Wolf Man is unleashed in cinemas this week and long-time Leigh Whannell fans might get a bit of déjà vu with one sequence.
The horror reboot sees Blake (Christopher Abbott) take his wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) take their daughter for a family break to his childhood home. However, when they get there, they're attacked by an unseen animal and Blake starts attacking weirdly...
Without going into spoilers, there's a sequence involving a bear trap and an ankle that immediately brings back memories of that moment in Saw, which was written by Whannell.
And talking to Digital Spy, the filmmaker confirmed that it was an intentional nod to his movie debut.
Related: Wolf Man lands strong first reactions
"It wasn't like I was like, 'Yeah, I'm going to build a sequence around this just for that purpose', but as I was writing it, I realised, 'Oh, this is going back to a seminal work for me' and I liked that aspect of it," he recalled.
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"Clearly, there's something in my subconscious to do with people being chained up by the ankle. But I love when a film is infused with recurring thematics in a body of work.
"If you look at someone like Tarantino or Scorsese or David Fincher, you start to see these certain things recurring in their work, objects or ways of shooting things. As a film lover, I'm always looking out for that.
"So when it comes to my own movies, I'm thinking about the audience and I'm thinking about these little nods to other things I've done."
Related: First trailer for Wolf Man
Wolf Man marks Whannell's second time adapting a classic Universal Monster for the modern era, following 2020's well-received The Invisible Man.
He was initially unsure to take on the project, wanting instead to do "something that's in a completely different genre". But when he had a spark of exactly how to tell this story, he couldn't refuse.
"The thing is it's really the idea about how to make the film that leads me. So, unfortunately, once they put that name out there, I started thinking about, well, how would I do this?" he recalled.
"And then I had this idea about perspective and being able to use sound and light to convey the transformation. Once that was in there. I was like, 'Alright, I guess I'm making this movie'."
Given the strong first reactions to Wolf Man ahead of its release this week, it's a decision that has paid off.
Wolf Man is released in cinemas on January 17.
Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
