Insidious (2010) - Review

I watched Insidious again recently and I realized I never bothered to write a review for it. I don’t recall when it was that I had originally seen it, but I know that there was ample opportunity for me to chat away on this website about it and my impressions. A James Wan horror flick, I didn’t see Insidious until after having seen The Conjuring. Since I hold The Conjuring in such high regard, it’s a bit unfair to compare the two and would probably lower Insidious’ score. So I’ll do my best here to keep the comparisons to a minimum, even though it’s another movie that distinctly follows James Wan’s style.

Pros

Solid, creepy moments and scares
Conceptually ambitious
Quality cast of actors

Cons

Shows a few things too much
Feels too much like an intentional start to a franchise
Asks you to accept a lot of rules and fundamentals about the universe in the second half
Some goofy moments that fall flat

Plot & Thoughts

Josh (Patrick Wilson) and Renai (Rose Byrne) just moved into a new home with their three kids. Their oldest son, Dalton (Ty Simpkins), is an adventurous kid, prone to exploring. After a small accident in the attic, he seems fine but then doesn’t wake up the next morning. He’s in some sort of coma that has doctors puzzled. What’s worse is that scary specters start appearing in the house and haunting the family. It puts a lot of strain on everyone, but they eventually decide to do the thing that most movie audiences would recommend in this situation. I won’t say what it is, since it takes a while to happen, but you can probably figure it out.

Unfortunately for the family, that doesn’t fix things and the hauntings seem to only get worse. After exhausting all options, a medium is brought in (Lin Shaye) who is able to explain what’s been going on and why their son won’t wake up. From there, Insidious takes a few more twists and turns in terms of how this film’s universe works and how a person with astral projection abilities might be able to do something. I’m being intentionally vague because, even though the movie is a decade old, I still think that there is some benefit from not spoiling the details of events that occur in the latter half.

Insidious is one of those movies that is good in some ways that I can respect but then doesn’t quite meet my expectations. I think when it comes to specific moments in the film, of which there are plenty of creepy ones, it works pretty well. The ghosts are uncanny in their appearances and behavior. The music is equally unsettling in these spots as well. The sequences that lead up to the more dramatic moments all are effective and match James Wan’s style of building tension slowly and then suddenly releasing it. However, the film loses me by the end, pretty badly.

Part of this has to do with just the fact that a particular threat to the family, which is mysterious and extremely ominous, is shown in far too much detail by the finale. While its buildup is effective and intimidating, the more you see of it, the goofier it looks, especially after a sequence in which it’s in a room listening to Tiny Tim’s “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.” As I’ve said in countless other horror discussions: Less is More, and More is Less. The more I saw of this thing, the less I cared about it.

The other thing about the later portions of the film that bothered me was that it kind of forces a lot of concepts and rules about its universe on you. While I adore Lin Shaye, her character brings a lexicon of words and fundamentals that turn the movie on its head. Similar to the medium in Poltergeist, she’s there to explain how things work. This is fine, but Insidious is attempting to do a little bit more and asking that we suspend our disbelief a little bit more as well by coming up with new concepts and possibilities. Perhaps it’s unfair the judge the film on this since many other ghost/possession movies do the same thing, they just do it with religion and demons, which are more familiar backdrops. However, all this new information about the “Further” and astro-projection that I have to learn to understand the situation comes well into the second half of the film. It throws me off a little and just feels like the movie is setting up for a franchise to expand upon these ideas at a later time. Obviously, since 3 sequels were made afterward, it’s easy for me to say that in 2020. The Conjuring felt this way too with how the film focused on Ed and Lorraine Warren as the superheroes of the story, and how it opened with a side-story of Annabelle, but it still wasn’t trying so hard to establish rules of its universe like Insidious.

Regardless, once the rules of the world are more or less established, the film kicks it into high gear towards the conclusion which is somewhat predictable but also a fitting “conclusion,” as long as you’re okay with them setting up sequels. The Further manages to be a tense and creepy place, even though it’s clear this movie had a shoestring budget. There are some decent spooky moments around the end as well, even though it’s also doing the same sort of horror finale where chaos is breaking out and everything is shaking like an earthquake is happening.

TL;DR (Conclusion)

Insidious is a decent horror movie that may suit your fancy. It has some really good, creepy moments scattered throughout the film. The sound, acting, and direction are quite good. It’s also ambitious, to both its benefit and detriment. I think, while it’s trying to do something new and interesting, the intent to build a bigger universe at the same time prevents Insidious from being a more cohesive whole of an experience. It’s just a series of really good moments and ideas, some of which wear out their welcome. I’d recommend it for any horror fan, but with tepid enthusiasm.