Insidious

Synopsis:
A family moves into a new house and their son accidentally falls and suddenly goes into a deep coma.  Shortly after, a series of frightening events happen and the family scrambles to understand the deeper meaning of the boy’s coma.

Favorite one-line review from a different critic:
“If there's a complaint to be made about Insidious, it's that the film's second half is unable to live up to the impossibly high standards set by the first half.” – James B. -

My Review:
I have to review this movie in two parts.  The first half of the movie is absolutely genius.  It has jarring sounds, jump-out-of-your seat terror and good old-fashioned haunted house tactics.  The first half is nearly perfect in every way.  Now the second half, that’s a different story.  Still jumpy in parts, but the story takes a turn that is more ridiculous than Orphan, Identity and The Others combined.  And the special effects seem like they were done by the Edmond North drama club.  Come on now.   It's like the directors ran out of movie half way through.

That’s not the say this movie isn’t worth watching.  It borrows its playbook from “Poltergeist”, one of the greatest horror movies of all time.  It also plays out a lot like “The Messengers” and “Boogey Man”.  Come to think of it though those are two movies you probably haven’t seen.  Probably the best part of the movie wass the audience.  They were really into it.  One teenager literally jumped out of his seat and cried out laughingly, I don’t want to watch this anymore.  Everyone laughed.  That’s what makes a great movie, when you can feel the tension in the crowd around you.

So it was a good time, a perfect first half and a low budget ending.

Rating:
6 out of 10

Suck Scale:
You get what you expect.