Insidious (2011)
Plot: After moving into a new home, Josh (Patrick Wilson) and his wife Renai (Rose Byrne) confront terrifying tribulations when their son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) falls into a coma and his body starts to attract malevolent forces from a mysterious netherworld. But when the family decides to move again, hoping to leave the evil spirits behind, they realize that their problems are just beginning. James Wan (Saw) directs.
My Review:I went into this movie hearing that it was really really creepy. Some people said they felt really sick after watching it, others said they were freaked out or terrified. Well, I don’t know whats wrong with those people, but they are weird. This movie was terribly STUPID!
The film starts off with a young couple and three children moving into a house. One of the children gets hurt and is put into a coma from it. During this time some freaky stuff happens around the house. Bloody handprints show up, ghosts popping up (but not scary ones), items go missing, etc. The mother freaks out and they decide to move. Only the ghosts follow them. All these scenes were fine and dandy…it was when they call in a knock off of Loraine Warren that things go VERY downhill with this movie.
These ghost hunters are called to the scene of the 2nd house, they are goofy and you expect them to be found as frauds or something, but nope, they are serious. The father’s mother apparently knows about them and referred them. They see a ghost and call in the friend of the mother, I’m guessing their “boss” and she tells them that the child is really an astral projector. Meaning while the child sleeps his spirit leaves his body and travels, and it just so happens that one night he did it and got “lost” among something evil (a demon of some sort) and can’t come back.
So this is where the movie started to lose me. I’m really into “believable horror” movies right now, and I don’t believe in Demons or in Astral Projection so this movie went a little south for me at this point, but it went right out the window for me when the old lady puts on a gas mask attached to the other ghost hunters ear and listens as she’s possessed or something – by the child that’s in the coma – or perhaps something else. I’m not sure. Unfortunately there were still 40 minutes left of the movie. I watched a bit more, and couldn’t take it anymore and fast forwarded through the rest of it. I didn’t miss much. I’m truly disappointed in this movie.
I’m curious why every “ghost” movie is advertised as being haunted, but then it turns out it sorta isn’t really somehow?
Also, where did the other children go once they moved into the second house? They just disappeared all of the sudden. Also it was VERY predictable that the father would have the “ability” as well. So I don’t feel I’m ruining much by saying that here. I’m also curious as to why nobody heard anything at the end of the film, when everyone was in the next room…
Totally off topic, check out a scene when the main guy is in his classroom on the phone, in the background on the blackboard is a little photo of the puppet from SAW.
Gore/FX: The ghosts were hilarious! One was a leprechaun look alike that danced around to “tip toe through the window”. Not only that but they were terribly predictable. It was obvious where they’d show up and when. In a ghost movie you don’t want predictability. You also don’t want FUNNY ghosts. The main demon looked like Darth Maul on crack or something.
Sexual Content: Nada.
Acting: The acting was “OK”. By far the worst actors were the paranormal investigators.
Overall: I felt this movie was terrible. I hated every minute of it after it was explained that it was Astral Projection and the little old lady put the gas mask on. I’m utterly SHOCKED that people got “sick” from watching this movie. I just don’t get it…I personally found Paranormal Activity 1 & 2 a hell of a lot better then this film..
[rating:1.5/5]
View The Trailer
It’s sounds as if you disliked the film based on the astral projection subject alone. Are you saying that the film didn’t convey this concept convincingly or that the very idea of spirit travel doesn’t work? If you think of the astral plane as another dimension, whether it’s heaven or hell, the concept is the same; once a spirit leaves its body behind, it has to find its way back or can become lost. That something else might possess your body while you’re lost is a fascinating concept to me, and I believed the film did this very well. Having the techie nerds as a bit of comic relief was all the more entertaining that the weren’t frauds.
Well, I didn’t like the subject matter, because I personally don’t believe in it. And I know…I don’t believe in guys like Jason and Freddy running around killing people, but I grew up on those films from the age of 2.
But I do believe in ghosts, and I’m sick and tired of going into movies that advertise themselves as ghost/haunting movies and turn out to be something completely different. Especially when the “ghosts” aren’t scary at all. Not even remotely.
In the end I think I could have gotten used to and past the Astral Projection angle more so if the movie had provided better scares, better acting, less “hilariousness” with the whole “seance” scene, and the goofy ghost hunters, which didn’t really give GOOD comedy relief, this movie should have had no comedy.
I just lost ALL interest in it when the seance scene came on and the nutty lady put on a gas mask…before that it wasn’t GREAT by any means, but it was semi-entertaining.
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Thanks. You saved me from downloading this. (Canceling download now). The trailer… Even that is a tip off. Any movie that has to be promoted immediately by reference to other works has nothing to say for itself.
Little old ladies with gas masks and kids that go bump in the attic are far estranged from real horror. One would think after 38 years, something would have bumped off The Exorcist from being the Granddaddy horror movie. This age of single word titles; and kiddy cliche writing is not going to do it.
PS., whatever has Astral Projection got to do with dancing leprechauns tip-toeing across window sills, and Darth Maul on crack? Even if you don’t believe in AP, the literature about it supports none of that. Might as well had a ghoulish Mary Poppins appearing to scare people with her trixy umbrella.
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