Roger Ebert said that “Insidious” is, “an affectionate visit to the Haunted House Movie, a genre that seems classic in contrast to Queasy-Cam gorefests.” The movie depends on characters, atmosphere, sneak attacks and increasing horror. Like I had already said, this movie isn’t really good, but you’ll probably get what you’re expecting. What’s important to know that it’s a combined effort between director James Wan and writer Leigh Whannell, who made the “Saw” franchise, which I will never see since I don’t like torture flicks.
In Ebert’s review, he stated, “As the movie opens, an unsuspecting family is moving into a big old house they must have found through the Amityville Multiple Listing Service. It's the kind of house you require for a haunting movie, with lots of rooms, nooks, crannies, corridors, staircases, closets and shadows — and an attic, of course. Although more modern houses were used in the "Paranormal Activity" movies, this genre really requires all the creaky old bells and whistles.”
The Lambert family looked like they were happy before this real estate deal. Josh (Patrick Wilson) is a teacher, Renai (Rose Byrne) writes songs and their son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) is like every other kid who is curious. You can see that when he sneaks into the attic, falls off an unfaithful ladder, and instantly falls into a coma. MRI’s reveal that there’s no head injury or brain damage, so what could it be? It’s very much like the episode of “MASH” called, “Bless you, Hawkeye,” where tests were not showing anything physical in Hawkeye for his sneeze attack, so they had to call Sidney, a psychiatrist, to see what was in his head, like a suppressed memory.
Renai is sure that something scary is occurring. Her boxes are moved around, but no one is moving them. Doors and windows open on their own. We are actually feeling more positive about this than Renai, since we start to see the bare ghost of a horrifying spirit.
Josh starts to stay at work pretty late. We as the audience members may want to start blaming him for not caring and wanting to get to the bottom of all these issues at home. We know this because Ebert said it best in his review: “We identify an example of the Absent Father Syndrome, that screenwriter's convenience for getting Dad out of the way so Mom can be home alone and told she's imagining things.”
This is a family that desperately needs some serious help. They hire a psychic named Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye), who sends over two paranormal investigators (Angus Sampson and the writer Leigh Whannell). These two look like they are exceptionally useless and are basically the comic reliefs.
What is this apparition that his haunting the family? Why is it there? What does it want? What can it get from the unfortunate Lamberts? Ebert answers this by saying, “The answers to such questions must necessarily remain theoretical at a metaphysical level, but at a practical level, the purpose of the presence is to generate startling bangs at frequent intervals, materialize unexpectedly, look horrifying and be a nuisance.” To sum up, he means that it just wants to go BOO!
Like I said, I didn’t find this scary, just funny because these spiritual movies just don’t seem to be really scary, unless they are done right. If you want to watch this, then go ahead, but you might be either bored, or like me, just laughing at how ridiculous it was.
But what can be said about the sequel, “Insidious: Chapter 2,” released in 2013? Let’s find out:
Unfortunately, this feels like a puzzle movie with too many superfluous pieces and not enough necessary ones, but it’s better than the first one in a few ways. Simon Abrams said in his review, “The first sequel to James Wan's "Poltergeist" homage/ripoff features a couple of set pieces that are thoughtful enough to be scary.” This goes a long way in the film where characters always explain why and how supernatural events occur. Also, unlike the first one, the sequel doesn’t overuse the jump scares and loud noises. Abrams stated that, “For better and worse, screenwriter Leigh Whannell has brought the same klutzy ambition to the "Insidious" films that he did to the first three "Saw" movies (Whannell did not script "Saw"s 4-7, though he did co-write "Chapter Two"'s story with Wan). His ideas for "Insidious: Chapter 2" are spectacularly misconceived, but they're also the main reason why the movie isn't that bad.”
“Insidious: Chapter 2” picks up exactly where the first one left off by telling us the Lambert family is still haunted. Josh Lambert’s body is possessed by the spirit of a mysterious Goth lady, and Renai doesn’t know it. Well, shouldn’t she, especially since she saw the photos that Elise took with the ghost clearly in the background? I guess Renai is not in the right state-of-mind after seeing those photos. Elise previously advised Renai that moving will not help them at all since Dalton was still haunted, not their home, but Renai and not-Josh move back into Josh’s childhood home anyway, which is odd since Renai is told in both of these movies that Josh was haunted as a child. To avoid a haunting, the Lamberts move back to the location of an earlier haunting. Once the household items start to move on their own again, Renai's paranormal investigators Specs (Whannell), Tucker (Sampson), call up retired psychic Carl (Steve Coulter) for answers.
Abrams says that, “Unfortunately, looking for answers in a Whannell-scripted film is more trouble than it's worth.” It’s easy to not pay attention to basic illogic of some plot points: “Why is a group of adults searching an abandoned hospital at night? Why are characters recapping the events of the last film?” (Specs says to Tucker, “You and I have first-hand knowledge that there’s something beyond death.”) It’s difficult to overlook the way Whannell selectively covers up the plot holes he made to let Wan succeed certain effects.
I have to agree with Abrams when he says, “This sometimes results in effective set pieces, like when Renai's group discovers a roomful of corpses; at that moment, you don't need to understand what's going on. But watching characters exhaustively explain why they can and cannot do certain things grows tiresome. It's easy to ignore the fact that Josh is inexplicably lost in "The Further," an astral plane where his soul is struggling to reconnect with his body, but not after he reminds viewers, "I am getting weaker the longer I am trapped from my body." At that point, Whannell inadvertently puts a loose plot thread in viewers' hands and hopes we won't pull too hard. (Wasn't it established in the first film that Josh is/was a gifted astral-plane traveler? Why is he so lost? Why can't he get back into his body?).”
Wilson deserves defended praise for his sometimes-efficient performance. Abrams notes that, “When he's allowed to cut loose, he hams it up like Robert "Freddy Krueger" Englund playing Jack Torrance.” While the movie’s mythology is unnecessarily convoluted, at least it puts both Wan and the film’s game cast into a much bigger corner. The thing that the film is set in more than one haunted house gives Wan more freedom to try new things, and also perfects some old tricks.
In the end, like I already stated, these two films I didn’t find scary, but just laughed at them. They are probably not my kind of horror films, but if they scared you, that’s fine. I personally wasn’t frightened at all.
Look out tomorrow to see what I will review next for “Halloween Month.”
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