Insidious: A movie review

I'm annoyed with all of the reviews of this movie so I'm just going to write my own.

I'm a huge fan of horror as a genre. There is almost no movie out there that ruffles me under the collar anymore but the genre itself is a lot of fun for me. Naturally, I was intrigued by the previews for "Insidious" especially because it was being marketed as "the scariest movie since Poltergeist."

First of all, Poltergeist is what I call "the comfort food of horror." It's not scary in the slightest, not even when it was released in the 80's was it scary for me, and I was a small child when I first saw it. My mom maintains that it was scary for its time but the 70s brought us classic gems like "Last House on the Left," "I Spit on Your Grave," and even "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" so I'm left scoffing at the idea that "Poltergeist" was in any way shape or form scary in this respect. In addition, Poltergeist was packed with an all-star cast and a lot of emotional pull that leaves me to classify it more in the drama and camp horror genre than ACTUAL horror. But for me, when I'm feeling down about life and I need some "visual comfort food," I definitely turn on "Poltergeist" any chance I get. For me, the highlight of the movie was the possessed room of toys, namely the record player that paused in mid air as if to say "Oh hello psychic lady. I'm a possessed toy. How are you?" Everything after that is just fodder.

What drew me to "Insidious" was less that it was "the scariest movie since Poltergeist" but more that it was produced by Oren Peli - the famed writer/director of the "Paranormal Activity" series. I am hardly ever scared by horror but there are three movies that ruffled my collar in the last decade: "Paranormal Activity," "The Exorcism of Emily Rose," and "Quarantine." It should be noted here that I have also seen the Spanish version of "Quarantine" called "[rec]" and I have to say that the original was nowhere NEAR as impressive as the big budget Hollywood version starring Jennifer Carpenter, who I personally think was genetically engineered for horror as her performances in both "Quarantine" and "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" left me with goosebumps just because her scream chilled me to the bone the same way that Jamie Lee Curtis' scream chilled to the bone in the 80s. She's an impressive actor and I hate seeing her talents for the genre being wasted as Deb Morgan on "Dexter," even though that is definitely my favorite TV show. She's just being wasted.

So today I popped over to Blockbuster and rented "Insidious" having heard the rumors that this was a truly chilling movie. The first time I tried to watch it, I was having troubles seeing everything or hearing it on my small 13" bedroom TV, so that was a bust and I just fell asleep. But then I awoke around midnight and decided that I would try watching it on my 32" living room TV. Since it was midnight and I was already aware that most of this movie is a black screen, I decided to watch it in total darkness. People think I'm insane for viewing horror movies in the dark but sometimes the movie doesn't have enough light to it to be viewed with the lights ON.

The basic premise of the movie (without revealing too many spoilers) is that there's this family who lives in what they THINK is a haunted house. Then they move and realize that it's not the house that's haunted but one of their little boys that is haunted. That of course grabbed me because I am TERRIFIED by creepy children. I can't explain it but creepy children scare the FUCK out of me. I hate creepy children.

I'll post the trailer, which has been playing on TV a lot recently as Insidious is now on Directv pay-per-view so you all can see it for yourselves.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1YbOMDI59k]

The first thing to annoy me about this movie was the violins that screeched at you every time a ghost showed up in the shadows and scared someone. Violins make a beautiful noise but this was straight screeching violins. And it hurt my ears. In my opinion, the violins distracted you from what was going on and removed you from the mood because you're eardrums are now bleeding.

The key aspect of a good horror movie is what it LACKS, as opposed to what it HAS. In a good horror movie, there is a play between light and dark, onscreen and off, so that your mind fills in the blanks as to what is going on, usually with something that will scare the shit out of you. The "slasher porn" genre (of "Hostel", the "Saw" series, and so forth) was heavily criticized for showing every single aspect of the torture. You don't need that for good horror and sometimes it makes a good horror movie campy to show a man getting his leg sawed off. The LACK of scary goodies is what "Paranormal Activity" did RIGHT. Even in "Paranormal Activity 2" there was a scene where the dog gets dragged into the basement by an unforeseen demonic force and you never SEE what happens in the basement. You just hear noises and are left to make up your own mind about it. With "Insidious" the movie is shot in near total darkness so you don't get to see hardly anything. Even on my bigger and brighter TV, there was a lot of purely black screen. This COULD have worked... were it not for the screeching violins that randomly played for no apparent reason. I think that if you cut out the violins, this movie could have been a lot scarier than it was but because the screeching popped up all over the place and randomly at that, you're left disassociating with the movie and being removed from the experience because your ears are bleeding.

