Insidious - DIE!*

Hello everyone! It’s me, Nivetha, back with perhaps THE MOST terrifying movie in history – Insidious (2010). Directed by James Wan, the movie is truly insidious, uncanny and unbelievably blood-curdling! Anxiety, hallucinations, mental trauma and sleepless nights guaranteed. So here goes:

The Lamberts, Josh and Renai, have just moved into their new house and in an odd turn of events, their son, Dalton, is under so-called-coma after a venture into the conventional attic. Things begin to get uncanny when Dalton moves back from the hospital and an exodus only seems to make things more sinister and ghastly as specters beyond human comprehension seem to reach out for them from the shadows: Renai meets a red-faced demon; a guttural-sounded being is speaking into the baby monitor; faces appear on the windows almost nightly; doors open in the middle of the night; alarms are set off and bloody handprints are found on Dalton’s bed. Paranormal investigators Elise, Specs and Tucker inspect and discover that Dalton can astral project (the ability to leave one’s body and venture as a spirit) and that he has boldly travelled into The Further - a place of congregation of the tortured souls of the dead – and that he is being held prisoner by the Demon, who’s motive is to possess Dalton and embark on a bloody rampage. The only key to this lies on the ability of Josh to astral project and his willingness to venture into The Further and rescue his son, with perhaps irrevocable consequences. Now, will he embark on a journey of no return to rescue his son?

The movie was undeniably weird and definitely out-of the box. When the audience has gone so far as to accept the concept of astral projection, they might as well let James have enough leeway to complete his imagination. The way Wan makes the two demon investigators, Specs and Tucker, quarrel over whose job was more pertinent certainly adds some chuckles to the otherwise nerve-frazzling movie. My most favorite technique that James Wan used to generate a movie that can mentally unbalance a human is how he never lets the audience rest – after a frightening scene, he calms everything down so that the audience finally put their guard down and suddenly, out of nowhere, comes the real horror. This technique, albeit being dangerous to human health, can be extremely effective for frightening anyone out of their skins.

The main downsides to the film weren’t of the plot, but of minor mistakes of cinematography, continuity and – odd as it may sound – spelling. For example, at the scene where Renai walks into Dalton’s room, you can see the camera man’s shadow briefly after her own shadow. Also, at the ending credits, photography is spelled as ‘Photagraphy’.

On the whole, the film is well worth a watch for someone who is ready for mental instability and is perfectly fine to end up in a bunch of nerves (guaranteed). After all, ‘The further you travel, the darker it gets’, doesn’t it?

*I wrote this review on 10/3/2014 but updated it today because I forgot to update it. How stupid of me.