Insidious

Go grab some popcorn and-OH SHIT WHAT'S THAT IN THE WINDOW?! It's Insidious!

Wasn't planning on doing the sketch this way, but just thought it looked creepier.

This is a seriously scary and creepy film. I really don't know how this got a PG-13 rating as this is scarier than most horror films I know(and anyways, they say the F word in it, so what the fuck movie ratings system?).

Written and directed by the guys who did Saw and produced by the people behind Paranormal Activity(there are nods to each in here. Try to find the drawing of jigsaw!), Insidious is about a family who's just moved into a house experiencing some strange occurrences. First their son goes into a coma, then the wife(Rose Byrne), starts seeing strange and horrible things. The husband(Patrick Wilson) doesn't believe anything is going on, even when their alarm goes off and their door is blown wide open. They move, but they soon realize that it's not their house that's being haunted, but their comatose son.

This is a scary movie that delivers. You know those horror films in which 75% of the movie is doors slamming and ghostly hand prints and then at the end maybe, MAYBE you see something? Yeah, you see something alright. They get all that bush league door slamming business taken care of within the first half hour. After that, you get to actually see things. CREEPY DISTURBING THINGS. Not whole complete things mind you, not over the top cgi monsters, but just enough to let you see it, you know it's there, and then it's gone. They're the masters of not showing and just showing enough. It really gives the sense that there's always something horrible standing there right next to you.

The soundtrack was easily the creepiest part of the movie. The score starts off wild and crazy and never let's up. It's relentless in it's spine chilling terror. We're talking crazy violins all up in this bitch. Seriously, they must have worked those poor violinists to the bone. I just imagine 20 of them going at it, then the conductor stops them and says, "ok guys, that was pretty good, but I still feel I can sleep at night so really go crazy this time." It was the kind of soundtrack I'd really like to buy, but if I ever listened to it at home, I'd never sleep in my bed again.

The sound effects were as well perfect. They had one particular screeching scratching noise that gave you chills every time you heard it. You're never sure if it's the glass freezing over, or tiny creaking footsteps, or bones cracking or nails scraping against the wall, but whenever you heard it, you knew you were about to be scared right out of your pants.

The story was about ghosts and demons and possessions, but it refreshingly didn't have the same cliches that were established with poltergeist and the exorcist. No puke spitting children, no priests coming to the rescue(they actually do bring in a priest, then he leaves 5 seconds later), no overarching battle between good and evil(just horrible fucking evil). They use new techniques, including a cool gasmask scene, and even poke a little fun at ghost detecting services. You'll notice I included ghosts AND demons as they have both in here and explain both in a nice seamless way.

As I said before, this is a horror movie that delivers, and a delivers in a very old school way. They have barely any cgi and instead focus on the psychological and the creepy. Things just get worse and more creepy, and near the end they take you to a place that's talked about in films but rarely shown. A lot of people will have a problem with the ending and call it cheesy, but I thought it fit in a classical creepy way. The ending had a nice semi twist; nice for a horror movie and semi because it was foreshadowed heavily, but still it was the logical progression, so I can't complain.

Overall this is an excellent and very scary movie recommended to horror fans and people who don't want to sleep at night. This will have you keeping the lights on, the music loud, and not wanting to look into any windows or mirrors any time soon for fear of catching a glimpse of something disturbing. I hope this film is successful enough that it ushers in a new age of films going back to psychological terror, but not so successful that they feel the need to make a crappy sequel. Now go release your bowels while you still have dry pants!