The stuff that nightmares are made of

Rating: 7/10 (5 July 2011)

Insidious is a movie where a light goes on but the room still feels dark, where you are too afraid to look but you are forced to anyways, and where things go bump as they always do, but you don't see it coming. Such are the makings of a successful horror film which this is. The photography alone would impress Hitchcock, and even though the material is familiar to the genre, Director James Wan makes it feel juicy and fresh.
Wan enjoys the stuff that nightmares are make of, as he has demonstrated here for the third time, following Saw and the arguably underrated Dead Silence. As accomplished and frightening as Insidious is, it's not perfect.
Two problems come to mind. First of all, Patrick Wilson's lack of range for a lead role is unacceptable, especially next to Rose Byrne. Secondly, Wan's ambitious starts to take him into curious territory for the climax. Insidous goes from being Sixth Sense to being In the Mouth of Madness. Wan flirts a little too closely to the surrealist category, and while the film maintains perfect coherency, and is certainly no less scary, It gets a little hard to take seriously as Insidious comes to a close.
Even so, the film does what it sets out to do. It's memorable and stands out, earning it's place as the horror film of the year. I hope James Wan can keep up the good stuff.