Finally, a true horror film. Hard to be surpassed...

Rating: 9/10 (24 June 2011)

Hats off to James Wan, I loved Insidious!!! And most of the merit goes to him.
The story happens like many other Poltergeist-Paranormal Activity-ish films, but even with this simple argument (boy, we have a haunted house and it's a pain in the ass), we are tested in every scene. Our capacity to scare is tested with original tricks. I didn't notice, but there was not a single drop of blood in the whole film. Even with some borrowed tricks, it scared the hell out of me.
The acting was so good, not a flaw, not a single overacting, but an adjusted performance of everyone involved. It also has a strange sense of humor in some parts of the movie, which I liked, similar to the Wes Craven's auto-parodies.
Some of the scary parts are to collect and retain in our memories. I must repeat, without spoilers, that IT SCARED THE HELL OUT OF ME. That's what classics do. There are some cinematographic deliverances that made me enjoy extatically the mastership of Wan when it comes to film. But he didn't relie on his talents, he used his talents (like Kubrick's The Shining) to deliver a classic horror film. I'm not comparing Wan with Kubrick, but some of the camera works, some of the angles, are truly brilliant, rarely seen in a horror film. This is a movie you can analyze in many levels...
I watched it again and again. I almost never watch a horror film more than once, since is very rare to find a gem like this in the genre and normally I pass the movies with the strange feeling of "oh my god, this is the same movie I saw last week!" and I grew tired of horror films recently. But with Insidious, I didn't want it to finish. For me, having seen Poltergeist, I think that (Spielberg apart), Insidious is a masterpiece of horror in a similar level than Poltergeist, or even The Shining (cinematographically speaking).
The next horror films, might be a little boring. If there were the Oscars for horror genre, James Wan would get all of them this year. He has stablished a mark with this film, and will be hard to be surpassed.
Absolutely recommended. 9/10