Creepy in its first half, loses its momentum in the second

Rating: 4/10 (20 July 2011)

James Wan and Leigh Whannell have come a long way since they single-handedly set the so called "torture porn"-movement in motion with "Saw" - a brilliant thriller that only got its bad reputation from its countless lukewarm sequels. Already their second attempt at horror, "Dead Silence", was a complete u-turn, relying more on shocks than on gross-out violence. The story involving evil dolls and a creepy old lady that kills you, if you scream, was a masterful combination of known, but modernized horror stereotypes.
Much like "Dead Silence", "Insidious" also treads on well-known territory: it's a classic haunted house flick with many references to "The Haunted", "The Entity" and "Poltergeist". Actually, it's little more than a mash-up of those three movies. And that is part of "Insidious"' many problems.
But first things first: The movie is built-up very well. It's a relief to see Wan and Whannell move even further away from explicit shock value towards mood and atmosphere. This development may not have been their decision entirely. People generally seem to be fed up with gore and the success of "Paranormal Activity" has re-opened the shrieking door for subtle horror that relies on objects moving by themselves more than anything else. That is exactly the kind of scares that "Insidious" displays in its first half. The creepiness is underlined throughout by great sound editing and clever camera movements that keep things interesting.
The problems arise when "Insidious" follows through on its promise in the second half. The movie isn't as ballsy as "The Haunting" was by relying solely on suggestion. When we actually get to see the otherworldly figures that terrorize the family, they are not scary at all. Up until the typical Wan/Whannell ending "Insidious" plays almost like a grim fairy tale for children. In some scenes the tension falls apart completely, for instance, when Patrick Wilson suddenly has a fist fight with a guy in white make-up or when we learn that the main villain looks like a mixture of Darth Maul, the Darkness from "Legend" and Freddy Krueger.
The story itself is not too logical and, as mentioned above, very, very derivative of other, better movies: From the general "Haunting"-feel and plot devices lifted directly from "Poltergeist" (scary trees in front of the window, something creeping up from under the bed, a team of scientists with a female medium entering the scene, people crossing over into another realm) up to the minor twist that this isn't actually a haunted house movie, but a haunted person movie (which is taken directly from 1982's "The Entity", which incidentally also starred Barbara Hershey), "Insidious" has almost no original ideas.
In the end, Wan and Whannell have made a movie, that will scare the living crap out of children and people who are not watching many horror movies. Hard-boiled audiences, however, have seen this before and will get bored soon. Still, it's not a bad flick at all. It definitely shows signs that Wan and Whannell are moving forward as filmmakers and are at the forefront of worthy modern horror directors and writers.