Insidious

Last night's Halloween viewing was the 2010 film Insidious, directed by James Wan (who unleashed the Saw series on us). Much less gory than those films, Insidious was the most profitable film of last year, with a budget of under 2 million but a take of over 90 million. It has some nice scares, but ultimately collapses in its third act.

Oren Peli, creator of Paranormal Activity, is one of the producers, and there are some similarities, but Insidious does not subscribe to the videotape format. This is a regular movie, but it is about a typical family in a modern home that is tormented by ghosts and one nasty demon. Their son, after falling while exploring a particularly spooky attic, slips into a mysterious coma. Things start to get crazy after that, as the mother (Rose Byrne) hears strange things over the baby monitor, and then starts seeing spirits around the house. She implores her husband (Patrick Wilson) to move, and he accommodates her wish.

Trouble is, the house wasn't the source of the problem, the boy was. When they hire some ghost-hunters, including a psychic (Lin Shaye), they learn that the boy is able to astral project, and ended up wandering off into the realm of the dead but couldn't find his way back. All sorts of ghosts have wanted to get into his inert body, including the demon.

This makes for some good fright-fare, especially when Byrne sees a little boy, not her own, scampering around the house. The ghost-hunters are sent up amusingly, and Wan manages to make the entire thing have a nice sense of dread. But the finale, when Wilson goes into the land of the dead to rescue Simpkins, turns out to be too much, and leaves behind the banality of the first part of the film, which gives it its power.