Beware the gas mask

Rating: Null/10 (11 November 2011)

"Insidious" is 70 minutes of good old-fashioned horror movie creepiness. The story is familiar to any fan of classic horror movies. A happy family moves into a new house, and weird stuff starts to happen—books appear where they don't belong, odd noises emanate from the attic, apparitions appear and disappear. And then one of the sons lapses into a mysterious coma. The wife/mother (played by an appropriately distraught Rose Byrnes) implores her husband (Patrick Wilson) to move—she insists that the house is haunted. He acquiesces and they move to a new home, only to find that the haunting continues. For a brief time after the move to the new home, "Insidious" looks as if it's destined to become a contemporary horror classic, reminiscent of "Poltergeist." But then there's a fateful scene involving a gas mask, and the movie rapidly goes downhill. The remaining 30 minutes or so of the film focuses on astral projection and other dimensions, and "Insidious" seriously loses its way. The ending telegraphs an almost inevitable sequel, which I'm sure will be a disappointment. Too bad—I had high hopes for this one.