Expected grade: 6/10
Actual grade: 8/10
(For a full explanation of my grading system, check out this post.)
I am a huge fan of scary movies, so going in to Insidious, I was expecting to have a good time. However, all the posters and promotional materials heavily feature a young boy looking creepy, and therefore it was easy to expect an evil-child-themed movie, which has been overdone recently with the remake of The Omen, Orphan, and Joshua (among many others). Furthermore, realistic horror movies with real people terrorizing other real people (see The Strangers, etc) have always scared me more than the supernatural (ghosts, zombies, etc), so while I was expecting to enjoy the movie, I wasn’t necessarily expecting it to be a new favorite.
Insidious, directed by James Wan and written by Leigh Whannell (who also made Saw and Dead Silence), is, as it turns out, one of the scariest movies I've seen in a long, long time. It was atmospheric, intense, beautifully shot, and well-acted by both Rose Byrne and Patrick Wilson in the roles of the beleaguered and terrorized parents. The scares are many and varied, with no false scares like a cat jumping out of a closet to evoke cheap screams. There's also zero gore. The terror is genuine and unrelenting. I will admit that even as a 22-year-old man, I watched much of it from between my fingers.
A major complaint about the movie I've heard is that it's unoriginal and copies other classic horror films such as Poltergeist. In my opinion, while the film indeed draws inspiration from several different sources, it manages to string these themes into a fresh, new take on the traditional "haunted house" story with a twist.
My only complaint is that the movie ceases to be as scary once everything is explained about two-thirds of the way through the film. It doesn't stop being scary entirely, but it definitely becomes more eerie and creepy than truly, gut-wrenchingly terrifying once we as an audience have been let in on what exactly is occurring. The explanation is obviously necessary for the understanding of the film, but it is testament to the fact that the unknown is infinitely scarier than the known.
Finally, there's the ending. It doesn't end with the plot tied up in a neat little bow, neither in a "They vanquished evil!" nor a "Everyone died!" way. There's a final twist, and then it just...ends. The audience is given no time to experience the fall-out of the twist. All of a sudden the credits are rolling. Initially, I felt incredibly dissatisfied and unhappy with this, but as time passed, I began to admire the creators' choice to end the film as they did. I didn't feel any more satisfied, but I did feel more impressed that they chose to take such a risk. The creators made this world, brought us into it, and then rather than wrapping it up satisfactorily so we could go back into our own lives, they simply ended it, leaving the threads they'd woven dangling in our minds. Whether satisfied or not, I was definitely still thinking about the movie long after I'd left the theatre, and this, I believe, was their intention. If so, they were incredibly successful.
Watching this movie was an extremely stressful experience, but also an extremely cathartic one. I am a scary movie junky -- I love the adrenaline rush that accompanies the terror. If you are also a fan of horror movies, this is an absolute must-see. If not, then you should probably steer clear -- this is not the place to start. It is the closest thing I've seen recently to the classic, gothic, atmospheric horror movies of the past. It is refreshing to see a movie that relies more on psychological terror than blood and guts to scare its audience.
PS- I promise I won't only be reviewing horror movies! Pure coincidence that my first two reviews happened to be both of scary movies. :)
