A family looks to prevent evil spirits from trapping their comatose child in a realm called The Further.
A devilish and delirious funhouse spook show of frights.
The film's shifting tones are not terribly successful but Wilson and Byrne play it straight throughout, and just when Insidious is starting to look slightly less scary than a winter gas bill, Wan and Whannell manage to reapply some intensity to the story.
Promising and, in places, highly effective, this haunted-house variant more than fulfils its Friday Night fright flick duties but could have pushed through to a whole new plane.
Saw creators Whannell and Wan return with a horror movie creepy enough to borrow under your skin. It'll win no kudos for acting but plenty for its sharp scares.
The film never approaches being scary, but its colossal silliness makes it both intriguing and unpredictable.
It eventually tips over into extreme daftness, but while it’s on form there’s everything here you need for a great fright night.
Nothing more objectionable than a rickety ghost-train ride, cackling as it speeds up and flies off the rails.
Good for a handful of jumps and guilty giggles before it quickly reaches for the slipshod, hokey contrivances you don't expect until number 2 or 3 in the franchise.
Matches its scariness with an unhinged silliness.
Rattling good peice of horror cinema.
Some decent scares, all the same.
I was scared silly.
Insidious wouldn't scare a nervous dormouse.
Clever editing, sound effects and atmospheric lighting lend to the film’s jump out of your seat moments, and a twist in the tale will fill you with dread. Definitely not one for the faint hearted.
Just when it's time to crank up the chills, a batty plot gets battier, and the tension subsides. The viewer is let off the hook, which in horror is the worst of crimes.
The jump to more outré ghost-train-style horror is perhaps a tad blunt, but it remains scary enough to make it easy to buy into the supernatural ride it's intent on taking you on.
The build-up is slow and sure, the shocks are exponential, Barbara Hershey as the husband's mother is even creepier than she was in Black Swan, and a bad time is had by all.
While not exactly original – it’s basically an off-kilter remake of Tobe Hopper’s Poltergeist (1982) – the filmmaker's perverse sense of humour (check out the nutty seance scene) and Wan’s hyperactive visual style (again, check that seance) bring an infectious vitality to well worn material.
All aboard the horror-coaster
Leigh Whannell and James Wan interview
Insidious calls forth the wrong demons
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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