Horrorbubble - Insidious

From the Aussie boys who brought you the bloody horrid Saw tri-quadrilogy* and that dude that did Paranormal Activity, comes Insidious. It is an obvious homage to Poltergeist, with the tormented kid and haunted house aspect, weird psychic woman and dorky ghost-hunters included.  I scored free tickets via the awesome folk at Hello Darkness, and took the lovely Michael to enjoy (suffer?) along with me.

I really wanted to like this movie. I heart Rose Byrne. She's so durn purdy. And Patrick Wilson is purdy too. And Lin Shaye just seems like a damn cool woman. Nice to see her in a dramatic role and looking like herself...

I'm a fucking psychic, I have a steely gaze.

Instead of like this:

I inspired a whole generation of tanned blondes.

Most of the characters were likable, but the story melted out all over the place and seemed like two or three films chucked together. There were creepy moments, a few jump-scares and some spooky weirdness that made me go eeeeeee! and maybe grab Michael a little bit, but it just never really delivered. I think they got over-zealous with their plot lines and that just made it confusing and lame, instead of scary as hell like it had the potential to be. It started off well, then all just fell apart by the end, sustaining itself on a few RAH! moments and an ambiguous ending (heyyyyy, let's keep it open for a sequel!) that made me go "Um, fucking what?" Walking out, Michael and I kinda shrugged at each other and went, "What did you think?....Meh."

I do like this promo shot though.

Main problems? They gave us too many spooky dudes to be scared of, then were like "oh, hang on, you're really meant to be scared of THIS ONE!" and it just got boring. The main demon was crazy-creepy SHIT WHAT IS THAT?? at first, but lost its power and just seemed laaaaame after a while. And the kid was nowhere near creepy enough. If it's the kid that's haunted, make the kid goddamn haunting! Carol-Ann from Poltergeist inspires fear and maternal crap in me to this day, with her creepy combo of innocence and ooh-Mommy-the-ghosts-are-my-friends!-ness.

Stay away from the TV you spooky little fuck**

The one creepy-creeper was the use of Tiptoe Through The Tulips, which seemed funny at the time, as a weird shadow figure bopped along to it in the lounge room while Rose lost her shit. But goddamn that song haunted my brain afterwards and made me think scary ooh-there's-something-in-my-room thoughts when I got home to a dark, empty house. I don't think I'll ever hear that song again without associating it with evil. Fuck you AND your ukelele, Tiny Tim!

The bumbling ghost-hunters brought some comic relief, but Angus Sampson threw me off when he appeared cos the last time I saw him was at my local bottle-o, shuffling his large frame through the cider section. I have a B-grade celebrity magnet somewhere in my head; this kinda crap happens often -- I saw Tom Gleisner at my supermarket last night.

Soooo, I can see what they were trying to do with Insidious but it just fell short. I really think these boys adore Poltergeist and wanted to sing it a love song, but sorry, you ain't no Tobe Hooper and your shabby karaoke just ain't right. Go back to gore, boys. I'm sure you can break Friday 13th's far too many sequels record.

Read Final Girl's review of this movie here. Of course it's better than this one, because Final Girl rules.


*Christ knows what number Saw they're up to now; I stopped watching them after seeing the opening scene to number 4 - maybe 5, unsure - with the guy with all the rings through his body that he had to rip out. I kept shrieking, "He has to pull that giant one out of his chin and it will rip his jaw off EEWWWWWW!!" and writhing maniacally on the couch. Which inspired my then-boyfriend to break his Seinfeld-like years of no vomit, and barf a great pillar of barfness like I have never witnessed before or since. We turned it off, and I have not returned to the trauma-land of Saw since.

**When I was a very little girl I used to wake up in the morning and put the TV on a static channel, all black and white fuzz and BZZZZZZ sounds. My mum would get out of bed and find me giving myself the ole square eye, right in front of the screen, touching it with wonder. And I'd say "There's bees in the TV, Mum!"
Creepy fucking kid, yerrrrp that's me.