Insidiously Impressive

Insidious is one of those movies I thought about skipping out on, looking like a typical haunted house flick. If it wasn't for James Wan being attached to this, I probably would have ended up not seeing this. James Wan looks as if he's stepping into the shoes of the early John Carpenter style. The way he sets up a chilling tone and delivers it effectively. Well, I'm glad I didn't skip out on Insidious because it's not your typical haunted house flick.

Leigh Whannell, the writer of Insidious and most of the Saw flicks, tells the tale of a family that moves into an old house and start experiencing paranormal activity after they're son, suddenly, slips into a coma. The film stars Rose Byrne and Patrick Wilson, who needs to be in more starring roles.

Just by looking at the opening scenes, you could easily make a close to accurate prediction of what the budget is on this movie. The visuals and lighting are very dull, which by being a movie that's trying to give off a dark, horrendous tone is acceptable. Though, this is still a big step up for the producers of this who are the creators of Paranormal Activity, where the budget was nearly 50,000.

James Wan gives us a nice, fresh take on the haunted house sub-genre. I can't believe I'm saying this, but there is no severe overkill of jump scares, which seem to plague every plain haunted house movie ever made. In most haunted house films, no matter how much danger, no matter the circ*mstances, no matter what demon surfaces, the victims being haunted seem to never to anything about it, but just endure all the pain. The moment things start to get hectic this family gets the f*ck out. A lot of the scares came more from the film's tone and it's conventional, basic scare tactics that works more on your psyche than a hop. The audience great reactions made this film even more fun to watch.

If Insidious had a Siamese twin, it would definitely be Poltergiest, where this film seemed to pull out of it's ass all of a sudden, during the second act of the film. From the opening title sequence and first act, James Wan takes this simple formulaic sub-genre and creates a new impact to direct horror. Unfortunately, Insidious has a unusual turn in the second act, a Poltergiest rip off. I can't do anything else but call out the producers. Basically, Paranormal Activity was Poltergiest with a home video filming style. This looks like a hostile takeover of the producers taking over the director's film, to the point where it lost me and I felt like every thrill and mystery dissolved in the second half. This film could've been great but became a very mediocre, strangely received haunted house feature.