Perfectly competent scary movie

Rating: 8/10 (1 May 2011)

Rose Byrne and Patrick Wilson move into a new house, following which their middle child Dalton falls into an unexplained coma. Then scary things start happening - noises, people seen out of the corner of the eye, bloody handprints on sheets. So they move. And the phenomena continue, So Wilson's mother calls in specialist help: two comedy paranormal investigators and a more serious psychic/mystic-type person.
The story is essentially Poltergeist, told with a Paranormal Activity-type vibe, although there is no found footage pretence - this is a straightforward fictional supernatural story.
It is maybe a little too leisurely in the set-up, but once it gets going and canters along quite nicely. There are the requisite number of "Made you jump" moments, and the story is quite good fun and well told. The small cast all do their jobs quite well, and the film delivers.
Incidentally, is it unreasonable of me to infer a connection between the fact that the demon is very reminiscent of The Phantom Menace's Darth Sidious, and the film's title Insidious?