Insidious (2011)

I remember at the time of release, describing Insidious as scary until Darth Maul turned up, though come to think of it, as soon as they started a prolonged dream sequence, I felt that the film lost its suspense, I’m not saying that it wasn’t freaky, walking around the land of the dead, with all those strange creatures, but for me, that was the part that lost its realism, especially when Darth Maul turns out to be the child abductor.

This 2008 supernatural horror film came not long after Paranormal Activity and was marketed heavily because of its links with both Paranormal Activity and torture porn hit Saw, but Insidious has next to no similarities, apart from high production values and a good cast, I for one was quite looking forward to seeing this movie and for the first 2/3, it was shaping up to be another successful horror movie, with an interesting plot, in which a family attempt to save their son Dolton from the comatose state he has fallen.

But things get more complicated when it’s learnt that he is in fact trapped in ‘The Further’, a mystical nether region, somewhere between living and dead, filled with demons and ghosts, all wanting to make their way back to the land of the living, the family soon learn that something lurking in their past, might be the key to saving Doltons’ life, sadly for me, there was a large chunk of the final 3rd of the film, I lost my connection to the film.

It reminded me a little of the 2000 science fiction film The Cell which had a better bad guy and meant I kept expecting Jennifer Lopez to turn up, luckily for me the ending of this film actually surprised me and meant that I left the film still thinking that Insidious was a good horror flick, not as good as I was expecting, but they rarely are.

Insidious did, however, have one striking image that stuck with me even after the film was finished and that was of the Woman in Black, she is just creepy, especially when they show her getting closer in photographs, hopefully, she makes a comeback in the 2nd film, rather than the massively underwhelming demon which as I pointed out looked more like Darth Maul than something that steals and tortures children’s souls, but luckily for Insidious, there are effectively 2 villains and one of them happens to be the utterly terrifying Woman in Black.

Insidious isn’t as good as the first Paranormal Activity or Sinister, but it is still a pretty wonderful movie.