Insidious: Film review

Insidious, 2010, is an American horror, thriller film directed by the Australian film producer, script writer and film director, James Wan.  Teamed with “Paranormal activity” writer/ director “Oren Peli” and the producer of Saw, “Leigh Whannell”, James Wan creates a twisted take on the usual haunted house movies, taking a huge £54,000,000 at the US box office.  

Brief plot outline:
When a family of five decide to move into a new home, the son of Josh (Patrick Wilson) and Renai (Rose Byrne) falls from a ladder and hits his head, leaving him in a coma for over 3 months. Visiting the hospital, the doctors have a mysterious case on their hands, when discovering that there are no explanations to Dalton’s (Ty Simpkins) coma. For the next few weeks, the family decide to take care of Dalton and monitor him carefully in the comfort of their new home. When inexplicable, perplexing activities begin to happen, the couple experience life changing, bone trembling events that take place right in front of their eyes including; unfamiliar noises, faces and people in their house. After moving house for the second time and hearing a muffled male voice over the baby monitor, Renai invites mediums and investigators to her home, revealing the demons that lurk the soul of their son.

Which two scenes impressed you the most? Why?
After watching this film, I have found two distinguishing scenes that I feel are the most impressive in terms of cinematography, editing, sound and narrative. In the first of two scenes that I found most inspiring was a short take that can be missed by lack of concentration or the blink of an eye. This scene was used for the startling psychological thrill of those who witness it. As the tracking shot follows Renai through her house whilst she does mundane, normal everyday tasks, standing in the corner amongst the coats is a young boy dressed in Victorian clothing facing the wall. As the camera carries on through the house, only the audience are aware of the child’s appearance. The suspense of “when will he come out?” “what is he doing?” “is he going to jump out?” is running through the spectators minds, waiting for the action to happen. As Renai turns her record on, she walks outside to put the bins out, looking through the window on the way back in. We first see Renai’s facial expression, triggering our knowledge of the boy and how he will be in the next shot. A point of view shot from Renai’s position shows us the young boy dancing in front of the record player, having changed the song to “Tiptoe through the tulips” by “Tiny Tim”. The relevance of the lyrics “..through the window” has been used purposely in this scene as addition to the contrapuntal creepiness of the music which is generated through the upbeat song yet unsettling high tone. I chose this scene as my favourite due to the dramatic irony shown through the clever insertion of the clip. Seeing the action before the character within the film does meant the spectator feels a sense of uncertainty due to the film acting as if nothing has happened. The spectator also has no control over when it was going to happen, leaving suspense and uncomfort. I feel that this scene plays on the mind of the audience and adds to the psychological atmosphere, making the audience shout at their screens to inform Renai’s character or feel the need to re-wind the film to get another glance for clarity due to the shot only lasting for a few seconds.

The second scene of the two that impressed me the most throughout the film was a 3 minute scene of Josh walking around the haunted house from within the mind-set of his inner soul. The low key lighting of the scene is emphasised by the motivated lantern light that illuminates all of the important subjects within the frame. The slow moving monsters shown to be spirits gradually get closer to Josh, acting as a threat towards his life. I chose this scene as my second choice due to the fantastic use of shadows, connoting and enhancing the evil within the spirits. The sound within this scene is incredibly silent, with no use of dialogue. The slight sound of a whistle is heard and as Josh moves around the building, the sound of the whistle increases until he reaches the elderly gentleman creating this sound. An asynchronous sound of a gunshot is then heard and an over the shoulder shot of three of the spirits with a gunshot through their stomach is shown, seeing the gun in the other spirits’ hand. A sudden collision cut from silence to loud music awakens the scene as Josh backs off slowly. A quick shot showing Josh looking up the stairs and then back to the scene again is shown just as all four of the spirits suddenly appear in front of him, staring idly into his eyes, whilst also confronting the audience in claustrophobic close-up shots.

How has watching this film helped you understand the genre of filmmaking? Which features on the genre checklist did you spot in the film? When? How?
Watching this film has helped me to understand the horror genre more clearly by the great use of features that are made evident to being typical conventions. When focusing on cinematography; panning shots, tracking shots and zooming have been used frequently to allow the audience to see all of the action right in front of their eyes. An example of this within “Insidious” is a scene in which cinematography has been used to make the spectator feel as if they’re a character within the story. One of the major motifs of the film, the song “Tiptoe through the tulips”, begins to play as the camera pans around from Josh and Dalton’s worried facial expressions, following their eye-line to a point of view shot of the Demon in his lair. We are shown this shot from a low angle, illustrating the demon’s power and superiority to the other characters that are shown to have less control. The music then becomes louder as the camera zooms out from a speaker, presenting the audience with close up’s of connotations that relate to the demon. These connotations include a clown’s mask that represents a hidden agenda and a typical horror convention, the lighting being red which represents danger and evil and the demons long, sharp, black nails, giving us a clear indication to the important themes within the film; fear, the unknown and possessiveness. The use of long takes and zooming are two effects that I believe work best when building suspense and tension, allowing the audience to be aware that something bad is about to happen but making them wait in anticipation. An example of this within the film is when a ghost buster is walking around the house, alone with his night vision camera. As he’s clicking the button, the screen goes from black to a point of view shot of what the character is seeing through the camera. As this begins to happen, the spectators are aware of what will happen due to the silence of the scene, hearing nothing but the click of the camera. The audience wait in anticipation for something to pop up on screen and sure enough, an old lady stands in the corner of the room as collision cutting is included in the scene, going from silence to loud, shocking music and the screams of the character. Another effect that links in with this method is the asynchronous sound effects. Hearing a noise before seeing it allows the audience to use their imagination further, being an intelligent convention of horror. An example of this effect within the film is when the record player is heard scratching and then changing to a different song. Seeing that Renai was outside at the time of this happening, the audience are still aware of what is happening without seeing it. Lastly, when focusing on the typical horror conventions, I found the setting in this film interesting. Using places such as attics, haunted houses and dark woods, Insidious creates a tense atmosphere in the scenes by using stereotypical horror setting conventions. Having seen this film and gaining an understanding on the settings and their uses, I feel that I will be taking these into consideration when creating my horror trailer.

Which aspects of the film would you like to include in your own trailer? Why?
Other aspects of this film that I feel I will use in my trailer include; jumpy scenes, motifs that signify specific horrors within the film, collision cutting and fast moving monsters. Having seen both slow moving monsters (the spirits) and fast moving, smart monsters (the demon), I have been able to distinguish the difference between them both and how the different speeds can determine what kind of creatures they are and what they represent. Due to this, I feel that fast moving monsters are the most powerful, creating more of a fearful thought and these are used more often in contemporary horrors to maximise the fear. 

Collision cutting can be used in many different ways including slow to quick, quiet to loud and long-shot to close-up. These techniques are all used to shock the audience and make them jump. Using this method within my trailer will create a sense of power and control over the audience’s heart rate, getting it pumping and illustrating fear. Motifs are intelligent ways to make a horror film memorable. By adding a specific object, soundtrack or sound effect that is subtly repeated, the audience will see this and relate it to the fear of the film. Using this will engage the audience to the film and make them remember it every time they see or hear the motif in or out of the film. Having seen motifs in Insidious such as; the song by Tiny Tim that allows the audience to be aware of the demon taking over, the sudden collision cut from silence to a harsh, loud soundtrack that illustrates to the audience that the action has begun and recurring images of Dalton’s drawings being found of demons and peculiar objects that later on relate to this whole other world, I feel that I will take these into consideration when designing my horror trailer.

Which aspects of the film would you like to avoid in your own trailer? Why?
Aspects from within “Insidious” that I feel I would avoid when focusing on my horror trailer include; humour, emotional/romantic narratives, taking a while to get into the horror plot and the use of poorly designed “monsters”. In “Insidious”, the antagonist character within the film was shown in multiple shots. Seeing the demon made it impossible for the spectators to use their imaginations in terms of the demon’s appearance. Having seen the demon, I felt let down by its appearance and noticed how the character had merely been painted red and black. By this, I lost sight of the story and focused more on the creation of the film rather than it being a true story. In other scenes, humour was overused, for instance with the two “ghost buster” characters with their image and constant facial expressions and jokes. The use of humour defeated the horror and destroyed any hope of me being scared of the film. Lastly, from the beginning of the film up until almost half an hour, the narrative is still focusing on the family and their emotional issues. Romance and feel-good conventions from romantic films were used and I felt the film dragged on too much until it got into the horror.

What was the best aspect/ more enjoyable moment in the film? Why? Can you recreate this in your own film? How?

In conclusion to this review, I feel that the most enjoyable moment in the film was when all of the horror action began. As Josh steps out of his own body and into this new, gruesome, horrifying world, the scenes are tense, jumpy and faced paced. All of the typical horror conventions have been incorporated into this one scene and I feel was created effectively to unsettle the audience. Sound, cinematography, editing, mise-en-scene and lighting have clearly all been thoroughly analysed before the film makers designed this short clip. I feel that I can recreate this in my own film trailer by taking into consideration all of these stereotypical horror conventions and focusing on what my target audience find most powerful in a horror film.