When it comes to the name James Win, the first thing that comes to mind for North American movie fans is horror movies and "Chainsaw", and even the nickname of "Father of Chainsaw", which is widely circulated on the Internet.

It is not a matter of saying that Wen Ziren has a relatively large influence among North American horror movie fans.

"Latent" has attracted the attention of horror movie lovers since the trailer was released.

On the last weekend of August, "Latent," which cost only $1.5 million to produce, was released in North America.

Looking at the production cost alone, this horror film can be described as a small production within a small production, but more than 3,500 theaters opened the film, and the investment on just 4,000 copies, Embassy Pictures spent $4 million.

This is still the case that some theaters have replaced digital projection equipment, denying that the investment in copies will be higher.

In addition, the $8 million publicity investment can only be said to be average for a film released on this scale.

Before the official release of "Latent" in North America, there was also a small premiere.

Due to the early publicity of the Warrens, the real-life paranormal investigation experts, the small premiere of "Latent" was directly placed in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where the New England Paranormal Society and the Warren Paranormal Museum are located.

In the campaign of Embassy Pictures, Ed Warren and Rowling Warren were portrayed as the most prominent experts in the field of soul and demon science in North America for nearly fifty years.

This is a country where theism is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and the experience of the Warrens has inevitably attracted the attention of a large number of supernatural enthusiasts.

Embassy Pictures' propaganda is inevitably exaggerated, but there is one point that even the church admits that the Warrens have been repeatedly called by the church to investigate some evil phenomena in North America.

In addition to the formal publicity of the film, these have also become topics that people talk about.

On the day of the premiere, thousands of fans gathered near the Bridgeport Theatre, mainly supernatural enthusiasts and fans of Wen Ziren.

That's right, as a director, Wen Ziren also has a relatively firm group of supporters.

Frankly speaking, the film "Latent", at first glance, does not seem to have anything very special, the family happily lives in a new house, and suddenly encounters a strange attack, such a haunted house plot seems to have nothing new worth paying attention to.

However, when its director was James Win, many horror movie lovers were full of anticipation.

Driven by Embassy Pictures and Relativity Entertainment, Wen Ziren has not been low-key at all in recent years, and the fact that the name of "Father of Chainsaws" can spread is enough to explain a lot of problems.

The "Chainsaw" series has indeed won a lot of fans for Wen Ziren.

Every year before Halloween arrives in winter, when countless horror fans are looking forward to the release of the new "Chainsaw" series and even become a cultural phenomenon, a considerable number of fans and media in North America are talking about the name James Win.

Wen Ziren has created a road of horror movies that belongs to him, when people think that closed horror movies are like that, he brought the "Chainsaw" series to the famous film market, and did not continue to be attached to this series to eat the old book, but continued to explore the road of horror movies.

In this "Latent", Wen Ziren has an idea about the strange spirits in the supernatural space, and the environment like the old house has the confined space flavor of "Chainsaw".

Usually a director who has made a name for himself will also be burdened by this, but this problem does not exist for Wen Ziren, who became famous for "Chainsaw" while still trying new ideas for horror films.

Promoted by Embassy Pictures, "Latent" participated in the screening of the Cannes Film Festival in the first half of the year, and received universal praise from the media like "Slumdog Millionaire", which was a nowhere to be found at the festival, and the film's clever use of sound and cinematography was highly recognized at the technical level.

Therefore, James Wing also waited for the schedule of autumn horror films to present a haunted house horror movie in classic mode to the audience.

The film's highlight is undoubtedly the beginning and end of the "spiritualism" ritual, where the Warrens and their spiritualist device, which has no religious or scientific roots, will make the audience question their somewhat unrealistic "spiritualism" just like the male protagonist, but the supernatural phenomena that do not require scientific explanations are enough to surprise those who are used to watching horror movies.

If you like the terrifying effect of inadvertently appearing ghosts and screeching sounds, you will ignore the rationality of the means of the spirit mediums, and just fall into the supernatural world covered by a dense web.

James Wing was born in Asia and is well versed in the essence of Asian horror culture, and he draped the structure of European and American horror films on the appearance of the film, but the film itself did not discuss too much about the personality, psychology, and religion and other routes, but to magnify the world of ghosts, with a dazzling image to reproduce the terrifying world of hell, especially the passage where Rowling Allen leaves the real world to go to the underworld to find the soul of a lost child, hell is shrouded in a white fog, and the ghosts encountered are also cold and numb, and the full gothic style jumps on the screen.

