Courtesy - The Sunday Leader By Sumaya SamarasingheRenai and Josh Lambert are a perfect couple. They look wonderful, he (Patrick Wilson) teaches at a high school and she (Rose Byrne) composes songs at home while taking care of their three children, Foster, Dalton and their baby sister.
This obviously happy family where mother and son wear matching pyjamas is going to have their life turned upside down by unknown forces.
When Insidious begins, the couple has moved into a lovely old house which fits to the letter, all the requirements of a haunted mansion. The staircases are creaky, there seem to be a million rooms and closets and of course, the much dreaded horror-movie attic is there too.
Insidious, a mixture of the haunted movie and possessed child genre, does not reach the levels of Amityville and The Exorcist (those two films are a little difficult to match in story line, suspense levels and directing).
Children are generally attracted like magnets to the forbidden and little Dalton ventures up the staircase of the attic only to fall and violently knock his head. His parents quickly come to his rescue; he is tucked into bed with his teddy bear and told to never come to attic alone again.
The next morning when his father wakes him for school, he finds his son in a coma which no doctor can explain.
moreThis obviously happy family where mother and son wear matching pyjamas is going to have their life turned upside down by unknown forces.
When Insidious begins, the couple has moved into a lovely old house which fits to the letter, all the requirements of a haunted mansion. The staircases are creaky, there seem to be a million rooms and closets and of course, the much dreaded horror-movie attic is there too.
Insidious, a mixture of the haunted movie and possessed child genre, does not reach the levels of Amityville and The Exorcist (those two films are a little difficult to match in story line, suspense levels and directing).
Children are generally attracted like magnets to the forbidden and little Dalton ventures up the staircase of the attic only to fall and violently knock his head. His parents quickly come to his rescue; he is tucked into bed with his teddy bear and told to never come to attic alone again.
The next morning when his father wakes him for school, he finds his son in a coma which no doctor can explain.
Months go by and Dalton is moved back home. Renai learns to care for him and Rose Byrne beautifully conveys the angst of a mother watching her child in a vegetative state. Soon she is left practically alone to look after her three children as Josh begins to stay away by working late. Of course this is a tactic of the director and writer to reduce the viewer’s sympathy vis a vis the father and to allow the mother to be the victim of strange occurrences alone. Her boxes are moved around, she sees scary shadows in the doorways, music begins to play on its own, strange looking creatures run around the house and she even gets attacked by diabolical looking men, but of course Josh isn’t there when all this happens and Renai is told that this is her imagination running riot because of her high stress levels.
Unable to stay any longer, the family moves to a smaller place and we see Renai once again unpacking with the help of Josh’s mother Lorraine, (played by Barbara Hershey).
Lorraine seems surprised that Josh has accepted to pose for a family photo and that is our very first clear clue that something isn’t totally right with Josh either.
Upto that point, the film gives you some serious thrills and is actually quite terrifying. Then half way down the line when the psychic named Elise and her two ‘ghostbusters’ show up to help this family in trouble things go a little wrong and some serious overacting begins to take place. The creepy film briefly becomes a comedy but thankfully this does not last too long.
Elise explains to the distraught family that Dalton has the power to astral project, which means that he can wander in a parallel world filled with spirits. But this time, instead of coming back, the little boy’s spirit has wandered too far to a place called “The Further” full of souls of the dead and frightful demons.
Lorraine and Elise who have been friends for a long time reveal to a very skeptical Josh that he too has the power to astral project and was terrified as a child by the spirit of a terrible looking old woman.
How and will Dalton return? Is there any proof other than anecdotal that astral projection exists? Is Insidious better than the sleeper hit Paranormal Activity to which it is often compared? That for sure is a fact because director James Wan and writer Leigh Whannell use professional actors who are not fumbling and mumbling their text and can be very convincing in all their scenes. Plus there are hardly any hand held camera scenes which makes it easier on the viewer’s eye. If you are a fan of the horror genre Insidious is worth the watch.
