Having blogged elsewhere on the relativity of horror movies, I’m not scared by torture, or blood, or big fish or virulent bugs. I jump as much as the next man when a bathroom cabinet is shut and there’s a face behind the hero, but it doesn’t scare me. People being chased with chainsaws and machetes won’t generate feelings of sympathy and I don’t feel the urgency, driving them on to safety. With the remakes and sequels, the serial killers oversized creatures I don’t chew my nails or slide to the edge of the sofa with my hackles and hairs on my arms rising and I don’t suddenly realise that I’m holding my breath.
Not normally anyway.
With Insidious though I did. It may not be everyones “Fearful” cup of tea, but it certainly did it for me. Much like the Paranormal Activity films I could tell it was good with the tension squeezing saltwater out of my eyes but here, without the gimmick of VHS recordings and a relatively straight story it was even better than that. Ghostly/Demonic goings on in a family household is enough of a grounding, but the subtlety with which it draws down the sense of foreboding and dread is excellent. There is a point though, about ten minutes long when the activity switches to “The Other Side” and it’s here the film sags dramatically. My feeling is that the desperation felt by the viewer is down to the unsettling unreality experienced in a situation we can all recognise, whereas when the transition is made, a switch is made to the realms of fantasy and the fear is gone. I thought that was it and the film had lost me, but in an almost unique circumstance, I was drawn back in and the same chilling sensations returned with the characters on screen suffering that little bit more, but in the emotional sense rather than an actual blood letting.
Insidious gave me the willies. It creeped me out and at one point even had me gasp out loud in horror, not just shock. It made me tingle and fear what was about to appear on screen, and to me that is what a horror film should do.
