Insidious

Written by Jonathan Jacobs

Insidious is a new age Poltergeist with one vital new wrinkle. In the spirit of Paranormal Activity, Insidious is not merely about the standard demonic possession (The Rite), nor is it about exorcisms (The Exorcist). The film’s selling point is astral travel. This phenomenon refers to one’s uncommon ability to travel out of their body to another dimension. This dimension is the spirit world, unseen by unsuspecting human beings. Directors/Writers/Actors Jamess Wan and Leigh Whannell (Saw) do their level best to convince screaming moviegoers that Insidious is another haunted house horror story…until the teases end and the screams begin. Before I delve further, I want to share a humorous story from tonight’s showing. During several dramatic near-death scenes, I heard blood-curdling screams that frightened me. Near the end of the film it dawned on me that those horrifying noises were coming from one insanely terrified young woman sitting two rows beneath me. So much for quietly heralding Dolby Surround Sound! Now, allow me to explain why astral travel is so bloody real.

I must perforce that as a child I had a secret friend who lived in my closet. My mother felt terrified by my habit of speaking to an invisible specter. I also had dreams about traveling around my house and my yard. This sort of apparition continued for me when I was 23 years old when I had night terrors about being invaded by a spirit with whom I struggled. Am I superstitious? Not really. Do I feel that these could be exaggerated nightmares? Of course I do…but when a master of horror exploits what is a nebulous but terrifying concept and turns it into a cinematic portrayal with every thought given to making the audience scared out of their wits, it causes me to question these past occurrences.

In short, Josh (Patrick Wilson) and Renai Lambert (Rose Byrne) have moved to a beautiful new home to accommodate their growing nuclear family. There is the oft-upset baby, scaredy-cat Foster (Andrew Astor), and their wandering comatose brother Dalton (Ty Simpkins). The ghouls that haunt their new house are not selective in their targets. These entities alarm everybody including Renai who witnesses their nefarious activities. With the encouragement of her mother-in-law Barbara (Lorraine Hershey), Renai and Josh move to a smaller house and seemingly to a new beginning. Little do they realize that it is not their house that is haunted, its occupants are!

Without much of a delay the horrific spirit attacks continue. Josh begins to question his wife’s sanity but it quickly convinced when his mother explains a grave element of his childhood. Along with Barbara’s friend (who is a paranormal specialist) Elise Rainer (Lin Shaye), Josh starts to remember that as a child he was an experienced astral traveler. With Elise’s help his memory of being haunted by an elderly specter looking to seize control of his vacant body is partially restored. When they provide proof of the mortal danger Josh faced as a child, and of the imminent danger to Dalton, the husband and father agrees to astral travel to rescue his son. The journey he undertakes (pun intended) is truly hair-raising and scream deafening.

James Wan and Leigh Whannell are quickly establishing themselves as a force in the horror film genre. Insidious has caused me to wonder if designating anything frightening a horror movie may be simplistic an assignment. Perhaps we need to manufacture subdivisions such as “parahorror”, or “astral thrillers”. These may not be the ideal endpoints to match my suggestion but they certainly are a start. To me, traditional horror films such as Halloween, The Collector, Fright Night, and Children of the Korn are about murderers slaying innocent victims. Sure, these killers may be possessed by evil spirits or resurrected from the dead, but their goal is to annihilate people out of a maligned worldview, or to avenge a past injustice. Insidious is about sadistic spirits hovering around the bodies of innocent children that possess the rare ability to astral travel. Being lured away from their tangible vessel by those that seek to return to life at their expense causes them to be vulnerable, and in this case trapped. This concept is not like the Boogeyman, or some sub-demon looking to contort a sleazy young woman’s body to walk on the ceiling. Although I am not an expert at deriving new labels, hopefully I have at least begun a much wider discussion for horror pundits and enthusiasts. Fans, if you have any idea, please be sure to add a comment, I would appreciate it. If comments are not immediately posted, please be patient as our filter must weed out the robots and web spiders. There are creepy crawlers everywhere! Insidious will make you fear for your lives! Well, it will make you at least a little scared.