Insidious

The word "insidious" bursts onto the screen with a thundering score blaring out of the loudspeakers at both sides of the cinema. The title fills the whole screen, coloured in blood red with an ominous font that covers a pitch black background. The music playing is the kind of music that would befit only a horror movie, a nightmarish orchestral piece that's purpose is to unnerve viewers, the volume turned up specifically to pierce one's eardrums. This sequence borders upon extreme cheese, but following this title revelation there is no denying that viewers are about to be subjected to a full-blown horror film, one that takes some tips from '80s pictures of the genre.

"Insidious" is haunted house fair from Malaysian-born Australian filmmaker James Wan, director of the first of the "Saw" franchise -- thankfully, his latest feature isn't all blood and guts and innards and entrails. Instead, "Insidious" spooks viewers through old-school suspense, paying off all the underwear-filling tension with some genuinely inspired scares that will startle anyone with a working pair of eyes and ears.

The film focuses on the Lamberts, a typical family of five. There's mother Renai (Rose Byrne, "Get Him to the Greek"), father Josh (Patrick Wilson, "Watchmen"), and their three sons: Dalton (Ty Simpkins, "The Next Three Days"), Foster (Andrew Astor, "Santa Buddies") and their newborn baby girl. They've just moved into a lovely new home in the suburbs and all seems perfectly fine for a little while, but one must remember this is a horror film, so things soon take a turn for the horrifying.

One night, little Dalton takes a curious trip to the attic when its door swings open of its own accord. While attempting to reach for the light switch that hangs from the ceiling, a step on the ladder he's crawling up breaks off, causing Dalton to fall and bump his head on the wooden flooring. The next day, his father comes into his bedroom to wake him up for school, but Dalton will not rise.

They take him to the hospital, and the doctors are baffled. Dalton is not necessarily in a coma, but he won't wake up. They don't know when his eyes will open again. Three months later, the boy is taken home for his family to keep an eye on him, his unconscious body hooked up to a heart monitor and an IV drip. And then spooky things begin to happen around the house.

First off, Foster claims to see Dalton wandering about the hallway late at night. Second, Renai begins seeing mysterious people around the house when, well, no one was exactly invited. Third, there's a bloody, sharp-nailed handprint found on Dalton's bed sheet. And fourth, Renai is attacked one night by a man in the bedroom, which is then followed by the front door being kicked in.

And then the film turns into a remake of "Poltergeist." After the family moves to Josh's mother's house along with Dalton, and the inexplicable events continue to occur, they seek the aid of a trio of paranormal investigators: Specs (Leigh Whannell, who is also the film's writer), Tucker (Angus Sampson, "Summer Coda") and the psychic Elise (Lin Shaye, "2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams"). Following some thorough investigation, they come to the conclusion that there's a ferocious demon roaming about, and it wants Dalton's body.

"Insidious" runs through all the cliches of haunted house horror, from creaking floorboards to inanimate objects that move around with no one having touched them. The father is sceptical, the mother is terrified and the elderly medium is wise and all-knowing. The two houses in which the supernatural events occur are vast and both have ticking grandfather clocks. The film gets a limited amount of points for originality, but it still very much succeeds in entertaining a Friday night crowd.

Along with the sensibilities of the team behind 2009's chiller hit "Paranormal Activity" on board as producers, director Wan and writer Whannell (both of them having collaborated on "Saw") deliver a whole plethora of scares and surprises that would startle the toughest of tough men. While there are a few cheap jump scares, they are expertly handled and are difficult to predict, and the rest of the frights are splendid slices of spine-chilling creepiness.

The film also looks good, made on a budget of $1.5 million and shot in digital, aided by some nifty camerawork. A sense of dread surrounds the whole feature, the film told mostly from the perspective of the scared-stiff mother before switching over to the father, whose scepticism is given a quick kick in the gonads (and no, this isn't a spoiler; even a blind man could see this character development coming a mile off).

While the scares start to run dry by the goofy final act, the film becoming more silly than scary, it nonetheless remains interesting. This is a film that, for the most part, knows how to frighten an audience and get our skin crawling, it taking great pleasure in teasing us before alarming us. And while it may not have the lasting impact of Oren Peli's "Paranormal Activity," it's still a very satisfying modern-day spook house horror flick. I also must commend the film for managing to make the song "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" by Tiny Tim sound creepy. Damn, that song's silly.

8/10