The next thing to annoy me was that this is a plot that seems pieced together from several different (and better) horror movies. The link to "Poltergeist" doesn't end at the cover. Within the movie, there is a plot device revolving around astral projection that seems stolen from "Poltergeist" and heavily mutilated. What "Poltergeist" did right with this plot device was to only show glimpses of what the netherworld looked like. "Insidious" gave you a solid 15 minutes in "The Further" and most of that time it was in total darkness. This COULD have worked, because the idea that there is no light in "The Further" could have been used to further propel the plot and give some depth to the dilemma, but it was very poorly done.

The whole way through the movie, I was annoyed with not seeing what I was supposed to be seeing (such as the man standing in the baby's room) or missing crucial plot devices (like the books falling on the floor) because the movie ran through at a very fast pace. The natural noises that you would expect with a creaky house horror movie (creaking stairs, slamming doors, creepy children laughing, wind and breathy voices) are overshadowed by the canned music that the SFX people thought were a great idea. When there IS some natural creepy house noise, it's at such a low level that you're straining to hear it. I didn't want to watch the movie with the captions on but I felt like I had to because I was missing the demonic voices on the baby monitor. There was static that you could hear but when you hear static... static... breathy voice you can't hear... static... two words in a growling voice... and then the mom gets freaked out and starts talking about how the demon voice said a full sentence, you get kind of frustrated. It's either watch this movie at full volume and risk the screeching violins blowing out your speakers... or miss crucial plot devices and horror movie kicks.

Despite all of it's flaws, the final scene made the movie for me. A lot of the professional movie critics felt like the movie was amazing and the ending fell flat but I feel like the whole rest of the movie was flat, and that ending was amazing. I don't want to ruin it for you but suffice it to say I walked away thinking, "OH! AMAZING!!" They don't even let you sniff at the ending until the last 30 minutes of the movie so you THINK you know where it's going within the first 30 minutes but then it busts out in the last 5 minutes and says, "SUCKA! You don't know what I'm gonna do!"

All in all, I think this movie is a big miss for the majority of the population. The ending was awesome but the horror is so hard to follow throughout the movie that it's not for the novice horror fan. You aren't able to dive into the world and feel truly scared. And for those of us who are extreme horror geeks, we're kind of sitting out in the cold with yet another movie that claims it can ruffle your collar but really can't. I don't think there's a movie that I can refer you to instead of this movie. It's really just kind of a garbage movie all around but because it mashed up too many horror elements and other, better movies, you can't really say "watch [movie] instead of Insidious." Obviously you should all watch "Poltergeist" because it is the closest parallel to this movie and try not to laugh at the early 1980's fashion (yes... we really DID wear that stuff). But if you want to really be scared by a creepy house movie, you should check out "Paranormal Activity." Want demons and possession? "Exorcism of Emily Rose" and "The Rite." And if you want some creepy children, you should check out "The Unborn".

I don't feel like I lost 2 hours of my life that I want back but I really can't recommend this movie to anyone I know. It's not scary unless you hate violins or are scared by the dragon faces in a Chinese New Year parade. Yeah... that was another thing that annoyed me... when you SHOW the demon... make sure he's SCARY and not something you can see on the PG rated "Sorcerer's Apprentice." I saw his face, paused the DVD, cocked my head to the side, and went, "Did they pick up that costume in Chinatown? This movie is WHOA low budget." (Note: You can see the demon in the above trailer at 1:25)

They should have spent more money on the demon costume and less on the freaking violins. Might have made a better movie.

P.S. Paranormal Activity 3 comes out October 21, 2011. WHO'S WITH ME!!