Before Wen Ziren started filming the "Conjuring" series, won the director position of "Speed and Passion", and was promoted to the sky by DC's "Sea King", there was a work that was very important for him to ascend to the top Hollywood director position, and that was the "Hidden" series . Before "Hidden" , Wen Ziren's works should be "The Chainsaw" as a screenwriter, and "Dead Silence" directed by him. In 2010, under the premise of only 1.5 million ultra-low production costs, he came up with the world-famous horror film "Hidden".
Also a horror film, "Latent" is more plump and avant-garde than Wen Ziren's previous "Dead Silence", both in story and narrative technique, especially in lens expression, reflecting Wen Ziren's ingenuity and master temperament. The film deliberately avoids cheesy and mystical tricks, and directly throws out real hard goods, so many fans are scared to death.
No wonder there are media comments. Although "Hidden" is a typical ghost movie, it contains amazing scenes that the audience has not seen in the past ten years. First of all, "Hidden" breaks through the shackles of traditional horror films in terms of story.
The story tells that the protagonist Josh and his wife Riley came to a different place with their three children and started a new life in their new home. Everything that seemed good was soon cast into an unknown shadow. Dalton, the eldest child in the family, accidentally fell in the attic and fell into a coma early the next morning. Dalton's physical functions were normal, but he couldn't wake up. The doctor was helpless. Dalton changed from a lively and lovely child to a A vegetative man paralyzed in bed.
This is undoubtedly a heavy blow for Josh and Riley, but the doom that will befall the family is just beginning. Soon, waves of evil spirits began to infest them. But their real target was Dalton's body in a comatose bed.
"Soul" is not a new idea for horror movies, but Wen Ziren played tricks in "Hidden". In the film, reminded by the psychic, the family has to know that Dunn is actually a master of soul wandering. He can make his soul quickly break away from the body and enter the land of wandering souls between the opposite and the human world. But this time, because of the intervention of the evil spirit, he failed to return to the body, so Dalton's coma was actually caused by the soul trapped in the underworld. The female psychic has used various methods and still can't bring back Dalton's soul.
The foreshadowing begins here. Wen Ziren cleverly implants suspense elements in the horror film, which makes the story more layered and improves the entertainment of the story. It turned out that Dalton inherited the ability of his father Josh. The male protagonist, Josh, was attacked by evil spirits when he was very young. It was only through the medium of spirits that he helped him forget the past and restore his normal life.
But this time, in order to save his son, he must accept hypnosis, use the ability of soul wandering again, go to the terrifying land of wandering souls, bring back his son's soul, and at the same time escape the pursuit of ferocious evil spirits. The climax of the third act of "Hidden" was quite exciting , and at the time it was regarded as a bold and innovative work that "breaks the world".
In the land of wandering souls, with a gloomy atmosphere, a blood-red gate, and the lonely ghosts surrounded by the father and son, the scene of Josh rushing into it holding a faintly bright oil lamp is frightening.
At this time, even the routine jump scares became powerful, and the slightest movement scared the audience out of their minds. This all depends on Wen Ziren 's patient foreshadowing and suspense in the early stage of the story , so that the dramatic tension can be pulled to the limit that seems to be broken at the climax.
The acceleration of the plot also makes the audience's senses sensitive, so a little "provocation" can double the sense of horror. It is worth mentioning that in "Latent", Wen Ziren established his own shooting style . From the lighting to the lens language, it has obvious characteristics, which profoundly influenced his later work "The Conjuring".
During the shooting process, James used a lot of wide-angle lenses to create a more documentary effect, and the photography skills were very important in setting off the atmosphere.
The film was originally shot in a real house, and all the furnishings appeared on the screen together, making it difficult for the audience to guess where the fear point would appear. The wide-angle lens is placed in front of the corner of the house, and it moves with the house so you can see another house and see a door you are about to pass.
The first-person perspective, the shots that follow the characters, and the exaggerated wide-angle range make Wen Ziren's lens language similar to Kubrick's "The Shining", with a strange and dynamic sense, and Wen Ziren's unique low-camera position , The tricky visual angle, it is these visual elements and details that are designed to create a sense of immersive horror, which has established the stable style of warm horror films in one fell swoop.
In addition, there is a god reversal at the end of the whole film , leaving a suffocating horror ending. The great success of "Hidden" and the suspenseful ending left by Wen Ziren "deliberately" made the second part of the series released in 2013 once again shocked the world. In 2013, "Hidden 2" was released, the story took over the first part, and the play was more daring. And there is actually a "time ring" at the end of the film , which deepens and exposes the suspense that appeared in the first part through the narrative of the second part.
In "Hidden 2", the male protagonist Josh is actually occupied by evil spirits, and his soul has been trapped in the land of wandering souls. This time it's the revived son Dalton's turn to save his father.
The audience actually questioned Josh's identity from the very beginning, but as one of the suspenseful ones, Wen Ziren kept his identity secret, just to make the audience suspicious, but he never explained it clearly, which created a sense of tension. .
But at the climax of the third act, in the land of wandering souls, all the elements of the first part were upgraded again, and by disrupting the time, the stories of the first and second parts were connected to each other, resulting in a powerful influence on the fate of the characters. causal link.
The life-and-death confrontation in the third act is particularly exciting. The ghosts seek their lives, parallel rescues, the two worlds travel freely, and travel in reverse time, just like "Inception", "Back to the Future" and "The Exorcist" are all in one furnace, tense In addition to the people, they shake off a lot of foreshadowing burdens, making people gasp in admiration for the extraordinary weaving of clues and the wonderful mise-en-scene.
Wen Ziren's ability to control the script is most vividly shown in the two "Hidden". On the surface, the terrifying tricks of "Insidious 2" are timeless. Female ghosts drift, lights go out, pianos play automatically, strollers walk around, doors open and close by themselves, and ghosts are only seen in photos and mirrors.
But the most exciting part of the movie is that the intelligence of the characters is above the average line, neither insulting nor underestimating the audience's IQ, constructing a detective game that challenges IQ fairly. This is in the same line with the interactive suspense technique of Wen Ziren's "The Chainsaw". It is surprising to be shocked, but in the situation where the mystery is completely explained, the audience can get more satisfaction by introducing the truth by themselves.
He firmly grasped the two elements of "suspense" and "horror", and presented them through a very stylized lens movement, making Wen Ziren a master of horror films and a young man with the most box-office appeal in Hollywood. director.
At that time, he also took out the horror film "The Conjuring", which fully opened up Wen Ziren's horror universe. Since then, the big bosses have successively handed over top investment projects to him, and super A-level commercial blockbusters such as "Fast and Furious" and "Aquaman" have become his works. Wen Ziren established his status as a top Hollywood director. There are many more blockbusters that follow him as the core, and Wen Ziren's golden sign is resounding all over the world.
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