and so forth so out of the spirit of compromisation I generally let myself be dragged to these cathartic cinema events with minimal whining..I many times, I even find myself enjoying them.
And this was exactly what happened with Insidious
The misgivings I had about this movie was that it was from the makers of Paranormal Activity
and which made instantly think of the horrible sequel Paranormal Activity 2
that I was dragged to last fall. I know, its sad, but like a typical movie goer, I tend to find myself asking: "What have you done for me lately?", so while I did enjoy the first one, the fact that the second one sucked balls made me a bit wary. This same line of thinking was also applied to the Director James Wan who directed the original Saw 
and was executive producer of the 75 sequels that followed it. While the first move starring that dude from The Princess Bride
was great, the whole Saw franchise got a little bit out of hand. I mean, how many clever death traps are there in this world?So anyway, I found myself walking into the darkened theater with my box of Junior Mints
, not to excited about being there and found myself walking out with my empty box of Junior Mints thinking to myself: "Not to bad, not too bad at all," and I wasn't just thinking about those delicious mint covered candies dipped in dark chocolate.
"See, I told you Patrick Wilson knows how to pick em..." was my girlfriends response.
She was right, I had yet to see a movie that this guy was in that I thought sucked. In fact, I had just watched "Little Children
" again on Netflix the other week and found myself amazed how truly good that film was. Sure, Watchmen 
had impossible expectations to live up to and almost got killed off because of the soundtrack, but it was also good. So yes, I must agree, ol' Patrick here seems to have a talent for sniffing out good films to be in.In Insidious, Patrick plays Josh Lambert, a teacher with a young family that has just moved into a creepy old house that has a even creepier attic. While the place is a bit creepy, it seems normal enough until one of the boys falls into a mysterious coma that doctors cannot explain. Then Josh's wife Renai (played by Rose Bryne
) starts hearing and seeing things in that creepy old house. But it turns out, that it is not the house at all, but the boy who is causing all the creepy stuff to happen. He apparently is capable of astral projection, his spirit capable of leaving his body and going on little trips in "the further" as the boy sleeps. It seems that on that fated night, he went a little too far and got lost and is now trapped while a host of paranormal entities (ghosts, demons and whatnot) fight to take possession of his body. The family only discovers after they move and the creepy things still happen and Renai opens up to Josh's mother (Barbara Hershey
) who then gets a hold of her psychic friend.Ok, this is where I had trouble suspending by disbelief a bit. Not about the astral projections and attempted demonic possession, totally plausible, but about the move. How can Josh possibly afford to up and movie his family of four (including a boy in a coma) across town on a teacher's salary? Either the market for creepy houses is in high demand in that area, or the teachers are making bank. However, this may possibly be an allegory for the movie itself which was practically made for the Hollywood version of a teacher's salary: a paltry 1.5 million (according to Box Office Mojo) but looks like it was made for 20 times that. Hey, if established Hollywood players can make a good movie for that much, why can't a teacher be able to switch houses at will.
All in all, I found Insidious to be full of good creepy fun with a enough twists and turns to keep me glued to my seat despite the fact that my bladder was screaming to be emptied. The fact that it was made on a insidiously low budget only makes me respect even more.
My rating: 4 out of 5 Junior Mints.
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