James Wan, the Kuching boy behind the dark

James Wan was born in Kuching, Sarawak, in 1977. His family moved to Perth when he was a child, and he became Australian in the way that matters for school and accent. The films are American studio films. Saw, which he made with Leigh Whannell, restarted mainstream horror. Insidious and The Conjuring did it again. Furious 7 and Aquaman showed he could also steer a giant franchise. If you have watched a ghost film or a superhero film in the last twenty years, you have probably watched him.

Kuching is not a haunted house. It is a river city: a waterfront promenade, shophouses, rain, food that is not the food of Kuala Lumpur, and a longhouse country inland that has its own rules. The state has run its own version of a long-stay program. Read that, not a Penang blog, if East Malaysia is the plan.

The useful connection is scale. A boy from a city most Americans cannot place grew up to design the movies they watch with the lights off. The city itself is still the right size for a walk. Come for the river at the end of the day. The darkness Wan is famous for is a craft. The darkness in Kuching is just the tropics, and it arrives on time.