Patrick Wilson has a wealth of experience in front of the lens, including a couple of very successful horror franchises, but the new Insidious movie will mark a significant first for him — Insidious: The Red Door is his feature directorial debut.

Wilson starred in the first two films of the franchise as Josh Lambert, a father of three who unknowingly passes his ability to astral project and reach a plain called “The Further” to his eldest, Dalton played by Ty Simpkins. At the end of Insidious: Chapter 2, Josh and Dalton’s memories are suppressed in an effort to keep both of them free and clear of potential contact with sinister entities in The Further. But, when Dalton heads off to college in The Red Door, that protection starts to dwindle, challenging both of them to go head-to-head with forces of evil they can’t even remember.

In celebration of Insidious: The Red Door’s nationwide release on July 7th, I got the chance to chat with Wilson about his choice to make his directorial debut an Insidious movie rather than a Conjuring movie and talk about his approach to making a film that aligned with the previously established style of the franchise while also making The Red Door feel uniquely his own. Check it all out in the video at the top of this article or read the conversation in transcript form below.

Image via Sony 

PERRI NEMIROFF: Can you tell me something about the style of these movies that James [Wan] started in film one that you wanted to hold especially tight to, but then also something you deliberately strove to do differently to make The Red Door feel like your own Insidious film?

PATRICK WILSON: One of the things that I wanted to hold on to was the quirkiness. There’s the practical nature of the scares, trying to have everything happen in camera as much as the system will allow you and the time will allow you, and I think this funny, quirky nature that these movies have, the PG-13 nature that can both be enjoyable for adults but also for a teenager. So I wanted it to very much feel like that. And also, obviously root it in family drama, which is really what the first one was, rooted in a family drama. This is just really like family trauma time now.

And then what I wanted to branch out and do on my own, a lot of things. First and foremost, I think the structure of some of the scares, some of the scary sequences that I wanted to be maybe a little more in the daytime, even though he’s got a great one with Dancing Boy in the first one that’s in the daytime with a good Texas Switch, but I wanted something a little more visceral. So my, what I call the townhouse sequence of me flipping the things, I fought for that over and over even though I was kind of told, “You should do this at night, he shouldn’t come through the window,” all this kind of stuff. [Laughs] And I was like, “I know, but I want to challenge myself.” You would expect, all of a sudden, [for] the guy to be inside. We’ve already done that. So, I purposely wanted to push things, and it wasn’t always greeted with, “Sure!” It was greeted with a lot of, “Don’t know if that’ll work,” but that’s okay!

It’s scarier during the daytime because you feel safe. Something like that shouldn’t happen!

WILSON: 100%. 100%. And then when you find out who that is, then it makes much more sense.

Image via Sony

I want to touch on the idea of executing jump scares, which are very important to this franchise — pairing the right surprise visual with the right sound stinger. Can you give me one do and one do not that you embraced for delivering good jump scares?

WILSON: Don’t lead with music. Music can help you. The absence of music is equally important, the absence of sound. Leigh Whannell, we were figuring out a scene, helping a scene, and I even had it cut in there and there was some music in there or something, we hadn’t finished the scene, but he’s like, “You should try it without the music.” His quote was, “Let the audience provide the music.” The, “Ohhh,” which I thought is awesome. So that was very helpful.

It’s all in the setup is the easy answer. I mean, you gotta look down the hallway a couple times before you look down [laughs], and hopefully try to give them — sometimes you want to give them what they want and sometimes you want to completely go the other route and turn it on its head. You just have to keep the audience guessing.

I love that element of this whole franchise. Sometimes I just put an Insidious movie on if I need a burst of energy!

WILSON: [Laughs] Good!

Image via Sony

A broader question here. I was wondering why specifically Insidious for your directorial debut? Is there something about that franchise versus, let’s say, The Conjuring, that you think speaks to what you want to do as a director?

WILSON: I think, like everything, like all of us, you look at the opportunities you’re presented with, the opportunities that are in front of you, your goals shift as your career shifts. Most of my career, any actor’s career, is you’re just kind of a gun for hire, right? That’s just the nature of the beast. I think with this movie it was a great fit and an incredible opportunity because nobody makes these movies better than Blumhouse, and I’ve done several movies with these guys and I knew I’d be taken care of. I also knew that the movie would be seen, which, lest we forget, is sort of rule number one for me when making a movie. It’d be nice for it to be seen by people and not just, “Look, I made a movie!” That was of no interest to me, of just going out for a personal passion project just to say you did it.

So, all these things just kind of fit. It made sense. Jason Blum, although they may not like to work with a lot of first-time directors, if he does, it’s a director that’s either come from some other side of the business. I think of Jordan Peele, Joel Edgerton, other guys that have made the transition with them. So there’s a huge bonus in the way that Jason Blum and Cooper [Samuelson] and the guys at Blumhouse run their business that enables a director to go, “We’re gonna let you do your movie. You’re gonna be protected. We’re gonna get the team around you.” And so it was super comforting and a real luxury in this climate to be able to have a summertime movie with a first-time director in a half-a-billion-dollar franchise, so I’m very fortunate.

For more on Insidious: The Red Door, check out my conversation with Lin Shaye below: