Insidious

At first, I had little to no interest in seeing this film. The fact that it was written and directed by the people responsible for most of the Saw franchise, and produced by the guy responsible for Paranormal Activity was certainly NOT a selling point for me. In fact, it was a total turn off. As you may know, my predilection in horror movies is NOT the supernatural. I have no interest in ghosts and haunted houses and demons and whatever else because, you know what, prove to me that those exist first! No, you know what does exist? Crazy psychopaths with knives who break into your house in the middle of the night and hack you and your family into a million pieces. That shit happens! That shit is scary! Ghosts aren't scary to me in the least. So my interest in Insidious was pretty non-existant. Of course, I would check it out on DVD, probably hate it, whatever. But then I started reading the reviews. Reputable critics giving it grades like "A-" and calling it the scariest movie since Poltergeist. Tons of really great, really strong reviews. So I decided to give in and go see it. All I can say is, thank goodness I had a free movie ticket because I was right and you all were wrong. Insidious is, indeed, insidious.

Insidious stars Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne as a couple with three children who recently moved into a brand new house in some picturesque suburb somewhere. Soon after they move in, their oldest son falls into a sort of coma that the doctors can't explain. Then "scary" stuff starts to happen and mom Renee (Byrne, although Renee is spelled in the most stupid way possible and I refuse to accept it as an actual spelling for the name) starts to freak out. She hears scary noises and sees scary things. Ooooh! So scary. Anyway, hottie dad Josh (Wilson) believes her craziness and the family leaves their gorgeous suburban house and moves to a different, uglier house. But guess what? The ghosts and goblins and general cliched creepiness follows them. Barbara Hershey shows up for some unknown reason to be wasted in a terrible role and introduces them to some creepy lady (Lin Shaye) who informs them that the house isn't haunted, but their son is. THEN the movie gets really stupid, involving some strange gas mask apparatus and astral-projection and a whole bunch of other really stupid stuff. Blah, blah, blah, twist ending you saw coming a mile away.

I guess it's pretty plain to see that not only did I not like Insidious, but also, in fact, I hated it. There was absolutely nothing I could say about it that was positive except - I liked the opening credits! They were creepy and old school and enjoyable. It was pretty much all down hill from there. The performances by Wilson and Byrne, two actors who I like, were fine, I guess. Too bad they are stuck in a really terrible movie. Any sort of creepiness that builds up in the first half (and I'm saying that as a sort of objective point of view because where other people might find it "creepy" and "scary", I found it boring and dumb) gets completely ruined by a far-flung ridiculous second half. The fact that people genuinely find this movie good and scary makes me realize why there is really no hope for the future of the horror movie genre. I really hope Scream 4, a SLASHER movie about a crazy MAN who wears a mask and kills people for really no reason, is a huge success and ushers in a change. I can't handle all this supernatural crap that people find scary these days. It just doesn't do it for me, man. Anyway, I liked it better when it was called Poltergeist.

Grade: D-