I’ve been to Linda Vista Hospital numerous times visiting the sets of films that shot there, usually horror movies but the comic book adaptation The Scribbler also built their sets in the hospital’s empty rooms. We visited the production of Insidious: Chapter 2 filming there, and this was before director James Wan was attached to Fast & Furious 7 so it might be even more poignant that he said “I think this could be my last horror film.”
CraveOnline participated in an interview with the cast and filmmakers, but first got a tour of the sets from production designer Jennifer Spence. When she showed us reconstructions of sets from the original Insidious. While it’s not unusual for sequels to recreate locations from the original, Wan would later specify, “The second movie visits the first movie.“
One set was the living room with the chair where Josh (Patrick Wilson) strangled Elise (Lin Shaye). It was rebuilt to all specs with a fireplace on the wall and the piano. “We’re doing an insert piece to tie the two stories together,” Spence explained. “So behind you is the fireplace wall we built, and then the return wall which will be dark. That’s the chair she got strangled in in the first movie. We created it because we wanted to add a few things to marry the two films together.”
Another recreated set was the child’s room, which is now on a set raised a full story above the ground. Anyone who knows movie special effects can imagine technicians standing under it creating haunted effects, but those would be spoilers.
“Of course, the homeowner didn’t want us back again,” Spence continued. “It’s a lot to ask somebody so we recreated this because we only needed the one room. We did go back there for a couple of shots but then we wanted to do this special scene, so we rebuilt the baby’s room. We’re going to do some special effects and stunts in here.”
The cast confirmed that Insidious: Chapter 2 picks up right where Insidious left off, complete with Wilson, Shaye and Rose Byrne in exactly the same clothes. Well, that makes sense for Wilson and Shaye, since their characters are stuck in The Further, the spiritual realm Wan and cowriter Leigh Whannell invented for the film.
“Stuck in The Further, better take the right clothes,” Wilson joked.
A portion of Chapter 2 does involve Specs (Whannell), Tucker (Angus Sampson) and Lorraine (Barbara Hershey) investigating a hospital. Spence showed us sets that used Linda Vista as a hospital, including a nursery, and a waiting room dressed up like an ‘80s era set.
In the basement, a file room doubled for a real filing room. Only the middle and right shelves were full though, because that’s all the camera would see. Spence revealed that those were all real files from Linda Vista Hospital, not papers faked by a prop team.
“The files existed here in this hospital,” Spence said. “I think some of them have been here, we were looking at some, people that were born in 1905 and had been in this hospital. So these records are actually real but they were all over the place, like a mess. We’ve spent the last two days pulling them all from different sides so when we do our shot, they start here and go this way and find our two characters going through files that way. We had to condense it to make it look more full for the shot.”
And then we got to see The Further for real. On the top floor of the hospital, in the largest open space, black curtain covered the walls and floor. That’s how they make The Further.
“We created this environment with a lot of duvetyne to make it completely dark so that the lantern will be the feature,” Spence said. “That’s how we light it, with the lantern. This is our biggest room in the whole place, so that’s why we chose it. I think it was the day room. The floor is checkered underneath, but has those kind of hospital windows where patients could hang out. I’m guessing, because it’s been closed down for so long, but that’s what it looks like.”
After the tour, the entire cast – Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Lin Shaye and Barbara Hershey – along with screenwriter Leigh Whannell, producer Jason Blum and director James Wan spoke with the visiting press. Byrne was rather quiet but we would get a complete interview with her at SXSW this year.
The group was intimate enough that we got to ask a lot of questions ourselves, so here is the portion of the set visit interview where CraveOnline asked the filmmakers about Insidious: Chapter 2…
