So, I put the entirety of this film review in the title above. Simply put, the 2010 horror flick Insidious, directed by James Wan, is one of the worst movies I have seen of late. I'll even dare to say I'd rather watch The Hangover 2 again before watching this film. The only other Wan film I have ever seen is Saw, but if this film is any indication of his work, I wish he had stopped there.
Knowing absolutely nothing about this film, I happened to walk into the theater on a whim one Sunday afternoon. Luckily it was at the local "cheap seats," or second run theater and the two tickets purchased cost a grand total of $3. This is important as I have never walked out of a theater and asked for my money back, a trend that saw a recent spike in popularity with the release of Terrence Malik's The Tree of Life, which I have still yet to see. This film was almost my first.
It certainly doesn't help that in watching this film every one of my sense was attacked. Beyond the poor excuse for a horror film happening in front of me, I was forced to watch a teen couple fondle themselves in the seats in front of me, listen to two crying babies, gag on the dollar store perfume of a lay sitting somewhere in my vicinity, and was afraid to even slip off my flip flops for fear of a sticky floor. Nonetheless, the content of Insidious beyond my terrible movie experience also left me disappointing and annoyed. The story was bleak and predictable, and my intelligence was even insulted when at the end, surprise surprise, Patrick Wilson's character Josh doe world of blacknesssn't return to his body and I am left with a wannabe cliff hanger ending.
The lack of a gripping plot was only heightened by a lack of acting talent and emotionless characters. Not even Rose Byrne was able to give me a believable performance, not to mention the lack of a character ark and emotion from Patrick Wilson. If I had a son in an unexplainable comma and a stay at home wife going insane in a haunted house, I wouldn't sit in a classroom staring at the camera with an emotionless expression for an hour and a half. The simple lack of character expression and connection between each other, and the audience, is enough to turn me off of the movie. Yet, still the worst part is the complete lack of imagination in the story. I knew nothing about astral projection going into this film, and now I have no desire to ever learn anymore because it leads to 103 minute movies of people sitting around talking very unscientifically about walking through a dark "insidious" world of blackness. Not even the imaginary world of astral projection was visually appealing enough to entertain me. I mean Koyaanisqatsi is boring too, but at least it looks good.
Overall, this film offers nothing new to the art of film or world of entertainment. Sadly, the writing team of James Wan and Leigh Whannell seems unable to provide the audience with a visually entertaining or intellectually creative film as they did with the first trend setting Saw. The scariest part of this film is that one day, I may have to sit through it again.
Insidious
