Insidious

Today, for the most part, was a very good Friday, with the exception of a stupid anxiety attack that I am still reeling from.  It was brought on simply by my wife pestering me via tickles, and I guess the repetition of it (or something) made the anxiety put down its coffee and head to work.  If you have not dealt with it before, it may seem strange that it comes out of nowhere like that.  Actually, it is strange.  It is strange and stupid.  I am not a fan of anxiety and the effects that it has on my life.  Because of that, I am ditching reviewing Captain Phillips for today and am instead going to review a movie that I perhaps find strange, bewildering, and has caused ill effects on my life.

The movie is Insidious, and it stars Rose Byrne and Patrick Wilson and was directed by James Wan.  Some people praise Wan, some are opposed to him and I think I land right in the middle.  I believe he has the ability to use interesting concepts and set mood well (at times), but also has the failings of reverting to the same images in multiple movies and having incoherent scenes.  When he is focused and on task he is a very talented story teller, but when he is unrestrained he can cause a great deal of pain (the perfect example of this is the third act of Insidious).

The movie is about a young family who moves into a new house (a big old house, to be exact) with the father working as a teacher and the mother staying at home with three young boys and trying to get her music career some traction.  The story takes a turn for the eerie when the youngest boy ends up in a coma and supernatural occurrences start to haunt the mother.  The father is a skeptic, of course, because every movie by Blumhouse Productions (the company that produced this movie, Paranormal Activity ) needs to have skeptics who don't seem to pay attention to what is going on.  In one movie of theirs, all of a sudden the skeptic became a believer and the believer became a skeptic... that wasn't nauseating at all.

What we end up having with the plot is almost a modern re-telling of Poltergeist as the child was trapped in another realm, with his physical body still in this one.  This was what I liked the most about the movie as it is different than the typical haunted house movie and could allow for some imagination to flow.  Unfortunately, the ending (which I referenced above) threw away all of the potential that it had at its disposal and ended up being a literal haunted house.  So ultimately, what I liked about the movie was later slaughtered by the same people who brought it to life.

There will be a lot of people out there who sing the praises of this film, as it got a decent following and spawned a very successful sequel.  What I was left with, was just annoyance.  I was annoyed at how people cease to act like real people and only do things that will push the plot.  I was annoyed that the main baddie looked like a cross between Darth Maul and one of those silly little trolls that people bring to Bingo to help them claim the pot.  I was annoyed at the potential that was wasted when the movie devolved into typical horror.  I was appalled at the end.  I don't know who thought going the direction they did was a good idea.

The movie could be very distracting, with random visuals that don't have any place in the greater narrative, or abrupt and cutting music.  The very first scene of the movie leads into the title sequence with some of the most obnoxious 'scary' music I have heard.  This immediately shook me from the movie, and any time I was feeling the film's vibe, the music was sure to pull me out.  This is an aspect of the unrestrained Wan that I have a hard time with.  Everything just feels so abrupt and chaotic that it is hard to find an actual horror tone.

I just found a cat hair in my nose... wow, that was surreal.

To tell you the truth, the best thing that Insidious ever did for me was help me get through the tail end of my anxiety attack by giving me something that I am passionate to write about.  The first time I saw Insidious I was thrown into a frenzy of disdain, but the second time left me with a little more affection.  Perhaps it is growing on me.  Not all things that grow on you are good, though.  That is important for us to remember.

Rating - 1 out of 4 stars