Insidious My Movie Review!!!

“Choo, choo!” screamed Insidious as it was the little movie that could but couldn’t quite get there. Despite this, I enjoyed the movie.
Insidious follows Josh (Patrick Wilson) and Renai Lambert (Rose Byrne) after they move their family into a really big, quaint home. Shortly after moving into their new home, strange things start to happen that would, without a doubt, send chills down the spine of even the most bravest souls. Trouble starts when something starts to stalk Dalton (Ty Simpkins), the Lambert’s oldest son, in the dark corners of the attic and his bedroom.
After reading numerous reviews about how the first half of the film was praised and the second half fell apart, I would have to agree with those assessments. For one, I thoroughly enjoyed the first half as it was truly a mystery and had me on edge waiting for the next scary thing to happen, not to mention the small glimpses of the “creature” here and there. Make no mistake, there is more than one thing wandering in the dark to be afraid of. The “creature” itself can be enough to keep people up at night, that is, until much later in the film (more on that later).

Being that this film was also produced “from the makers of Paranormal Activity“, it was no wonder that there were quite a few tell-tale signs that had the makings of an Oren Peli production, even though, to date, most know him for Paranormal Activity 1 and 2. Still, for some reason, there were definitely a few things that screamed his name. I’m not saying that it was a bad thing, however, it just made me lean over to my friend and whisper in his hear ear some of my, “I bet’s”. You know, the ‘I bet this is what ‘s going to happen.” Maybe I am just one of those people who look into things too much? Either way, some of my calls were spot on.
Nowadays, it is hard to come by a genuinely good horror movie, let alone a good haunted house flick, but Insidious certainly came very close with eerie noises that go bump in the night and that tension that is built to have you wondering whether or not something is going to jump out at you and scare the living daylights out of you. Sure there were a lot of those, but there were also a lot of moments that made you giggle and laugh. A sign of things to come? Perhaps. One thing I thought was a little ridiculous was the creature’s bloody hand print found on Dalton’s sheets. Ok, cue freak out moment. Nope, instead Renai gives her husband Josh an ear-full about coming home late from work. After the argument, she hands him the bloody sheet to show him that sh’e not crazy and that weird thingshave been happening and storms out of frame. And get this, he still thinks his wife is imagining things and doesn’t believe her! Speaking of the bloody hand print, it seemed to be methodically placed on the sheets and reminded me of those Halloween decorations that you put on a window or a white wall. In other words, it wasn’t very convincing.

The story itself is one that would make a couple of people cringe or scoff at. This is where the second half of the movie starts to take over and things start to go a little downhill. When things start to take a turn for the worse, one does what any normal person would do, call for help. That help, however, came in the form of Specs (Leigh Whannell, also the film’s writer) and Tucker (Angus Sampson), your local ghost hunters with contraptions galore straight out of the lab of Dr. Egon Spengler. In a movie where it seemed as if the filmmakers wanted a full-on terror assault on the audience, they sure did take a step backward and tried to provide the audience with what seemed to be, dare I say it, comic relief. I’m not saying that comic relief is bad but by making these characters complete tools and bickering gadget freaks I have to say that it had me rolling my eyes on more than one occasion. I understand the role of these characters as they are the help that probably most people would seek out after experiencing unexplained phenomena, but these characters should have been represented in a more respected fashion for the sake of taking the film a little more serious (see, Poltergeist and The Entity, who also stars Barbara Hershey who plays Josh’s mother in Insidious) .
Along with the ghost investigators, comes Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye) who, in my opinion, never seems to fail and can deliver on whatever is thrown at her. It is her character, a psychic, who deems the strange happenings as a result of, wait for it…. no seriously, wait for it until you see it. I don’t want to be the one to ruin it for anyone even though I’m sure you can read about it elsewhere on the internet. Still, it is here where the movie takes a turn for the worse as an explanation is given, thus taking away from the mystique of the film. In my opinion, mystery is what keeps an audience intrigued and when that mystery is gone, it leaves little room for post-film discussions. Everything was right there in front of you, what you see is what you get, not much room for theorizing or hypothesis. It is moments like this where I think the filmmakers think they are catering to an unintelligent audience and just want to throw everything at us, in our faces at that. However, it may been necessary for the end result of the film. Still, I think a different course could have been taken but I understand the need for a tinge of originality.
After this explanation, too much is given away and that “creature” that was mentioned earlier, well, we get to see a lot of it towards the end of the film. Revealing too much of something takes away that fear factor and the mystery that intrigued me. As creepy as I thought this creature was, towards the end of the movie I found myself shrugging when it was revealed in too much detail. Showing it in glimpses and in shadow was where it “shone”, this kept me wondering and being allowed to use my imagination. 

As i said above, I still enjoyed the film and thought it was fun with some truly creepy scenes that could keep some up at night. There were some pretty fantastic visuals and shots that were quite impressive as well as an eerie soundtrack by Joseph Bishara, who also played the creature, that lent a hand to some of the tension and suspense. Another thing to look forward too is the limited use of CGI and the use of good old-fashioned practical make-up effects. Oh, and no 3D!
It is unfortunate that director James Wan didn’t stick to his guns and seemed unsure as to what kind of movie he wanted this to be as it turned from supernatural-thriller into fantasy-horror by the end. What’s also unfortunate is that horror has become a sort of spectacle to a branch of comedy where kids nowadays go to the movies to watch a horror film for fun and laughs. Aren’t horror movies made to scare? This is a reality of the age we live in, in that everything has been done and seen. It seems that nowadays it is simply harder to scare people.
Insidious seemed to have too many hands dipped into one pot and it was hard to tell as to who’s vision came across in the film, unless of course it was a cluster of ideas stirred in said pot and materialized onto the screen. Taking a few cues from classics such as Poltergeist, Insidious fell short from being a pretty good horror film, but would not go so far as to call the movie terrible. I guess it would fall somewhere in between where I would simply say that it was [lifts shoulders up and waves finger from side to side] “Egh! It was OK!” 


Hope you guys enjoyed


XOXO