Movie Review: Insidious
Insidious is a truly terrifying cinema experience. Filled with disturbing images, Insidious takes the viewer for a chilling ride into a place known as the Further where a couple’s eldest son’s being is trapped after it travels out of his body leaving his physical being in a comatose state. Although it sounds pretty far-fetched, it actually works surprisingly well as a truly creepy horror movie. A cross between a ghost story and a demonic tale, Insidious was created by the makers of Paranormal Activity (producers Oren Peli, Jason Blum, and Steven Schneider) and directed by James Wan (Saw), and was shot with a production budget of only one million dollars.
The nightmare begins for Josh and Renai (played by Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne) when their eight-year-old-son Dalton mysteriously falls into a coma, befuddling the medical world. After spending months at the hospital, Dalton returns home still in his comatose state to his own room where he is kept on life support and fed through a tube. This in itself is disturbing as it is hard to watch a little boy in a near corpse-like state. However, it indeed gets more frightening as strange things begin to happen in the house. Some are just standard noise – doors slamming, floors creaking – while others are more unexpected and haunted – actual demons and once-human figures awaiting prey in the dark corners of the house.
Terrified, Renai insists that the family move into a different and, hopefully, less haunted home. After relocating however, the horror ceases to stop. Left without options, Renai wants to hire a medium to drive the evil out of the house, while Josh is skeptical. His mom, (played by Barbara Hershey), and her overzealous belief in the spirit world persuades Josh otherwise and they bring a medium into their home who subsequently informs them that it is their son and not the house that is haunted. This news of course would be devastating to any parent. The movie gets even more intense as the couple participates in a séance in their son’s room hoping to contact his lost soul. Things get even creepier as the couple is forced to go to extremes to bring their son back.
This movie is well done with its low budget feel, and I appreciated the absence of overdone special effects that pass for scares in some big budget terror flicks. Wilson gives a fantastic performance that easily stands out amidst the horror, something that is not easily accomplished. He gives us a personal glimpse as to what he as the father of the troubled boy is going through and how a parent would respond. He shows his versatility by playing the strong but blemished family man both in this film and Little Children as well as the subtle psychopath in the film Hard Candy. His performance keeps this at times far-fetched story grounded and easier to believe.
After fidgeting in my chair throughout this movie, I must say that it is a likable horror movie (if there is such a thing). I was surprised, jumpy, and found myself biting my nails through some of the various intense scenes of the film. Insidious does not disappoint as a genre entry, and I will even admit that later that night after returning from the theatre, I turned the light on in my four -year -old son’s room while he was sleeping.
