Exclusive | The Conjuring creator James Wan says his new show The Copenhagen Test is full of real-world horrors: ‘New genre called spy-fi’

“I enjoy both for different reasons, but obviously creating your own stuff is always more fulfilling. To bring whatever is in your head to life. To have the seed of an idea and to see it all the way through fruition. And then to see the fans reacting to it in such a strong, positive way, it’s a great experience,” Wan told SCREEN in an exclusive interview.

He hopes his new show, The Copenhagen Test, garners the same popularity that his babies like Conjuring, Insidious, and Saw have. Streaming in India on JioHotstar, the eight-episode sci-fi spy show is executive produced by Wan. It revolves around Shang-Chi star Simu Liu’s character Alexander Hale, a spy whose brain gets hacked, so he must prove his allegiance to his intelligence agency.

Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga in The Conjuring

“Someone referred to it as “spy-fi,” which I thought was a really cool way to describe this. This could be a subgenre that we could lean into here,” added Wan, laughing. “To James’ credit, it speaks to what he’s saying about his commitment to original ideas. Because this show kind of should not exist. We’re starting a new subgenre. It’s combing two different genres. It’s asking you to track two different stories. It’s asking you to follow some thought-provoking thematic questions,” chimes in creator and showrunner Thomas Brandon.

The trailer of The Copenhagen Test smartly uses a familiar song, yet in a completely different context — The Cranberries’ Zombie (1994). “What’s in your head?” is a question that not only the hacked protagonist is asking himself, but also what the audience have been asking themselves in the age of algorithms, surveillance, and Artificial Intelligence.

Simu Liu in The Copenhagen Test.

“Something that we’ve always talked about the show being is ‘relevant’ and ‘resonant.’ And now, it’s also weirdly timely at the same time,” says Brandon. “What’s interesting is not just that the technology is creating this surveillance system that makes us a lot more paranoid, but in terms of our brains being hacked, the oldest, most original hack is a thought. It’s a question being put by your brain you can’t get rid of,” he adds.

Brandon feels the idea of a brain getting hacked, literally and symbolically, blends seamlessly with the espionage genre. He adds, “Can I trust this person? What do they want me to do? Whose side am I on? Where does my allegiance lie? These questions speak to a larger thought. The specificity of this moment has been used to tell a story that’s very human and has been there for very long. Because these questions start to get into your head and start to define who you think you are.”

“What’s fun is the idea of ‘Can he trust himself’? Because this (hacking) has happened to him, and now he has to control what he sees, what he hears, what he says. That’s really fun to really turn it on its head,” adds Jennifer Yale, Brandon’s fellow showrunner. Wan points out that The Copenhagen Test is not any less scary than his previous creations because it’s full of “real-world horrors that we’re experiencing in real time right now as we speak”.

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Since so many ghosts, devils, spirits, and horrors reside in Wan’s head, has he ever wondered what would one see if his brain is hacked like Simu Liu’s in The Copenhagen Test? “I think we would all become much smarter,” responds Yale promptly, only for a modest Wan to cut him off. “No, not by a long shot. If anything, it’d be the opposite. Not much happens in here. I hate to disappoint you,” says Wan, laughing.