Movie Review - Insidious

Insidious (2011)

Starring Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Ty Simpkins, Lin Shaye, and Barbara Hershey 

Directed by James Wan

I must admit that due to circumstances beyond my control, I saw the final three minutes of Insidious several months prior to watching it all the way through this past week.  Admittedly, that led to a little bit of spoilerish anti-climactic viewing experience watching this at home.  So, I guess this review should be taken with a grain of salt when it comes to talks of "suspense" or "tension."  Still, regardless of knowing the conclusion, this is a decent, albeit rote, horror flick that's buoyed by some decent performances and an eerie tone of unease throughout.

Seeing as how this is written and directed by the duo that brought the world the onset of torture porn flicks with the creation of Saw, Insidious reaches beyond the blood and gore and gains its thrills by seemingly giving homage to early horror flicks utilizing a minimal amount of special effects to create scares.  At its core, this is a haunted house flick, however it is soon discovered by the lead characters that it's not the house causing the scares, but their son.  And that's not really a spoiler.  When their son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) falls into a mysterious coma-like condition, Renai (Rose Byrne) and Josh (Patrick Wilson) are obviously devastated.  Months pass and Renai begins to see strange figures and hear odd noises throughout their house.  Eventually, things get so out of control that Renai begins suspecting something more insidious is afoot and she calls in the help of a medium (Lin Shaye) to attempt to make some sense of what seems to be paranormal entities.

Although there is an overall sense of discomfort and dread that permeates throughout Insidious, at times the scares are simply too generic and basic.  I understand that this low budget horror flick was certainly going for that homage-like atmosphere to horror films of yore, but there were some moments that were laughable as opposed to frightening.  It's also rather unfortunate that the film's final act isn't all that interesting.  After a bunch of build-up, I can't help but think that it felt like a bit of a let down (however, once again, the ending was spoiled for me, so perhaps that played a role in my disappointment).

Still, there are some good performances here from Patrick Wilson, Lin Shaye, Barbara Hershey (as Josh's mother), and Rose Byrne who manages to redeem herself after falling on my Worst Performances list in 2009.  Together this group of actors plays off the scares quite well.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-