Insidious review
James Wan kicks off the Insidious franchise with a great first installment. With the fifth entry hitting theaters Friday…it’s time for Insidious week!
Classic movie reviews will contain spoilers.
Insidious
Directed by James Wan
Written by Leigh Whannell
Starring Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Ty Simpkins, Barbara Hershey and Lin Shaye
Insidious Review
The late aughts were an interesting time in horror history. There were plenty of quality original releases…but we were firmly amid the remake era. Enter James Wan. The director of the original Saw movie had stuck to the horror genre through the early 2000s with Dead Silence and as an executive producer of the Saw franchise. The 2010s were a gamechanger not only for Wan…but for the genre. Insidious was released in theaters April 1, 2011. While we would still see remakes, the release of Insidious along with Scream 4’s release two weeks later would mark the end of their reign. Wan’s Conjuring franchise in 2013 confirmed it…this was a new era of horror.
I don’t know that the new era has ever been given a name…but I’d call it the Patient Horror era. Stylish, patient horror movies with great casts and slow builds to memorable moments. The popularity of the Conjuring franchise (also starring Insidious star Patrick Wilson) took hold of the 2010s…but Insidious did it first. It can be argued that they did it better…but both Insidious and The Conjuring are great movies…and excellent examples of Patient Horror.
It’s also very much Poltergeist. While it may not deal with the same type of antagonist…Insidious plays out very much the same. A child who communicates with another realm is put into danger. Strange things happening in the family’s house. We wouldn’t learn about those happenings completely until Insidious: Chapter 2 a couple years later. A paranormal expert arrives to tell us what’s going on and save the child. A parent risking their lives to return the child to our reality. It’s the same idea. Where Insidious differs in an interesting way is that the house itself isn’t haunted. The child is.
Insidious spends a long time building to that reveal. Patiently, of course. Wan gives us a masterclass in sustained suspense. Taking the journey from suspecting something is wrong to seeing it to, eventually, understanding it. He uses the space of the house to unleash unexpected horror imagery. It’s incredibly effective. Every moving camera leads you to expect something terrifying around the corner…and he still manages to pay it off when you least expect it.
He has the benefit of a great cast to carry the movie through the slow build. Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne star as parents of three who just moved into a new home. One of the children unexpectedly slips into a coma soon after their arrival. Enter all kinds of crazy visions. Wilson and Byrne wear the stress of their situation perfectly. Byrne’s Renai is plagued by visions of ghosts in the house. Wilson’s Josh is reluctant to believe her. The story takes a turn (and receives a needed jolt of energy) when Lin Shaye’s Elise arrives. She is a psychic who helps the family understand what is happening to their son.
Shaye brings a bundle of new energy to the movie. She also serves as the voice of reason, delivering the needed exposition along the way. It’s another terrific performance from a genre stalwart. It is not at all surprising that her character would become the steady face of the Insidious franchise. Well…aside from the fact that her character dies at the end of the original.
The ending of Insidious is terrific. Josh gets his son back from The Further (this movies version of Stranger Things’ the upside down or…whatever was going on in Poltergeist). It feels like we’re heading towards a happy ending. Elise senses that something is wrong and snaps a photo of Josh. He loses it and strangles her to death. Renai finds Elise and yells out for Josh. She looks at the camera and sees The Bride in Black (a character we will learn more about in Chapter 2) in Josh’s place. Renai turns and gasps as “Josh” appears behind her.
If the series had never continued, I think this would have been an all-time great ending. An iconic scene that leaves the horror in the pit of your stomach after you finish watching it. Open ended horror that could go in any number of directions…most of them bad. The story would continue, however…which, like Halloween II before it, means that the terror of uncertainty is stripped away. Instead, we know what happens next. Insidious: Chapter 2 almost exists more to explain the first movie than it does to carry the franchise forward. But that’s a story for tomorrow.
Insidious is a great movie and an even better example of what horror was about to become in the 2010s. High level craft applied to stories taken seriously. A genre that could attract top talent in front of and behind the camera. Critical and commercial success. What critics with sticks up their butts refer to as elevated horror. A term I will not use to describe this era of horror…now will I even pay the respect of capitalizing. Insidious started a style that we’d see carry great success through the decade that followed. A fifth, allegedly final, entry is on the way this week…returning us to Josh, Renai and their family for the first time since Chapter 2. A legacy sequel to a movie that wrote its own legacy.
Scare Value
Insidious holds up great 13 years later. James Wan’s style would go on to influence the genre…his own Conjuring franchise dominating the box office a few years later. Insidious: Chapter 2 would arrive at the same time as The Conjuring…making Wan’s films the face of horror in the early to mid 2010s. Patient storytelling, scares created through horror imagery, great actors…the formula started by Insidious has proven successful.
4/5
Insidious Links
Streaming on Max
Rent/Buy on VOD from Vudu and Amazon
Buy on Blu-Ray from Amazon
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