Entertaining, jumpy, funny, well made; but it just isn't scary!

Rating: 7/10 (3 May 2011)

After seeing the trailer I must admit I found myself excited and looking forward to seeing this film. Unfortunately, the trailer is just about as scary as the film gets. That aside, it is a very well made film and I found it hugely entertaining.
The story itself is decent enough; haunted house, different realms, possessed child. It borrows a lot from other films but still manages to stand out as original, which I really like. I'll avoid explaining the story here as there is a synopsis for that.
The whole pretence of the story is that the child is lost and may become possessed by an evil demon, who I will come to in a second. That in itself creates a race against time scenario with lots of freaky characters and many excellent opportunities for jumps and scares; which this film capitalises on at every possible occasion. Unfortunately, that is the only horror in the film: jumps and scares. Refreshingly, there is no gore and, surprisingly, there is no actual possession of the child. That is something that is totally over done in modern horror films. Mark Kermode talks excellently about paedophobia (he actually wrote a thesis largely about the subject) and that is something very prominent in this film. You only have to look at the poster to see that, even though the scares don't actually come from the boy himself, the whole notion of a possessed child seems to put the wind up us and has scared the hell out of us since The Exorcist and even before that.
Instead, the film creates a wonderfully refreshing character that is a sort of medley of lots of others, which is homage to the overall thread of the film. The film itself borrows lots from other classic horror films. It owes massive debts to Poltergeist (the quirky seer, the use of technology for tracking ghosts, comedy between characters, etc) and it takes other elements from previous films, such as The Hole and Paranormal Activity.
The "demon" itself, in my opinion, is a medley of Jeepers Creepers and Freddy Krueger. The "demon"s "lair" very much reminded me of Freddy's in Wes Craven's New Nightmare, as did his metal claws and hideous appearance. The Jeepers Creepers homage is in the use of Tiny Tim's "Tip Toe Through The Tulips" throughout the film, as a sort of trademark or sound-piece signalling the presence of the demon. There is a particularly chilling scene that uses that song where the demon is sharpening his claws, which was excellently done, if a little silly!
I also really think that the film makers should have focused a lot more on the demon. It's good to introduce the other characters that wanted to possess the boy's body, but sticking to just one character and developing him would have greatly improved the film. In comparison, imagine if A Nightmare On Elm Street featured four or five different characters all haunting their dreams. It just wouldn't have been as good and would have diluted the horror of the film. I feel that this has happened here, which is a great shame as the demon himself is pretty scary!
The last third of the film does, admittedly, get quite silly as the protagonist is travelling through "The Further" to find his son and there are hundreds of ghosts and ghoulies breaking into our "realm". More "Casper" than "The Exorcist". It's all jumpy and funny but, ultimately, it just isn't very scary. Also, the film seems to end rather quickly and runs out of steam rather than completes itself. There are questions (why did they throw in the old woman character so quickly at the end? What happened with the demon in the boy's room?) rather than answers to conclude the film, which leaves a disappointment post viewing where there should be terror.
The film overall lacks something to make it genuinely scary, and that is menace. In Paranormal Activity, while not overtly scary, there was a presence of menace that provided genuine terror and an overall seriousness to the film. Insidious lacks that overall feel with its use of computer graphics, the inclusion of (very funny, it must be said) comedy and its over reliance on jumps to compensate for the lack of horror.
Insidious is an entertaining riot of a film and it contains some wonderful set pieces, a gripping plot; brilliant homages to some classic horror films; a decent script and solid (if unremarkable) performances from its cast. But, as a horror film, it just doesn't stand up as scary. However, when you consider that it had a smaller budget than the first Saw movie it really is an achievement. One thing I loved about this film is that it avoided the use of gore and instead compensated with the use of jumps, which is far more skillful, respectable and enjoyable than a boring bloodbath. It also managed to be wonderfully entertaining, so it must be said that Insidious is a good film that is well worth a watch. Although it relies heavily on influence from other superior horror films, it pays homage to them rather than outright ripping them off, allowing it to stand alone as a brilliant modern horror. Insidious achieves something that, while not exactly what I think it intended to, still achieved something, which is more than can be said for most low budget horror films of recent times. Hats off once again to James Wan...