I was very hesitant about this movie. I wanted to see it in theaters when I was working there but heard bad things from multiple people. So I passed on seeing it on the big screen, but figured that I'd give it a shot this month. I was still very hesitant even though my brother Mike had very few good things to say about it, and we, more or less, have similar tastes when it comes to horror movies. I was still up in the air about it, but Brain Steedman and Almond Boneless both recommended it, so I finally decided to pull the trigger on...
Insidious (2011)
After watching this movie I realized it must be really, really hard to make a good horror movie that stays good throughout. Want examples? Jeepers Creepers, Darkness Falls, When a Stranger Calls 2, and now Insidious. All of these movies start off great and are really scary, but then it seems like everyone just gives up and you get the monster with wings at the end of Jeepers Creepers! Him losing his hat and coat ruined that movie.
To Insidious' credit, it does manage to stay scary longer than the other movies, which makes its fall a lot more jarring. I was really into this movie and was scared at quite a few scenes. The scene where the man is pacing back and forth outside her window, the random faces staring at them, the scene with the baby monitor, and this:
Foster Lambert: I'm scared, Mom.
Renai Lambert: Scared of what?
Foster Lambert: Dalton. Can I change rooms?
Renai Lambert: Why would you want to change rooms?
Foster Lambert: I don't like when he walks around at night.
The kid they're talking about; Dalton, is in a coma. But as great as that line was, which it was, I got chills, they don't follow up on it. They have a scene where Foster can see Dalton laying in bed from his room, so he shuts the door and that's that. Never mentioned again until he hops up during a seance and starts whooping everyone's ass...
I can tell you the EXACT moment this movie jumped the shark. I was into everything that was going on, I was scared for a lot of it too, but they bring in an old lady who is a psychic or a seance person, I'm not sure. Anyways, they're about to try and bring him back and right before she begins she puts on a gas mask...
At that point it's, "What are you doing Insidious?" From there they frolic in "The Further", meet a ridiculous red-faced demon creature that I will refer to as Insidious, then the boy starts getting chased by Insidious, and finally, there is a shouting match between the father and an old lady ghost from his past.
This movie could have been so much better, I liken it to someone trying to climb a mountain and they're so close to the peak, and instead of grabbing the ledge, they grab a gas mask, put it on, and then fall miles back down to Earth. Maybe I am being a little unfair to Insidious, but I was hoping for more and for a while I believed it was going to turn out for the better (I'm looking at you Iraqi Dinar, don't you Insidious me!) What I talked about earlier are, in my opinion, pretty glaring things that automatically turn me off from a movie. But I also have two little nits that I wanted to point out.
Apparently this old lady ghost tried to possess the father when he was younger and would always appear in pictures taken of him (which was creepy), but during a conversation it said this old lady befriended the age 7 father to get him into the Further to possess him. That may sound well and good, but I highly doubt any 7 year old kid would EVER befriend a creepy old lady that appears outside his window every night.
Another nit I had was how the father plays the cynic, after it's obvious something's going on. I was actually impressed with how they used him in this movie, because he wasn't a hard ass about it, and was very supportive of his wife. The first time she asked to move, they did, which was very refreshing. Then while he and his family are sitting in the living room there are loud bangs coming from his comatose son's room. They run to the door and it's locked and something is trying to get out. He then busts down the door to find the room trashed, and bloody hand prints that look like claws on his sheets. He sees all that but thinks the gas mask lady is crazy for thinking it's haunted. Did you forget what JUST happened five minutes ago?! Something with claws ransacked the room of your son while he was in a coma and you don't believe something's wrong?!?!
I give this movie 5 Dr. Chainsaws.