Insidious

2010 horror movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Possessed kid.

It's the ethereal voice of Tiny Tim that sold this one to me. Demons popping on "Tiptoe through the Tulips" on scratchy vinyl doesn't make any sense at all, but I think this one is a little tongue in cheek anyway. And that's really how I like my horror movies--with a generous amount of humor. Insidious brings the scares--and there are loads of skin-crawling moments--the way a horror movie should, by effectively and (yes) insidiously setting a vibe and then maintaining consistency with the use of creepy visuals and a great use of sound and music and not with silly make-up or special effects trickery. Along with the use of Tiny Tim, that's something you have to give Saw-director James Wan credit for. Don't get me wrong. There's still some cheapness and there's still a few tired tricks, but even though very little of this feels like anything we've not seen before and even though a poltergeist-thin plot didn't always make much sense, this somehow manages to add up to something that works. There is a shift in this that I'm really not sure if I liked, and that's when the ghostbusters or whatever the hell Tucker and Specs were supposed to be came in. They brought a different sort of humor on their own, but things came even more alive with the appearance of Lin Shaye's Elise. In a way, I welcomed the shift because the main characters were never all that interesting. The guy was a teacher who stayed at school under the pretense of grading tests, so I could identify with him, but what was the point of making the mother a musician? I really doubt anybody would fault this for being overly structured or too well thought out. The demonic presence never had enough palpability to carry this either, so Elise and her associates did probably come along at just the right time. Insidious has a great visual style and puts you right there with these boring people being assaulted by fiends, and the disturbing score and use of sound effects enhance that experience. It's not a horror movie classic exactly, but I'd recommend it for October viewing and am interested to see where they go with the sequels.