Insidious

Insidious – working or spreading in a hidden and usually injurious way.  Intended to entrap.  Beguiling but harmful. The quality of being designed to entrap.  Subtle and cumulative harmfulness (especially of a disease).  These are the definitions of the name of this horror flick that I dug out from various sources on the net.

Why was it important to know this? Because that is precisely the essence of the movie.  James Wan 2010 flick proudly screams out on its DVD cover – IT IS NOT THE HOUSE THAT’S HAUNTED.  The cover photograph of 10 year old Dalton Lambert (Ty Simpkins) and his piercing eyes are a reasonable indicator to anyone who maybe interested in knowing that it is Dalton who is the root cause and not the house.

Unfortunately for Insidious, Dalton’s stare is probably the scariest part of the entire movie that centres around the Lamberts – Josh (Patrick Wilson) and Renai (Rose Byrne) – who move into a new house along with their 3 kids – Dalton, Foster (Andrew Astor) and their infant daughter.  As soon as they move into the house, predictably, strange things start to happen and Dalton falls into an unexplainable coma.

When the incidents continue, Renai insists on moving houses.  Josh agrees reluctantly.  But the incidents continue and get scarier by the day.  That is when Lorraine Lambert (Barbara Hershey) – Josh’s mother – seeks the help of paranormal expert Elise Rainer (Lin Shave) to help figure out the problem and of course solve it.

Insidious was the 2^nd major work from extremely talented director James Wan (I say this because of his recent work titled – Conjuring) after his hugely successful attempt at SAW.  I wasn’t a fan of Saw because it just found it too gory for my taste.  I have to say the same about Insidious but for different reasons.

For starters, it is very predictable.  One doesn’t need to be a psychic to say what is about to happen next.  The only unpredictable part would probably be the core concept on which the story is based but once that is revealed in a very matter of fact manner, there is little or no excitement left.

Wan uses all components that go into a horror movie.  An old house.  Eerie sounds in the middle of the night.  Burglar alarms that go off for no apparent reasons.  Apparitions that are visible only to one person.  Apparitions dressed in dirty black or dirty white with eerie eyes.  Washing Machines in cellars.  And if I have forgotten anything you could add that as well.

In short, Insidious is at best an average horror flick.  Unfortunately, if you want to make complete sense out of Insidious – Chapter 2, that released today, you will need to see Insidious.  Luckily for those who believe in piracy, the movie is freely available on youtube and so I assume the torrents would not be difficult to get your hands on.  Of course, for the more legally inclined people, there is flipkart.  5 on 10.

Watch the trailer on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1YbOMDI59k