Year of release: 2011.
Run time: 100 Minutes.
Budget: $1.5 Million.
Gross revenue: $50, 319, 115.
This is the new movie from James Wan; the guy that came up with the Saw series, which was largely rubbish but somehow managed to become the defining horror franchise of the 00s. I guess I was interested in Insidious because it was completely unrelated to the Saw franchise. You have to remember that even though James Wan conceived Saw, he was only ever heavily involved in the production of the first and third film in the series. You definitely get the sense that Wan's non-involvement indicates a contempt for the Hollywood trend of pumping out sequel after sequel to a successful franchise, and in this respect I guess he deserves some admiration. That Insidious is a haunted house picture surely points to Wan's desire to branch out creatively within the horror genre, and this too must be commended.
Rose Byrne plays Renai Lambert, a mother and song-writer, who has just moved into a new house with her new baby, two older boys, and teacher husband Josh (played by Patrick Wilson). Whilst one of their offspring, Dalton, is exploring the house, he manages to fall off a ladder in the attic and bump his head. The parents are alarmed, but manage to settle him down and put him to bed. The next day, he doesn't wake up and a trip to the hospital confirms that he is indeed comatose. The Lambert's decide to take him home to care for him, and then the spooky stuff starts to happen: Renai hears a whispering voice in her infant's room through the baby-monitor, which gets progressively louder and more hostile. Then one of her boys tells her he can't sleep because Dalton, the comatose son, has been walking around in the night. After a few of these scary scenes, the Lambert's obtain help from a psychic medium and the mysterious forces working in the house are eventually revealed.
Insidious is genuinely scary for the first thirty minutes. Wan uses classic horror techniques which seem to be amplified by a hand-held camera style of filming. Relax folks, it's not like The Blair Witch Project or Cloverfield where the narrative unfolds from the point of view of the camera of one of the characters. Rather, the camera hovers around the characters during exposition not unlike the style that Lars Von Trier uses in most of his films. It's unsettling because it manages to create a really raw atmosphere, and in the best scenes you really feel like you are right behind the characters; exploring the dark and haunted house with nothing but your pyjamas and a flash-light.
Rose Byrne's stunning performance also lends a great deal to the scare factor here. She plays the part of the distressed mother really well, and scenes of her tending to her comatose son provide for great character development. Byrne successfully manages to create the slow boil that good horror movies need to have. When she has to scream and get hysterical, she pulls it off flawlessly and you really begin to empathise with her up until the plot takes a silly turn in the second act. Rose Byrne is incredibly underrated. I just hope that the producers gave her a decent pay-cheque for this, because without her, Insidious would barely rise above a 'straight-to-video' release, thanks largely to the second and third acts.
Yes, Insidious may well be the title of film, but if we were to judge it on it's last hour, a more apt title would be Ridiculous. I can actually pinpoint the moment when the film becomes shit: When the two comic relief ghost-busters turn up and start arguing over whose ghost-busting equipment is better designed. It's all downhill from there. I won't go into detail because it would spoil it, but your standard psychic-medium exorcism plot ensues, complete with a red-faced demon that has hooves for feet (I'm not kidding). The plot also kind of careens away from Byrne's character, which has been greatly developed, only to focus more on the husband and his back-story, which is considerably underdeveloped. It's quite jarring, because there would be a great film in there if they did away with the silliness and focussed more on Byrne's emotional hardship, but they don't, and it sucks.
This movie has performed well at the box office, leaving Scream 4 in the dust, and I guess I can see why. It's a fun and fresh movie that manages to get some genuine scares, especially in the beginning. The narrative would benefit from more focus and less silliness. Insidious is a lot like Sam Raimi's Drag Me To Hell, only without the irony and humour. It's probably gonna get a lot of teenage interest, but as a long-time horror movie fan, I have to say it: James Wan, you consistently underwhelm me.
Two stars:
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