Being Film #7 for Hooptober 2024
I’m ashamed it took this many years to realize how close the phrase “inside of us” looks like the title of Insidious, the first holy shit crackerjack film in the now-ended franchise from James Wan and Leigh Whannell creators of the Saw phenomenon. I was never a big fan of that franchise, stalling out after the second film, but this? And it’s PG-13? Next to Poltergeist this is the scariest PG-13 film I’ve ever seen. Just crackling with energy and fun.
THE QUICK SUMMARY: Josh and Renai Lambert have moved into their perfect home with young children Dalton, Foster, and Kali in tow. But something’s amiss, and pretty soon Dalton falls into a trancelike coma after something terrifies him in the attic. Soon more things are going bump in the night, and with no signs of Dalton coming out of it the Lamberts do an actual sensible thing and get the hell out of the house. Bad news, Lamberts: it wasn’t the house that was haunted…
(Goddamn that line is so frickin’ good)
I don’t know if you can really spoil a film that has four more entries in the franchise and came out almost 15 years ago, but I’m still reluctant to really spoil the fun in Insidious on the off chance you haven’t seem the film. Whannell and Wan take all the trappings of a haunted house film and then halfway through turn it completely on its head, giving us something very different and very, very fun. That’s the biggest thing I want to impart on what I think is my third re-watch of the original film: as scary as Insidious is (and it is very scary), it’s also a LOT of fun. part of that comes from the switch-up and the ***mild spoiler*** dip into the fantastic, but the other half is the gaggle of gadgets and tropes the two play with in their film. You want jump scares? You get them in spades, but they work for what is happening in the story. You want new concept and horror you haven’t seen before? You get that too.
You know what you don’t get in Insidious, which is typically par for the course in a horror film? Blood. Beyond two scenes where there is a bloody handprint left on the sheets and one quick shot of small bloodstains on clothing due to gunshots, there is no blood in the film at all, and certainly no viscera. And yet, this film is terrifying.
Another thing missing from Insidious you would typically expect to see in a horror film: thinly drawn characters, and therein I think lies the greatest gift of this film. Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne are absolutely fantastic as the leads, embody a level of maturity and authenticity in how their marriage is shaped and how their parental roles work that makes everything that happens hit that much harder. And that doesn’t even get to the MVP of this film, Lin Shaye as Elise Rainier, the psychic investigator who with her comedic relief Specs (played by Whannell himself) and Tucker (Angus Sampson) provide not only the needed exposition to push the story into overdrive but some great “Ghostbusters” tech and jokes to let the tension out just enough to balloon back again.
This may be the flush of coming out my most recent viewing, but Insidious holds for me as one of the best horror films of the 21st century. Big words, but they feel right.
Cinema Dual 
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