Insidious Movie Review

Earlier today I posted a poll on  the Horror Movies FaceBook page asking you all how many of you intended to see Insidious this weekend. For the longest time I was the ONLY person who voted I was going to. As of writing this review only 4 of our 5,299 facebook fans have intentions of seeing the film and as one of those four who just returned from the theatre it is I suppose my duty to report on Insidious and give you the honest truth on this new promising horror film.

Insidious is brought to use by SAW creators James Wan and Leigh Whannell and is a new twist on the age old ghost story. Let’s start with the Synopsis from Alliance films; When proud parents take possession of an old house, an accident results in one of their sons falling into a coma. The tragedy doesn’t stop there when they are beset by vengeful spirits from another realm in this new chiller by the director and writer of Saw and by the producers of Paranormal Activity. The film stars Rose Byrne, Barbara Hershey and Patrick Wilson.

Insidious is probably best compared as Paranormal Activity meets Case 39 with a side order of Sam Raimi’s Drag Me To Hell. It tries very hard to pay homage to classic ghost stories like Poltergiest and Amityville Horror while still offering something fresh and unique.

The first half of Insidious is quite creepy all be it not horribly different from any other ghost story movie from the last 30 years. Rose Byrne and Patrick Wilson both deliver powerful performances and with a great supporting cast and strong ambience the film works for the most part as we slowly gather steam and head towards a final showdown with an evil force. Unfortunately unlike with SAW where I had nothing but good things to say with Insidious I am going to have to throw down the gloves.

Insidious is brought to us by the power house creators of SAW and the producers of Paranormal Activity two very memorable films for the horror genre. Unfortunately Insidious is an ‘ok film’ that does very little to advance the genre and unfortunately falls into the same failures that Sam Raimi’s Drag Me To Hell did relying on silly ‘bump in the dark’ tactics to freak you out and a script that is borderline original but also far too predictable. It starts out strong building up to what we can assume to be a climatic finale but unfortunately it quickly degenerates into another run of the mill ghost story.

Insidious is a straight up ghost story with some very creepy moments but unfortunately it is not a movie that will stay with you after you leave the theatre like SAW did or generate the kind of viral interest that Paranormal Activity did. Insidious will entertain you and creep you out at times but it will not resonate with you like SAW did which is what I was hoping to see from James Wan’s latest outing at the box office.

The creators and studio behind Insidious might have intentions of kick starting a brand new billion dollar horror franchise but from my perspective the first was enough and as much as Insidious was at times entertaining it by no means has the legs to inspire a sequel much less a franchise.

Summed up the film has an interesting look and feel that pays homage to classic ghost stories, an interesting but by no means captivating story, a strong cast of performers and unfortunately one of the most cliché and predictable endings possible. Worth seeing? Perhaps. To me it comes off as the kind of horror film that teenage audiences will be truly terrified by and it certainly offers a higher creep value then Sam Raimis Drag Me To Hell but it also has much lower production values. Put frankly if you like me will have to pay $22.50 for a coke, popcorn and a movie ticket I would say wait for it on DVD.

So to recap for those who seem to think I hate this movie, what I liked

• A very well polished film for its extremely small budget of under $1million
• Nice homage to classic horror films of yester years
• A well put together cast featuring Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne
• Some creepy moments and an interesting angle on the haunting aspect.

What I did not like

• Alot of the scares in the movie were cheap jump out at you moments similar to Boogeyman
• The script started out strong but ended with an extremely predictable ending
• I was truly just hoping for more, fair or unfair from James Wan. I am a huge admirer of SAW and Death Sentence and was hoping to see something that would really resonate with me.

Overall Insidious is a good movie and one that you will very likely enjoy depending on your expectations. 7 out of 10 stars

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