Good movies about ghosts tend to be subtle. The most
memorable ghostly movies of the last fifteen years (Shyamalan’s SIXTH SENSE,
Amenabar’s THE OTHERS and Juan Antonio Bayona’s THE ORPHANAGE) displayed
tremendous skill in conjuring up the kind of delicate dread atmosphere needed
to make the kind of stories they were telling succeed superbly. Going further
back, movies generally regarded as classics (THE INNOCENTS, THE HAUNTING)
employ similar carefully structured storytelling to draw the viewer in. We’re
shortly promised THE WOMAN IN BLACK from Hammer, and THE AWAKENING from writer
Stephen Volk, and very good the trailers for both of those look, too.
INSIDIOUS
is also a movie about ghosts, and it’s a rattling good one, but rather than a
gentle journey into the cobweb-enshrouded depths of the supernatural, it’s more
a ghost train ride into hell, complete with things designed to make you jump at
every opportunity. So, enthusiasts of supernatural subtlety be warned – this
probably won’t be your cup of tea.
Josh
Lambert (Patrick Wilson) and his wife Renai (Rose Byrne) move into their lovely
new dark gloomy house with their three children. It’s not long before weird
things start happening that culminate in their son Dalton
(Ty Simpkins) falling from a ladder and ending up in a coma. Renai sees several
spooky apparitions and the family move again, only for the manifestations to
follow them. Cue the intervention of parapsychologist Lin Shaye and her comedy
sidekicks Leigh Whannell and Angus Sampson who determine that it’s not the
house that’s haunted so much as the boy himself. Barbara Hershey, playing
Josh’s mother and looking a good deal saner than in BLACK SWAN (thank heavens)
has some secrets to reveal about her son’s past as well, and the stage is set
for Josh to enter the astral plane to get his son back.
Director
James Wan and writer Leigh Whannell’s love for the genre is obvious in
interviews and thankfully it translates well to the screen. Images and sounds
redolent of early twenties horrors like NOSFERATU and the films of Dario
Argento mean they run the risk of criticism for being derivative but, in the
same way that a good comedy just keeps at you with plenty of properly funny
gags, they provide the viewer with so many well-executed scares that INSIDIOUS
is very difficult not to like. Add in some very clever framing and all kinds of
things happening that you really have to be paying attention to notice and it’s
difficult to catch everything that’s going on in a single viewing. The music’s
good too – a mixture of electronic sound effects reminiscent of those pioneered
by Delia Derbyshire and her team for LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE and very scratchy
violins. It’s not often the composer gets screen time in a movie (I can
remember Jerry Goldsmith getting a cameo next to an ice cream machine in
GREMLINS 2 but that’s about it) but here Joseph Bishara gets to play the
ultimate nasty demon as well, and a fine job he does of it.
Wan and Whannell’s previous horror efforts received mixed
reviews, with both getting more than their fare share of negative notices. I’m
not afraid to admit that I loved SAW, and DEAD SILENCE, while flawed, was a
genuine attempt at the kind of old fashioned horror film that you just don’t
see anymore. With INSIDIOUS they’ve proven that they’re getting very good
indeed at being very very scary and I very much hope they’ll decide to stay
within the genre for at least another couple of films.
Bernard Hermann had a cameo in The Man Who Knew Too Much
ReplyDeleteAh! That's one I wasn't aware of - thanks!
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