Answering my own question (Google is your friend..lol). A good read:
http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2011/03/insidious-creators-james-wan-leigh-whannell-talk-topping-saw-hollywood-nightmares
excerts in regards to Dead Silence and studio interference:
Q: Your previous foray into the supernatural, Dead Silence, had some cool elements but felt off altogether. Insidious seems to be that film’s potential realized, if that makes sense. Would you agree?
Leigh Whannell: Absolutely. Dead Silence was not the film we wanted it to be. It was a missed opportunity for both of us, and it was really our Hollywood trial by fire. That’s where we learned all of our lessons about how Hollywood really looks at its core.
I think we had a dream run with our first movie. A lot of people point out to us that our experience with Saw wasn’t really the reality of Hollywood, or how it works with filmmaking. And we learned all of those lessons at once on Dead Silence. We did it with Universal, and it was just a bad experience. It was such a tough time for both James and I.
All of the nightmare stories you hear about studio filmmaking, from rewrites to reshoots and endless notes, we experienced. It just never achieved what we wanted it to be, and the end result isn’t the film that we originally set out to make at all. It made us really gun-shy about working with major studios after working with Universal on that.
Q: Hearing you say that makes me wish I could see the version of Dead Silence you guys intended to make, because there’s such great potential in a movie about creepy ventriloquist dolls.
Leigh Whannell: Yeah, the original idea, as naïve as we were, we thought we could just go and make a film that was a tribute to Mario Bava and old episodes of The Twilight Zone with a studio. Unfortunately, they’re like, “Uhhh, Mario Bava? Yeah, we’re not quite sure about that. How about Mario Lopez?” [Laughs.]
They just don’t get it, and it was just so tough. It was physically tough. I remember it making me sick; I had headaches every day from just the stress of dealing with the studio. It was not good. I think that Insidious is us doing it our way, atoning for all of the mistakes that were forced on us with Dead Silence, the *beep* that we had to put up with.
Breaks my heart to read what COULD'VE been a TRUE classic in the sense...and I actually LIKE Dead Silence as is right now!!!!
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Im gonna punch you in the cooter, I swear to God!
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Horror_68
7 years ago
I've seen too many re-edited movies of what the director really intended with movies like "Exorcist III," "Hellraiser: Bloodline," etc., and to tell the truth I like the studio versions better. Also, him saying "Insidious" is better than "Dead Silence" kind of proves the studio knew better than him. "Insidious" was okay, but it got a little too far fetched and crazy.
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TheBeardedWonder
7 years ago
Insidious is 10x better than this, and even that's basically a poltergeist remake. Insidious has a higher user rating, and critic score. Even the director of both prefers it. It's pretty fair to say it was the superior movie at this point.
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ronfacebookuser
7 years ago
Insidious has been done and redone over and over, at least Dead Silence was something new. The actress playing Mary Shaw was ten times creepier than the insidious version
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