Insidious

I think I'll have to check this out.

It's from James Wan, of Saw fame. I somehow suspect that will turn some people away, but I've seen a lot of positive buzz about it.

Is that a Darth Maul-lookalike in the trailer? You bet it is.

Insidious

I s

n idious

in sid us?

James Wan gets misblamed for the later installments (of which he wasn't involved). The people that should be blamed are Mark Burg, Oren Koules (Gregg Hoffman escapes blame since he died in 2005 but somehow is still credited), Marcus Dunstan, Patrick Melton, David Hackl and Costas Mandylor.

Even when you mention the original, it seems to repulse people. I like some of the series, anyway.

I haven't seen Wan's last horror film, Dead Silence since it was in theaters. I thought it was decent, if a bit Narm-y.

edited 26th Mar '11 7:06:06 PM by Prowler

Insidious was definitely narmy and so bad its good. The whole theater was laughing at the parts that were supposed to be scary. Entertaining but not in the way intended.

So it's worth seeing, just not for the reasons the creators intended?

Also, Spill.com review.

The Cinema Snob genuinely loves it.

Can't believe the snob thought it was scary . I haven't found anything online about someone having a similar reaction to mine. Maybe it's just me.

I actually loved it. Just got back not half an hour ago, and my sister and I are still shaking.

I thought it was actually pretty well done. I saw it last night with some friends and we were genuinely frightened at a few points. There was a small lack of payoff at the end of the film, but otherwise I found it to be quite strong.

My parents won tickets to the premiere. They said it was really slow.

I loved it. I wouldn't call it slow. It was faster than Paranormal Activity was, in any case. There's a fairly big shift in tone in the third act that some people seem to hate. I still enjoyed the entire film.

Insidious is repetitive is repetitive is repetitive is repetitive is repetitive is repetitive is repetitive is Insidious.

the ending sort of ruins it, it's too cliche.

Predictable, but exactly HOW they did some sequences were intriguing. A few things to watch out for that you may not see the first time around (like the creepy boy about midway through the movie is visible as the mother walks to the kitchen before the music changes). All the scares were predictable EXCEPT for the one that made everyone go "Is that Darth Maul?" when they watched the trailer. It's thrown right in the middle of a talking scene with zero warning.

My biggest complaint (aside from the predictability and cliche ending) was the overuse of scare chords. Some scenes would have been shocking enough simply due to how suddenly they appeared (like the man standing in the window outside the baby's room in the burglar alarm scene), while the scare chord acted as more of an annoyance.

For the record, not one person laughed at the wrong time except the rather snarky girl with me. It was screams all the way, with laughter only at the parts with the two investigators.

As an aside, J. La Rose (who played Troy in Saw III) plays one of the spirits. I met him while working as an extra for Renee and he's quite a nice guy, possibly the nicest out of all the actors, but has he ever played a GOOD guy?

edited 21st Apr '11 11:22:36 PM by chitoryu12

This has become the most profitable film of the year.

Just got back from it.

For now, I'll call it average. It's an interesting take on an old idea, but it never quite pulls itself together. I think, if they had slowed things down a bit, it would've been better.

Oddly enough, the best part wasn't any of the scares. It was when Patrick Wilson is looking at his son's pictures and realizes it's real. The "And then I flew" really got to me, for some reason.

edited 30th Apr '11 7:02:30 PM by Seamus

When I saw this movie in theaters, I laughed. When I got home and realized how bad it was and why it made me laugh, I sighed....

I like the director and how thematically he does his work. He's worked in music videos so there's a European art film quality to it. Really liked the aesthetic of the film. There's parts of the film where they have this stop-motion quality which you can see in the bear trap sequence in Saw.

I thought it was scary at the start because I did not know what was going on. Once context was given, everything made sense and the only fright was "how badly is this dude going to mess up? He is obviously in over his head." Still, I liked the ending, idiot ball aside.

The ending was what infuriated me, but hopefully the sequel will make the ending have sense.

Who said there would be a sequel? And what do people have against the ending? I thought it was cool to see one of the villains succeed, I just hate that the protagonist needed to pick up an idiot ball for it to happen.

Well, this, for one thing:

edited 18th Aug '13 9:53:10 PM by Prowler

What frustrated me about the ending is that it came out of nowhere. It didn't bother me but it just seemed out of nowhere.

Seriously, the only endings that drove me mad had to be The Last Exorcism part 2 and The Devil Inside.

I would have been stunned if the movie had ended any other way. One of the more predictable twists I can think of, but like I said a while back, I enjoyed the film, so...