Subtle But Spooky Saga

Rating: 7/10 (12 September 2013)

Subtle and spooky go together like spiders and cobwebs in Malaysian director James Wan's psychic chiller "Insidious." This imaginative yarn deals with haunted houses, astral demons, and the out-of-body abduction of an adolescent. Wan and his screen writing partner Leigh Whannell, who collaborated as director and writer on "Saw," and "Dead Silence," have retreated from the obvious, literal world of "Saw" and plunged into the nightmarish oblivion of the Further. "Paranormal Activity" producers Jason Blum, Steven Schneider, and Oriel Peli have fashioned another one of those horror movies that doesn't seem scary. Nobody gets butchered by a maniac and wallows in a pool of blood created by severed limbs and legs. Nevertheless, "Insidious" is all the more terrifying for its refusal to indulge in gore. Astral projection lies at the heart of this creepy, 102-minute, PG-13 opus. Astral projection is an out-of-body experience, such as when people die but survive and return to talk about their brief journey into the void. The worst thing that you can expect from "Insidious" is the appearance of otherworldly individuals who slip up behind our young married couple and generally create chaos in their house. Things take a turn for the worst when Renai (Rose Byrne of "Bridemaids") and Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson of "Watchmen") move into another house. Renai convinced Josh to move them from an older house to a new house after a series of eerie events occurred that made her skin crawl. One of their two sons, Dalton Lambert (Ty Simpkins), ventured into the attic of the older house, climbed a ladder, and then fell from it. The following day, when Josh tried to awaken Dalton in the morning to get him ready for school, he got no response. The baffled doctors believe that Dalton has sunk into a coma, but Josh's mother, Lorraine Lambert (Barbara Hershey of "Beaches"), suspects something more sinister. Lorriane brings one of her oldest friends, Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye of "2001 Maniacs"), over to visit with them. Initially, a pair of paranormal technicians, Specs (Leigh Whannell of "Saw") and Tucker (Angus Sampson) appear with an arsenal of exotic equipment to make sure that Josh and Renai aren't nut jobs. After Tucker spots a couple of ladies clad in white in a hall way, he assures Specs that it is time to summon Elise. to assist her. Eventually, we learn that Josh is an astral traveler, and Elise dispatches him to find his son in what she calls "the Further." Wan relies on sympathetic performances, upsetting music, and surprises to keep "Insidious" interesting. The unsavory but interesting conclusion comes as a jarring shock. Nevertheless, "Insidious" qualifies as a neat but effective white-knuckled exercise in suspense.