'Insidious' scares up old-fashioned horror tale
“Insidious” is so confident it will scare the Pop Tarts out of us that it begins with a cheesy opening scene suggesting it's going to be just another stupid, PG-13-rated horror movie.
While a boy quietly sleeps in his bedroom, Joseph Bishara's over-the-top score hits every nerve-jangling, dissonant trill of the strings.
Then the camera slowly pans to the window.
There! In the window! Some old woman with yechy hair and a candle stands looking into the bedroom!
So what's scary about that?
Nothing, except the overblown music.
With our expectations now lower than for a “Red Riding Hood” sequel, director James Wan and writer Leigh Whannell — the sadistically inventive team behind all of the popular “Saw” movies — whisk us into a delightfully tongue-in-cheek, old-fashioned horror opus that's part “Exorcist,” part “Haunting,” and all together creepy.
“Insidious” doesn't break any new ground in horror.
It doesn't want to.
Wan and Whannell recycle all the best conventions of nightmare films: the scary attic, the threatening darkness, the tension-filled seance, doors that won't stay closed, comatose kids walking around in the middle of the night. And a few shocks.
If Wan and Whannell make a likely sequel to “Insidious,” it will probably be titled “Insidious 2: The Further.” “The Further” is what psychic Elise Rainier (a terrifically cast Lin Shaye) calls the dark realm between our world and the other one,
That's where college professor Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson) must go if he wants to save his young son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) from a red-faced demon who appears to be a cross between Freddy Krueger and Darth Maul.
Josh, his songwriting wife Renai (Rose Byrne) and their three children move into a fab new home, thinking they're starting new lives.
But little Dalton goes exploring in the attic, and we all know from past horror films no good can come from that.
Soon, Dalton falls into a coma. Doctors don't know what's wrong.
As if things couldn't get worse, Renai's mother-in-law Lorraine (Barbara Hershey, fresh from her controlling mom role in “Black Swan”) comes to live with the family and help them out.
After a crazy man attacks Renai in her bedroom and disappears into thin air, Lorraine calls in her old friend Elise. Fortunately, she is an experienced psychic with a team of ghostbuster buddies (among them Whannell).
Elise makes a startling discovery: “It's not the house that's haunted!” she says to the parents. “It's your son!”
Before we can utter a collective “Oh, no!,” Wan throws “Insidious” into narrative overdrive, pulling out the horror stops with gleeful, silly abandon.
Wan trades up from the strained, gory devices of the “Saw” franchise to the more classic, atmospherically inspired suspense of “Poltergeist” and “The Others.”
Both Wilson and Byrne play their parental parts absolutely straight, and they anchor the subtle, aren't-we-having-fun humor roiling just beneath the film's veneer of horror.
What? You think they're not making movies like they used to?
Wan and Whannell just did.
They're insidious that way.
<b>"Insidious"</b>
<b>Three stars</b>
<b>Starring:</b> Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Ty Simpkins, Barbara Hershey, Lin Shaye, Leigh Whannell
<b>Directed by:</b> James Wan
<b>Other:</b> A Film District release. Rated PG-13 for language, violence. 102 minutes