Insidious

Eat this Ju-On!!

When will Hollywood make another horror classic? It has been sometime since The Exorcist (green vomit) and The Shining ("Here's Johnny!) sent a shiver down my spine and make my hairs stand on end. With recent trips into the horror genre with the Haunting in Conneticut and even The Rite, save Sir Anthony Hopkins' performance, I have grown impatient and even a little weary of the meek attempts thus far.

What to expect from a horror film:

1) Sound Editing a.k.a long silences with a sudden boom to frighten you.
2) Scary looking apparition accompanied with a sudden boom to frighten you.
3) Granny floating behind and brushing the hair of the actress (usually blonde) without her knowing, again, to frighten you.
4) Alot of running and screaming. To frighten themselves.

Given the above, I knew what I was getting into when I swiped my credit card for the tickets to Insidious. Touted by many as a remake of the horror classic Poltergeist, (I wet my kiddy shorts back then) I was skeptical it would grab me the same way.

I'm not blonde! What am I doing here?

Much against my expectations, the opening hour and a half was surprisingly good, it built up very well the bond between fear and suspense, a much needed necessity in horror films. With subtle yet tenous creepy images placed in between family living, the audience were prompted to guess whats next?

Enter sound editing! Banging doors, a screeching keyboard synthesized score and flashlights in the dark, it did tingle the numb nerve endings on my spine.

In an almost scene for scene rehash of Poltergeist, household items displacing themselves, a missing kid (the spirit induced coma took care of that), and even a paranormal investigative team, I was anticipating the closet monster to make a cameo.

What got me going, and I thoroughly enjoyed this, was the soundtrack inclusion of Tiptoe through The Tulips, bringing about the playful, mischeivous, and perhaps the insidious nature of the haunting.

Paranormal Combatant in full gear

I was both frightened and awed at the spectacle unfolding before me with the audience screaming, I felt compelled to join the schoolgirl choir and step it up another octave. It felt brand new even when the family brought on board a paranormal psychic in the shape of an old lady. I kept wanting more from the film, which in fact turned out to work against the film.

Having done so well, it fell surprisingly flat in its ending with astral travel and other paranormal activities. It was as if the writers suddenly grew bored or ran out of ideas to end the film as well as it begun. The script became loose and the dialogue almost painful to listen to. With a demon, who has a serious identity crisis, (he can't decide if hes Darth Maul or Freddy Krueger), and other apparitions that seemed to alight from Ghost Ship, it became visually unmoving.

With an expected twist at the end, not spoiling it for you here, I left the cinema with a "What just happened?" feeling. I started to make up my own preferred ending with my partner. Still, it was an absorbing 90 minutes to sit through, and if you scare easily, you would love it. Its a step up in this genre where Hollywood has been faltering in for the longest time.