Insidious [Blu-ray] [2010] [US Import]

Not many films scare me these days. Mostly it's all gore or cheap shocks. But gut-churning scares are something of a rarity. Insidious, the new film from Saw director, James Wan, has chills and creeps a-plenty, with the obligatory jump-out-of-your-seat shocks thrown in for good measure.

Josh and Renai Lambert (Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne) have three kids, two young boys and a baby girl. Soon after moving into a new house, weird stuff starts happening: strange noises, glimpses of figures, the usual. When Rose is attacked by a spectral figure and their son, Dalton, ends up in a coma-that's-not-really-a-coma, they decide to move house again.

Obviously this doesn't help and Josh's mum (Barbara Hershey) calls in a psychic, Elise, and her team to help. Turns out it's not the houses that were haunted, but Dalton. You see, the young scamp can astral project himself to a place Elise calls The Further. Unfortunately, he's strayed too far and got lost, unable to find his way back to his body, which is now an empty vessel attracting spirits and demons like flies around... you know.

Luckily, the ability to project astrally is genetic (hard science!), so Josh has to go in and bring back his son before the big bad can get his literal claws into him.

Doesn't sound too scary, does it? Actually sounds a bit like a rip-off of Poltergeist. Yeah, well, it is a bit. But it's a flippin' scary one!

From the outset, you are peering into dark corners, wondering if you saw something there. Was that a face at the window? Did somebody walk by that open door just then? There's plenty of that and all's well and good while that's going on. It's when the astral projection sub-plot arrives that things go a bit awry.

The movie is terrifying right until Josh enters his astral state and then it all gets a bit Twilight Zone. Sure, there are some scares to be had and the demon is petrifying to look at (kind of like Darth Maul on a really bad day), but it all seems removed from the main body of the film, as though they came up short in the writing and had to add another fifteen pages to pad it out. As I said, a bit too much like Poltergeist.

Apart from that, however, I really, really enjoyed Insidious and I don't mind telling you, it did creep me out so much that I contemplated leaving the landing light on (I didn't in the end and every tiny sound in the house suddenly became amplified a zillion percent!). One of the producers of the film was Oren Peli, he of Paranormal Activity fame, and there was more than a hint of that film in Insidious.

By the way, watch the film and try to guess the budget... I'll wait here until you get back.... Done that? Not bad, eh? Anyway, did you guess the budget? Me neither, but apparently, the budget for Insidious was a paltry $1.5million. A million and a half bucks!! That wouldn't pay for the bowls of M&Ms on a big studio picture. For that alone, I am willing to cut the film a whole bunch of slack and recommend it to anybody who wants the willies scaring out of them.

Insidious tells the story of a family at breaking point
as there home is infested with demons attempting to posess
their child,telling the story of one families struggle with
good versus evil.

From the director of Saw combining with the makers of Paranormal
activity,Insidious is a new dimension in horror.There were parts
to me that were far fetched amnd borrowed elements from other movies
but overall deeply disturbing.Unlike Saw,Insidious concentrates more
on making the audeince jump out of their minds rather than put excessive
gore onto the screen.Their is also a twist at the end that still gives me
sleepless nights...

Nowadays I often watch horror films claiming to be the scariest film yet blah blah blah when they're really just tame and add nothing to the genre. Once again I watched Insidious with same casual expectations, however this time I was pleasantly surprised. Insidious is a horror that does not simply reel off every cliche and idea one by one until the end credits, oh no. In this film, there is a real feeling of dread and terror as each new scene approaches. There will always be people that say something isn't scary (usually because they are too vain or embarrassed to admit such a thing), and many will say it about this movie. In this case they would be wrong to do so, and this film does not deserve to be thrown in with the usual mountain of over hyped pap that is available. This film is scary. Very scary. At times I found myself sitting with my jaws agape because some of the shocks & scares just hit the spot so brilliantly. I won't go into detail about the story or characters - you don't need to know any of these details - just go into it with an open mind and sit back & enjoy. Very highly recommended.