buffalo Wild Wings a lot.
saw was a great debut! and high school absolutely love it and the sequels! that’s like telling me they shouldn’t have made so many friday the 13ths, just coz they sucked… not sure where i’m going with this anymore… but you get the sentiment!
To think that Lee Whannel started off as a movie reviewer on Recovery and James Wan was… well… nobody. How the hell these guys managed to make mega bucks is still beyond me – even though it’s blatantly obvious. I just hope that out of these films that decide to at least make one in Australia.
He should change his name to James WANK. Because wank is what he’s contributed thus far.
Yeah, hate on Saw all you want, but I don’t think it set back horror 20 years. I don’t think it had that big of an impact. If anything I would blame The Ring. It made PG13 horror popular.
The Ring is good. It’s a good movie. Ratings are irrelevant if a movie is good. I’ll take a G-rated good film over a shitty R one every day of the week.
Well let me take it all back then.
I enjoyed Saw quite a bit the first time I saw it. Then I decided to revisit it and found the most horrifying element to be all the bad acting it contained. Death Sentence was a nice surprise, but I only saw it for the first time in the last 6 months and forgot a lot about it (that said, I’d probably never revisit it).
The Ring was good. But, doesn’t mean it didn’t encourage a horrible wave of movies. I would take the most awful R rated horror movie any day of the week over a PG13 horror movie. I guess an argument could be made that the best kind of horror only needs to be PG13, but they aren’t doing it right. Then again, I just happen to love gore flicks (mostly for the makeup) most of all horror, so my opinion is likely biased.
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