Dream a Little Dream of Me - Insidious

3 out of 5 Popcorn Kernels

See Trailer Here

In a world filled with horror movies built upon blood and gore - it was nice to see one at least tried to obtain its frights and shrills the old fashioned way. Insidious isn't perfect, but to see a horror film from the makers of the slash fest "SAW" series, I wasn't expecting much; and yet was quite surprised at a premise that appeared well laid out in its execution. The horrors come at you through slow pacing, quick camera angles, and sudden in-your-face images that catch you off guard.


Insidious reminded me a little of The Shining, sprinkled with a touch of Poltergeist, a smidgen of The Others, a dash of Paranormal Activity, and a spoonful of Drag Me To Hell - while it was not as classic as some of those may have been - it did have the right amount of the elements and plotting that kept my attention and managed to maintain and even level of suspense, with an interesting plot that was different from the norm. It was like a good student film to say the least.

Who You Gonna Call...!

The film starts off with a nice enough couple, Renia (Rose Byrne) and Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson) having recently moved into their new home. Had the couple seen a few movies of this genre, they would realize that a house with this many windows, nooks and crannies, a dusty attic, and more rooms than a platoon of maids could clean, was bound to spell bad news from the day the realtor showed it to them. They move in with their two kids and one infant. This cute couple, with their overworked dad, and stressed out mom who finds it tough enough unpacking and feeding their kids, let alone taking care of a toddler. During one family moment, the oldest child Dalton (Ty Simpkins) decides to do what only movie-children will do, and that is to explore an empty and dark attic, all on his own. Well he falls off a ladder, and his cries alert the parents, who then send Dalton to bed that night assuming all is well.


But that next morning, they can't seem to awaken him, and take him to a hospital, where they are told he appears to be in a coma. Appears? The boy has brain activity, but something else is going on - and three months later, its still going on when they bring him home asleep in his faux-coma


That's when the fan gets hit with you-know-what. Shadows lurk within the house, footsteps are heard, and Renia hears other voices over the baby-monitor. When these strange occurrences happen closer and closer to her reality (they begin to hide less and less from her), she does something I thought I would never see in a movie about a haunted house...she gets the hell out!


At their new place, the happening are happening again - and during a visit by Josh's mother, Renia's fears are confirmed, for although Josh has seen nothing strange, his mother-in-law Lorraine (Barbara Hearshy - looking as if she just stepped off her Black Swan set and into this one) begins to experience some strange things too. She then illicits the help of a family friend Elise (Lin Shaye) to come bust up some ghosts; she brings along a pair of Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum helpers who lighten up the mood with some much needed comedy antics, and we finally get a clue on what the hell is going on.


As the trailer says..."It's not the house that is haunted. It's your son."


At this point the goose pimples have taken up residence on my arms and back, and while we understand what has happened to this family, the overall tension by what they now have to do to save themselves keeps the audience on edge until the very end of the film. The scares in the second half are kinds downgraded a bit, because we don't sense the danger to the family as much now as we did when we didn't know what was going on.


The character of Elise, the elderly ghost buster, is so determined in this film to fix things, that her emotions set the pace for the rest of the film, and if this wasn't a horror film, I would have expected her to have graduated from The Charles Xavier School for Gifted Children; She's a Bad..Mother-Shut Your Mouth - who isn't scared of any old nasty demonic spirits or ghostly-ghost types.


This whole film is a lot of fun, and very thrilling...and taught me a little about choosing my next home very, very carefully.