Insidious Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: After moving into a new home, a family discovers their son is being haunted and a demon seeks to control his body.

Review: Now this is how you pull off an effective scary movie with virtually no budget; honestly, from looking at it, I have no idea how they made this film with such high quality but with so little money. While the approach to the story is nothing new, the way in which they make use of the setting is quite original. Even the title card was really cool and instilled a sense of classic horror films. Instead of just typical haunted house fare, this movie invents its own form of an afterlife called "the further" which humans can accidently get lost in through astral projection. When the family's son becomes lost in this weird realm, all manner of spirits seek to inhabit his body including a demon (yes, he looks like Darth Maul). Most of the best scary parts involve the family seeing one of these ghosts or the demon creeping about the home. Toward the end, as the father enters "the further," there is a certain drop of quality which does weaken this film a bit, but it is nowhere near as significant as some critics have made it. I expected this afterlife to look more frightening, but it's just darkness with mostly unscary ghosts running about; I can look past this because this is unfortunately where the budget constraints probably came into play. The ending is sort of predictable, but it is entertaining nonetheless, and I liked the look of the ghost woman as the scariest anyway. While it didn't leave a truly lasting impression on me as far as scary moments go, I know this film scared a lot of my friends and family, and it did leave an impression of how creative and original everything felt. The acting is great, the pacing is good, the music sets the atmosphere effectively, there are some unique scares and ideas, and besides being a solid horror film, it has some easter eggs to other horror films if you notice them. This film has taken heat from being overhyped, but it is quite excellent and worthy of the hype in my opinion. Definitely watch this one with an open mind and you should be quite surprised.

Notable Moment: The first time we see the demon lurking behind the dad as they eat breakfast.

Final Rating: 8.5/10