As the true beginning of the "horror cinematic universe", "Latent" also has a mission that leads to the subsequent series.

So, at the end of the film, the Warrens receive an invitation to speak at a university.

Behind the main creator's subtitles, there is also an easter egg, a footage shot from a pseudo-documentary, which looks like a clip from an old videotape, a clip of the Warrens giving a speech in a university auditorium.

In their speech, the Warrens highlighted a case of what they called a real experience – the haunting of the Peron family in Rhode Island!

This is paving the way for next year's "The Conjuring"!

Before filming "Latent", Wen Ziren once said to Ronan that a horror story must first scare himself!

Thus, "Latent" was born, and it was a successful success after its release, continuing the tradition of horror film success for Relativity Entertainment.

In its first weekend in North America, the horror film grossed $31.22 million in 3,560 theaters.

That same weekend, Lionsgate also produced and distributed "Duel in Yuma Town" starring Christian Bale and Russell Crowe.

But this remake of the classic veteran brand did not shine with a new brilliance because of the joining of the two A-list stars, but sank in a wave of criticism, and only $13.03 million was earned in the opening weekend.

"Latent" easily overtook "Duel Yuma Town" and topped the North American box office charts.

In just three days, with the North American market alone, Relativity Entertainment recouped all its investment in "Latent".

The income brought by this film to Relativity Entertainment can basically be included in the ranks of profits.

As we all know, low-budget horror films often win the market but lose media opinion.

But "Latent" earned James Wing a rave call in the media.

The New York Times, for example, described the film as "crazy, scary, creepy."

There are also many positive comments from other media such as "the depiction of evil spirits is enough to frighten the audience" and "it is not overly bloody, and it conquers the audience with its atmosphere".

"Entertainment Weekly" even praised that although "Latent" is a typical ghost movie, it has amazing scenes in it that we have not seen in the past ten years.

I have to say that James Wing has an extremely talented talent in the horror genre.

As an important part of the film genre, horror films have a function that cannot be replaced by other types of films, through psychological and visual stimulation, to help the audience entertain all kinds of emotions in their hearts.

People who often watch horror movies almost have a consensus, that is, horror movies have obvious regional characteristics, such as Asian horror movies represented by Korea, Japan and Thailand, which are often good at creating a terrifying atmosphere, and often a sound effect can scare people into not daring to breathe, which belongs to the "heart-wandering school".

European and American horror movies represented by the United States often emphasize visual horror and stimulation, and bloody and terrifying pictures often scare people into urine, which belongs to the "kidney-walking faction".

As for oriental horror films, those that can be screened in theaters must be rounded up with various scientific explanations such as "neurotic fantasy", which belongs to the typical "approaching scientology".

"Approaching Science", which probably bears the terrifying memories of many friends' childhood, is scarier than the oriental horror films shown in the theater.

At a time when the style of horror films has basically become a template, Wen Ziren avoids traditional horror plots, and instead uses actors to express the actions and expressions that the audience will have when they see the horror scenes in the story.

In "Latent", Wen Ziren not only abandoned the traditional practice of plasma stimulation vision, but also added a lot of new horror primary colors to it, building a new game rule in the supernatural world - using souls to summon dead spirits.

This approach is rare in horror films, and more importantly, James Wing has also achieved great success.

The success of "Latent" is a good start for the "horror movie universe" project.

Relativity Entertainment also took advantage of the success of "Latent" to promote a wave of "The Conjuring", which made many fans remember the name "The Conjuring".

A real horror film is never full of inexplicable miracles from beginning to end, jumping out of strange things to scare people all the time.

Whether it is good to watch a horror movie or not, the creation of a horror atmosphere is an important criterion.

Wen Ziren is bound to leave a strong mark in the history of Hollywood horror films.

Due to the schedule at the end of August, there were no particularly powerful films released behind "Latent", and it has maintained a relatively stable North American box office trend, with the box office in North America falling by less than 40% in the second weekend, and the second weekend won the second North American box office list with $1,875.

In just ten days after its release in North America, "Latent" grossed $55.12 million, more than 30 times the production cost of $1.5 million.

There is no doubt that this horror film will be ranked among the most successful films of all time.