Insidious

Insidious is a 2011 American supernatural horror film. Written by Leigh Whannell and directed by James Wan. The story centers on a couple whose son inexplicably enters a comatose state and becomes a vessel for ghosts in an astral dimension. The film was released in theaters on April 1, 2011, and is FilmDistrict's first theatrical release. A sequel, Insidious: Chapter 2, was released on September 13, 2013, with Wan returning as director and Whannell returning as screenwriter.

The word "Insidious" means "Proceeding in a gradual, subtle way, but with harmful effects: "the insidious effects of stress"." this adds to the genre type and describes the plot of the film well. The name of the film also creates a dark atmosphere around the film, leading an audience to believe that what they’re about to see something that will scare them.

As well as this, the film was created by the same people who made “Saw” and “Paranormal Activity”, which makes the audience assume the film will consist of either bloody violence or demonic possession, due to the genre and plots of these two films.

The film is effective as it uses scenes which build suspense, which adds to the climaxes in the film. The visual imagery used in the film to portray the ghosts and the demons is also effective as it creates monstrous and realistic characters which scare the audience.

The plot of the film follows typical conventions of a horror film, where the main protagonist and his family are haunted by some sort of entity. However differing from certain conventions the main focus of the film is when the young son of the protagonist ends up in a coma, which they describe as his soul leaving his body due to astral projection; something which hasn’t been done before. The events in the film deal with the theme of the supernatural, however the way in which they go about doing so is original and adds to the atmosphere and tension of the film.

The use of props is key to the film, as the “ghost equipment” normally triggers some sort of supernatural event, which is used to create fear and suspense in the film. This is effective as it deals with the supernatural in a different way from other horror/supernatural films, as most films stick to conventional methods, such as Ouija boards. The ideas behind the film are somewhat original, whereas certain scenes seem similar to that of Paranormal Activity.

The contrast between the two films is what makes Insidious such a good film and many critics also agree. Insidious has received generally positive reviews. Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 66% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 162 reviews, with an average score of 6.0. The critical consensus is: "Aside from a shaky final act, Insidious is a very scary and very fun haunted house thrill ride." Roger Ebert gave the film 2 1/2 stars out of 4 saying, "It depends on characters, atmosphere, sneaky happenings and mounting dread. This one is not terrifically good, but moviegoers will get what they're expecting." Steve O' Brien from WCBS-FM says “Most Terrifying Film since The Exorcist".

A number of negative reviews reported that the second half of the film did not match the development of the first. Mike Hale of The New York Times wrote that "the strongest analogue for the second half of Insidious is one that the filmmakers probably weren’t trying for: it feels like a less poetic version of an M. Night Shyamalan fairy tale." Similarly, James Berardinelli commented, "If there's a complaint to be made about Insidious, it's that the film's second half is unable to live up to the impossibly high standards set by the first half” Ethan Gilsdorf of The Boston Globe wrote that "The film begins with promise" but "the crazy train of Insidious runs fully off the rails when the filmmakers go logical and some of the strange gets explained away as a double shot of demonic possession and astral projection."

Positive reviews have focused on the filmmakers' ability to build suspense. John Anderson of The Wall Street Journal explains "what makes a movie scary isn't what jumps out of the closet. It's what might jump out of the closet. The blood, the gore and the noise of so many fright films miss the horrifying point: Movie watchers are far more convinced, instinctively, that what we don't know will most assuredly hurt us... Insidious establishes that these folks can make a film that operates on an entirely different level, sans gore, or obvious gimmicks. And make flesh crawl." Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune wrote: "director James Wan and screenwriter Leigh Whannell admire all sorts of fright, from the blatant to the insidiously subtle. This one lies at an effective halfway point between those extremes." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone commented: "Here's a better-than-average spook house movie, mostly because Insidious decides it can haunt an audience without spraying it with blood.” Christy Lemire of the Associated Press stated: "Insidious is the kind of movie you could watch with your eyes closed and still feel engrossed by it. It's a haunted-house thriller filled with all the usual creaking doors, groaning floors and things that go bump in the night, but it'll also grab you with some disturbing, raspy whispers on a baby monitor, a few melancholy piano plunking’s and the panicky bleating of an alarm as a front door is mysteriously flung open in the middle of the night."