Movie Review | Insidious

Tale raises scary questions

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Josh (Patrick Wilson) and Renai (Rose Byrne), looking for answers

There is a world all around us that we don't see - that we're lucky not to see, because, if we saw it, we'd start screaming.

It is a shadow world known as the Further, as opposed to the Farther, which would have made more sense.

But the souls that inhabit it aren't worried about nomenclature. No, they are doomed to walk the Earth, looking for a living body they might possess. Maybe yours!

Insidious is a respectable attempt at a type of horror movie that isn't made anymore - that is, horror that is scary and not merely disgusting. From the opening credits - in which the title appears in blood-red letters to the accompaniment of blaring, dissonant music - the movie tries to get under your skin and inside your mind. Sometimes it does.

Perhaps it's the existence of the unconscious, but there is something within us that fears and believes in shadow worlds, whether we're conspiracy theorists or horror fans. In Insidious, a young family moves into an old house, and things soon start to go wrong. There are odd noises, strange sightings, doors flying open and alarms going off. And, what's worse, the ghosts are like bedbugs: You can't get rid of them by walking away. No, they follow you.

The metaphysical integrity of Insidious - the events take place within a worked-out system of reality - is a big plus. So is Lin Shaye, who plays a psychic and ghost buster who offers her services at the behest of the besieged couple (Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne). She is pleasant and courteous but just odd enough that you think her visions have turned her - that she has seen horrors.

The movie is hampered throughout by inconsistencies. Characters behave against their own interests, as if trying to make things easier for the screenwriter. Director James Wan ( Saw) falls too in love with his own effects, to the point that sequences get stretched and drained of tension. There was never the basis here for an epic but for a sneaky, scary little movie.

Though made on a budget, Insidious might actually have been better at half the cost. As it stands, despite its other virtues, the movie overstays its welcome.

Still, we leave the film pondering the big questions. For example, if ghosts are so miserable, why are they always smiling? And not just in this movie but in every ghost movie made? What is so funny about being dead? Or are the dead just trying to put a good face on things whenever they meet a living person? Or is it simply that ghosts can't help laughing when they see a living person freaking out?

Perhaps horror movies in this world are shown as comedies in the next world.

Just something to think about.