DVD Reviews

Insidious

• Rating:
• Director: James Wan
• Starring: Patrick Wilson
• Details: US/102 mins (16)

Saw writer and director Leigh Whannell and James Wan team with Paranormal Activity creator Oren Peli for this effective and consistently chilling haunted house flick. Certainly derivative of other horror films, Wan still does a skilful job drawing you into the scares before jarring you from your seat with genuine frights. It may lose its way in the last fifteen minutes or so, but it's already well done its job by then.
Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne are a happily married couple with two well behaved sons. Soon after they move into a new home Byrne begins noticing some strange noises and happenings in the gaff - which escalate considerably when one of their offspring falls off a ladder and ends up in a coma. After much pondering, they call in some outside help to explain why this is happening to them.
Playing like a more conventionally executed Paranormal Activity crossed with Poltergeist, originality was never the point here. Wan and Whannell (the latter of which also makes an appearance) wanted to craft something old school and chilling - this is a small budgeted film with little in the way of special effects. They open as they mean to go on, panning from a child sleeping at night to a terrifying face staring straight ahead. The rest of the running time is peppered with moments like that; ghostly figures standing over the baby's bed; mysterious men walking through the corridors at night etc.
Wilson is a convincing everyman, initially sceptical of his wife's concerns, while Byrne is solid as the concerned mother and then terrified wife. When the film changes a gear in the final third, what was initially scary soon descends in to full on ridiculous. This was made for around a million dollars - peanuts by Hollywood standards - so a grandiosely written conclusion looks more like a mid-80s music video, rather than a terrifying descent into the unknown. In fairness, Insidious completely had me before then and should have a similar effect with most audiences.
An interesting double-bill with Paranormal Activity, this is skilfully made and genuinely frightening stuff.

Review by Mike Sheridan