Film Review: Insidious

Film Review: Insidious (2010)

The creators of Saw and Paranormal Activity join forces to make Insidious. You expect them to come up with another gory blood fest and violent movie, but what they gave us was a good old fashioned horror movie, with a good enough plot to keep you interested, even without gore and violence. The film itself was scary enough to make you jump but not admit it in front of your family and friends.

Genre: Supernatural Horror/Thriller

Plot: Insidious is an intriguing story about a family that are forced to move house because of a series of unfortunate occurrences that has happened, such as; Dalton exploring and falling off a ladder when reaching for the light switch and then later on falling into a coma. Then weird and supernatural things start happening in the house, which is when Renai believes the house is haunted. The whole family then moves to a new house, but unfortunately the haunting continues. Straight away, Renai sees an undead child playing within the house. Renai then invites a psychic/medium to her house, who brings with her a team of ghost hunters. Elise (the psychic) then explains that their son, Dalton, is a traveller. Dalton has the ability of leaving his body and can travel in astral projection, which is sort of like an out of body experience. Dalton does this in his sleep. The psychic then explains even more that he is lost in a place called 'The Further' which is a dangerous place where there is entities (undead souls) that are trying to have another chance at life by trying to get into Dalton's empty physical body. Because Dalton is in a place called 'The Further' he is in even more trouble. He has a Satan like demon creature chasing after him because he wants to use Dalton's body to cause pain to others. Elise and Josh's mother, Lorraine, then reveals that Josh can also astral project, by showing them a couple of childhood photos, which had an old woman beside Josh in every one. The psychic suggests that Josh should astral project and go seek his son in the further and bring him back, which was a successful trip but just before Josh is brought back to the land of the living, he reunites with the old woman that haunted him when he was young. Josh confronts the woman and declares that he's not scared of her and the woman backs away. When the psychic is talking to Josh, she notices something different about him, she then proceeds to take a picture which is when Josh is pictured as the old woman. Josh/the old woman, then strangles Elise and kills her. Renai then comes into the room to find Elise dead and then looks for Josh. Josh then grabs her shoulder and then Renai screams. This provides the sequel to Insidious.

Personal Response: In my opinion, I feel that the film was really good. It had a few jumps here and there, but I found it more of a comedy than a horror, it provided comedy moments whether they meant it or not. I also really liked all the costume designs and the effects used throughout the movie. It had a good plot line and I liked the way they revealed that Josh could also astral project, it was a good twist in the movie. I also feel that the film was really clever, and after watching it a couple of times you can finally understand it.

Pros: 

• Enough to make you jump and laugh
• Good acting
• Atmospheric

Cons:

• Slow start
• It contradicted itself because the psychic told Josh not to draw attention or show himself to the undead souls, which he did...
• The main scary character, the demon, wasn't really as terrifying as the others and he had a bad costume design

Director: James Wan

Cast:

Josh Lambert - Patrick Wilson

Renai Lambert - Rose Byrne

Dalton Lambert - Ty Simpkins

Elise Rainier - Lin Shaye

Specs - Leigh Whannell

Tucker - Angus Sampson

Lorraine Lambert - Barbara Hershey

Rating: I give 'Insidious' 4 out of 5 spooks.

Trailer: