Things That Make You Go BOO...

I have been waiting for a GOOD horror movie all summer. Missing the film Insidious when it was out in theaters, I couldn’t wait until this past Tuesday when it would finally come out on video. I had been hearing good things about the film and couldn’t wait to get my “scare on”. Thanks to my loving wife, I finally got to experience the film this past Tuesday…

The storyline is nothing new. A family moves into a big house. They have three children, one being a small infant. Dalton, one of the older boys, ends up going into an unexplainable deep coma and ends up in the hospital. After months without change, the parents bring Dalton back to care for him at home. Strange things start happening such as unexplainable noises and Renai, the mother, begins to see people about the house. It all leads up to a climactic scene forcing our family to move out of the home into another home. But…things don’t calm down there either…

The movie’s beginning is fantastic. We have a great setting in the home, a classic location for a ghost story/haunted house flick. There are several scares in the first half that really work well. It is after they move from the original location that the film begins to lose pace. Why did the writers think it was necessary to take this course? I am not sure, but this totally ruined the film for me. Instead of a classic haunted house story, it ends up turning into something a little more disappointing.

Insidious does have its scares. There are several visual scenes that will make your skin crawl and turn to the person seated next to you and ask, “What the heck was that?” I did this often. However, director James Wan relies too much on the quick jump scares accompanied by increased volume of music that got annoying more than frightening as the film went on.

The film does try to pull off a twist at the end. Nothing really original here, but I will give Wan some credit for at least TRYING to be creative.

Overall, Insidious was a MAJOR disappointment to me. I was hoping for something mind blowing and frightening, instead I got a rehashing of the original Poltergeist film with cheap scares and a change in film direction that was not necessary whatsoever. If you aren’t picky about your fright flicks, Insidious will probably do it for you. If you are, like me, keep searching…