'Insidious' team a pair of cutups during Chicago visit

James Wan and Leigh Whannell grew up in Australia, where they discovered their mutual appreciation for horror films and decided to make a few of their own.

So, they created the sensational indie shocker “Saw,” a sadistically brutal psychological thriller with an epic stinger. Five sequels later, the duo has created “Insidious,” a throwback to more conventional terror tales. It opens Friday.

I shared a brief chat with Wan the director and Whannell the screenwriter/actor at Chicago's Park Hyatt Hotel.

Q: “Insidious” starts out like a regular badly made horror movie. Then, it hits you when you least suspect it.Wan: That's what we wanted to do. We wanted to take a movie that you think you know what you're going in to see, then twist it and undermine your expectations. We kind of did this with the first #8220;Saw#8221; film as well. We took a movie with a well-established format #8212; the serial killer genre #8212; then twisted it.Q: Great title, #8220;Insidious.#8221;Wan: I've always loved that word. When I was describing this film to people, I would always be using this term, insidious. Like, it has this really insidious quality about it. Whannell: It took me a while to get used to it. When I first wrote the script, it was called #8220;The Further,#8221; which, if you see the film, has relevance. I thought it was a cool title. The grammatical wonkiness of it I thought would be interesting. But James didn't think it had punch enough. Just the sound of the word suggests something about the movie.Wan: Even if you don't know the meaning of the word!Whannell: Yes, we'll probably send half of America scurrying for their dictionaries. It's interesting reading how some words wind up sounding like their meanings. People aren't sure if it's our brain, through word association, making the word sound that way, or what. I think #8220;Insidious#8221; is a word that sounds like its meaning. It's like why happy sounds so happy. It's got two Ps and a Y in there!Wan: And #8220;Insidious#8221; has lots of S-sounds so it sounds like a snake. And we all equate snakes to the great biblical evil.Whannell: If you look up the word in the dictionary, it means a threat that doesn't present itself as such. Q: What really scares you both?Wan: I would say the thing that really scares the (stuff) out of me is real life, like paying the taxes and stuff like that. I'm more scared of that than horror movies because horror movies have been my sanctuary. They've been my escape from real life. When the lights come up and you're back in the real world and you have to pay your bills, now that's scary!Q: What scares you, Leigh?Whannell: Getting old and never finding true love. That's pretty scary. Wan: And I don't think you ever will.Whannell: You should get used to it, James!Wan: You know, I said real life scares me, but if I were walking down a dark street and I realized someone was following me, I'd suddenly start wishing I was somewhere paying bills.