A Scary Good Interview With 'Specs & Tucker' From Insidious: Chapter 2

During this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, Celebuzz sat down and got our scare on with two of the stars of the upcoming Insidious: Chapter 2 - Leigh Whannell and Angus Sampson, AKA Specs and Tucker: paranormal investigators extraordinaire. Here’s what they shared about this scary sequel, opening September, Friday the 13^th and their favorite horror memories.
Celebuzz: What’s special about Insidious: Chapter 2?
Whannell: If you loved the first film and thought it was scary, you’re going to get something that is as scary as the first one…but goes off in some whole new directions.
Sampson:  The cast is all back.  It literally picks up a second after the first one finishes and jumps right into the action.  With this sequel, we didn’t need to spend a lot of time explaining everything.   The movie is just incredibly suspenseful.
Whannell:  The genius of [Director] James [Wan] is that he also creates amazing characters.  There’s something for everyone in this cast.  And, I think this one is a lot scarier than the first one, if I’m being honest.
Celebuzz: What Are Some of Your Favorite Horror Films?
Whannell: The Shining
Sampson:  The Shining for sure.   The Exorcist as well.  I was deeply upset by Nightmare on Elm Street as a kid.  Jamie Lee Curtis’ Halloween was very hard to watch.  The Omen was incredibly scary.
Whannell : Oh yeah, The Omen.  In those final scenes, you could feel the fear burning into you as you watched these films.  Now, there are no taboos left to break.  It is tougher today to shock and frighten teenagers who have been exposed to so much.
Celebuzz: What do you think about the “found footage” genre of films?
Whannell:  The found footage worked brilliantly in Paranormal Activity.  If any young filmmaker came to me and asked how to get started I would point them right there.  It was genius.  But that doesn’t mean you can just mimic it and make it work.  You still need a really great story.
Celebuzz: Did anything scary or unusual happen on the set of Insidious Chapter 2?
Sampson: We shot down at Linda Vista Hospital in Los Angeles.  Abandoned and scary.  The LA Paranormal Association took us down there and toured us around before we started shooting the original a couple of years ago.  That was quite scary.   When we went to shoot there for the sequel we had to go work there every day and it was ridiculously scary.   It was 100 degrees outside – and then you walk in and it’s pitch black and cold.
Whannell:  Hospital files littered everywhere.
Sampson: There was a room with like 10,000 medical records left behind and they were scattered everywhere.  We had to shoot this scene where we’re actually looking through the file cabinets for something.  So, we’re looking through the docs in this scene and I’m looking for a prop that’s been put in the files and I find a non-prop file.  An actual medical record of a real person who was at the hospital.  And the guy’s occupation was…puppet maker.  What is a scarier job than puppet maker?
Whannell:  We thought it was the scariest thing.
Sampson: I would hide in a room.
Whannell: He’d face the wall like in Blair Witch then I would walk someone in to show them the room and he’d be there facing the wall.  Scary.
Sampson: And hilarious.