INSIDIOUS
USA, 2011
Director: James Wan
8,5/10
With "Insidious", James Wan finally proves that he's not a one-hit-wonder, but a talented and gifted director who's able to reinvent himself and create more awesome horror stuff. Thumbs up!!
Wiki ~ Imdb
USA, 2011
Director: James Wan
8,5/10
Does it deserve the hype? Yes, it does!
"Insidious" is a wonderful oldschool kinda-haunted-house flick in the vein of "Poltergeist" or "The Changeling", thrilling, highly atmospheric and stunningly scary, but also pretty entertaining due to a few amusing scenes and characters.
For the greater part the movie is just creepy as hell.
After an eerie and impressively unsettling introduction, it gets creepier and creepier by the minute. Lots of scenes that gave me the willies ("It's not the house that is haunted. It's your son."), lots of scenes that frightened me to death ("Dalton scares me when he gets up and walks around at night." - getting goosebumps while writing this), many scenes that made me jump outta the cinema seat (whenever the red face popped up, the smiling ladies by the pendulum clock, etc.).
The last third may be not as scary as the first 2 thirds, still it's powerful and very gripping, thanks to plenty of kick-ass action and Leigh Whanell's fantastic script which provides a few amazing and totally unpredictable plot twists.
The cast is top notch.
Awesome performances from the terrific Patrick Wilson (still an extremely underrated actor - hope that changes soon), the wonderful Rose Byrne and the always fabulous Lin Shaye as some kinda Zelda Rubinstein 2.0 ;-)
Massive kudos to John R. Leonetti and David M. Brewer for their outstanding camera work. Enormous amounts of impressive-looking and/or superscary images (the ceiling fan, the ceiling lamp, handmarks pressed on a window, the old lady with the candle, the horrifying gas mask, weird dream sequences...), fabulous tracking shots and cool aerial shots - a feast for the eyes!!
Furthermore, we get to see lots of gorgeous settings (house #1, the red room, the attic), a stunning Darth-Maul-look-a-like demon and a few frightening Shutter-like ghost photographies.
The pumping violin-driven soundtrack is magnificent and the disturbing usage of Tiny Tim's weird novelty classic "Tiptoe Through The Tulips" is IMO so ingenious, I give it an extra 1/2 point.
Wiki ~ Imdb
Posts
OMG I loved this movie! It creeped the hell out of me and Tiny Tim's Tip Toe Through The Tulips was the perfect unsettling accessory. It made me jump when that song came on and that little demon guy was dancing.
ReplyDeleteYou of course posted one of the shots that had me jump about three feet. ;)
Imagine how creepy it would have been if the boy was actually possessed by Tiny Tim himself :-D
ReplyDeletehehe, it made me jump about three feet too :-)
Wow, you obviously liked it a lot, buddy! It wasn't necessarily scary, but it was creepy for sure. It lacked that extra little something for me... all Wan films do.
ReplyDeleteYeah, enjoyed it a lot.
ReplyDeleteWell, I thought it was extremely scary... but I admit, I am easily scared :-)