Written by Leigh Whannell
Directed by James Wan
Starring Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Barbara Hershey, Lin Shaye and Ty Simpkins
Canada/USA/UK, 2011
I’ll never learn. I put off watching INSIDIOUS for years, assuming it must suck if it’s a big budget, slick, Hollywood take on horror. Turns out now that I’ve finally checked it out it’s pretty good, if you don’t count the ending, which is good for the bean counters because it led to lots of sequels, but less good for me because it seemed like a cop out.
Like many haunted house movies before it, this is the tale of a family moving into their new home. Things go bump in the night and before you know it one of their kids (Ty Simpkins) is in an inexplicable coma. Mom (Rose Byrne) begins to think something supernatural’s going on but dad (Patrick Wilson) is pretending to work late so he doesn’t have to deal with it.
As things unfold we learn there’s more to dad than meets the eye, as his mother (Barbara Hershey) and the medium they call in for help (Lin Shaye) harbor secrets from his past.
The movie picks up when Lin Shaye enters, commanding the screen as The Woman Who Knows What’s Going On, complete with a couple of bumbling sidekicks played by the film’s writer and director, respectively. While she’s been in roughly six thousand films, I don’t think Lin Shaye gets the respect she deserves as a character actor, here given an almost-starring role and chance after chance to steal scenes, all of which she takes.
I mentioned before the ending bummed me out, and honestly I’m not sure why. I like plenty of movies with ambiguous endings, cliffhangers or even ones where the bad guys win. Why’s it seem cheap in this movie, to me? I don’t know, check it out and see if it seems cheap to you.
Sidenote, I liked the use of TIPTOE THROUGH THE TULIPS in this flick because that song is certified scary.
No comments:
Post a Comment