Insidious
Genre(s): Horror, Suspense
Rating: PG-13
Director: James Wan
Starring: Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne and Ty Simpkins
Description: Josh and Renai have a happy family with their three young children. When tragedy strikes their young son, Josh and Renai begin to experience things that science cannot explain.
MarronMarvel’s Review:
To preface this review, I’m something of a horror and suspense aficionado. I’m a big fan of classic horror (think Vincent Price) as well as horror classics like The Exorcist and Poltergeist. With these sorts of thrillers and chillers to live up to, scary movies have been amazingly lackluster over the past few years, with a remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street and movies like The Haunting in Connecticut just lacking the means to impress true horror fans. But with the creative team of James Wan and Leigh Whannell (best known for the Saw franchise) at the helm, Insidious gave a glimmer of hope to horror fans that perhaps this movie would breathe new life into a slowly dying film genre.
That said, Insidious did not disappoint.
Insidious manages to take the classic “haunting” movie and breathe new life into the genre with an interesting story and a few refreshing ideas. It is, of course, one of those movies that aims for many cheap thrills and scare tactics, but that’s part of what makes the movie so endearing. Unlike, say, Paranormal Activity, this movie actually scared the bejeezus out of me on more than one occasion. It takes the ideas of movies like Poltergeist and The Others and takes them a step further, into a realm that is very rarely explored within the horror genre: astral projection.
The movie follows the Lambert family, who have just moved into a new home. It’s very apparent from the beginning of the movie that this is a haunting film, and the opening credits do a great job of setting a creepy tone with black and white photography stills and the sort of horror movie music that sets your teeth on edge. The Lamberts’ ten year old son, Dalton, falls into a mysterious coma that doctors cannot explain, despite numerous tests. Finally, after three months in the hospital, they move Dalton — still in a coma — back home to care for him. That’s also when things take a turn for the worse.
Josh (Patrick Wilson; The Phantom of the Opera, Watchmen) and Renai (Rose Byrne; 28 Weeks Later, Get Him to the Greek) are already having marital problems because of Dalton’s mysterious condition, but Renai begins to hear and see spooky things, and creepy stuff starts to happen — to the point where Renai wants to leave the house and they wind up moving into a new home.
The Darth Maul demon is actually pretty freaky in this film.
The peace in the new home doesn’t last for long as Renai begins to see things again, having an encounter with a ghostly little boy. Josh’s mother (played by award-winning actress Barbara Hershey) confesses that she believes that whatever Renai has been seeing or feeling is real because she had a dream where she encountered an evil presence that wanted Dalton for its own; she also suggests bringing in a psychic named Elise Rainier (played by Lin Shaye, who has has bit parts in several movies and tv shows throughout the years) to help.
Elise reveals that Dalton has the ability of astral projection and that his astral self has become lost — and they must help him find his way back home before the wayward spirits, and the Darth Maul demon, are able to take over his body.
There are a lot of things to enjoy about this film. Coming from the Saw guys, you might expect a lot of gore and slasher elements, which is what the horror industry has been boiled down to a lot lately; however, this movie is actually PG-13 and contains none of that shock-value/gross-you-out horror that the Saw movies are so well known for. The musical score for this film is fantastic, probably one of the best I’ve heard in a scary movie since The Shining. You can listen to the title track here, uploaded by composer Joseph Bishara. It’s perfectly creepy and helps to set the tone right from the beginning of the film.
While, yes, there is a lot of “jump out of my seat” shock value to this movie, it does a genuinely great job of also being the creepiest movie I’ve seen in a while. While the Darth Maul demon looks a little cheesy in the still above, he is a pretty imposing figure. There are some pretty creepy spirits that are encountered as well, including a sort-of vampire guy, a child with spooky laughter, and a family of ghosts with the creepiest smiles I have ever seen on a group of ghosts suddenly appearing in front of a dude in an astral projection. These all add to the cheap thrills part of the scares, but the creepy vibe from everything encountered in the Further (the space where Dalton’s astral self has traveled) make the thrills a little less cheap and a little more legit.
The direction in this movie is superb, as is the acting — which is not something you usually hear about a scary movie. There is one scene where the psychic, Elise, stares at the empty ceiling above Dalton’s bed, whispering in wide-eyed horror as one of her geeky assistants (Specs, played by Leigh Whannell himself) frantically sketches the demon as Elise describes it. You don’t even see the demon in this scene, just the dark, empty ceiling — but the franticness of Elise’s voice, the expression on her face, the cuts that flash between Elise, Specs and Renai, and the urgency of the musical score all come together to make a scene that has you right on the edge of your seat, and ready to jump out of it.
I’m rarely phased by horror movies, as I have spent so much of my life watching them, but I was truly impressed by this movie. There were times that I actually wanted to cover my eyes because I was afraid to see what would happen next; if you are a fan of horror and suspense, then this movie is definitely one worth checking out. The twists and turns in this film make for an excellent ride.
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Marron Marvel
Marron Marvel, sometimes known as Tiarra, is a comic book and sci-fi geek girl who enjoys reading, playing video games, listening to The Beatles, and comparing everything to “that one episode of TNG where…” Although she claims to be a Lt. Commander in Starfleet and the Chief Engineer of the U.S.S. Cyberdyne, she is actually a professional graphic designer, and a published journalistic writer, living in Las Vegas, where she enjoys avoiding casinos and spoiling her fat, orange cat that may or may not hate Mondays. She can be contacted at tiarra @ geek-life.com and followed on Twitter @MarronMarvel
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