"Insidious"(2010)d/James Wan

I can't remember the last time there was as much positive net buzz about a movie's release in recent times, not that I read or buy into such propaganda very often(as it's usually totally wrong), but I felt like anything from the man behind the Saw franchise, especially such an ambitious project, as penned by Leigh Whannel, was worthy of a look from everybody's favorite narcissistic review blogger...well, definitely your mother's.The first half of tonight's review is a nearly flawless slice of haunted hijinks, chock full of apex jump scares and creepy atmosphere.It's in the second half of the movie where the plot gets bogged down in reality and logic with paranormal investigators and a demon that looks more than a little like Darth Maul's menacingly harmless half-brother.After seeing something like sixty-five hundred sweaty, grossly overweight Star Wars dorks garbed up like him, shambling to the nearest unoccupied corner of several Halloween parties with chubby hands full of candy corn and Snickers mini's at the start of the new millenium, not even Qui-Gon Jinn'd be frightened by that.Overall, it's still a better-than-average horror movie that manages to serve the viewer up some solid old school tension-packed scares despite running out of gas long before the closing credits roll.Wan does prove adept at freaking out an audience without intricate gore effects here, which isn't a simple task by any means, though, so let's give him credit for that.There just might be an excellent horror movie in the guy yet.He doesn't deserve the comparisons with M.Night Shyamalan's entirely scareless, largely worthless crap(If Rod Serling's Twilight Zone sucked, it'd be a lot like Shyamalan's movies)that he drew with this movie, I know that much.Let's get on with it, huh.

Blow that thing out, Grandma.You look better in the dark...
Renai and Josh Lambert(Rose Byrne, Patrick Wilson) have just finished moving into some hype new digs with their three kids, one of which, Dalton(Ty Simpkins), is afraid of his new bedroom.Dalton hears noises in the attic, and upon investigation, viddies something particularly nasty up there, and abruptly plummets off of a wooden attic ladder-step as it breaks.The next day when his father tries to wake him, he finds him comatose in bed.There's easier ways to skip off school, really.Specialists can't explain why the boy is unresponsive, and three months later, with their son occupying a hospital bed at home, Renai is frequently schitzed out by extrasensory occurences in their abode and her other consternated children claiming to see their slumberous brother flitting around the place at night.This naturally leads the family to pick up and move to another residence.Things don't get any better.Josh's mother(Barbara Hershey...that explains it all, doesn't it?) seeks help from a paranormal investigator named Elise(Lin Shaye), who, while self-hypnotized,
describes a demonic presence in the home to one of her two ghost-hunting colleagues, who sketches the netherworld-dwelling beastie for the concerned parents, who are naturally skeptical of the woman's clairvoyant skills and tales of their boy's ability to astrally project himself out of his own body into a spirit world that she likes to call "The Further"(coincidentally, the original title of the movie), only he's projected himself too far this time and can't return to his body, trapped in a shadow world of unkind entities.

So long as that demon is standing in front of my deck, I'm gonna give practicing kickflips and ollies a rest for awhile.
Josh buys exactly zero of this, until he stumbles upon some drawings Dalton had drawn up pre-coma that resemble Elise's "Man with fire in his face"("Man who's just different enough from Darth Maul to avoid a hearty copyright infringement lawsuit from George Lucas" describes him better, I think).At this point, Josh's mom and her squirrelly buddy relate his own ability to astrally project as a child to them, and tell of the horrible candle-bearing old bag that had every intention of possessing him back then, as evidenced by her appearance in his childhood pictures; a bit nearer to him in each successive one, and the reason his mother stopped taking pictures of him altogether.Elise explains that Josh must use his special power to travel over into the Further and locate his son, who is being held prisoner there by the red-faced Sith L...uhh, demon, who also intends to possess the boy's physical body.He reluctantly agrees, and with Elise as a guide, is able to find his boy's soul, chained to a wall, amidst many unpleasant spirits and the aforementioned claret-hued bastard that's kept him there.There's a race to reach their physical bodies before they're captured by the otherworldly beings, but they seem to make it back alright, after Josh bravely confronts the evil old lady from his past and shouts her down.Later, while Dalton is eating in the kitchen with his mother and granny, Elise picks up a strange vibe from Josh while she and her associates are packing up.She picks up a camera and snaps a photo of him, which sends him into a murderous frenzy as he strangles her to death.Renai hears the commotion and runs in, calling to her husband with no response.She finds Elise's lifeless body and the camera on the floor, the last picture taken still present on the screen, only it isn't Josh in the photo, but the horrible old lady.She gasps as a hand grabs her by the shoulder.Fade to black...

"Suddenly, it feels like the red-bladed saberstaff of a Dathomiri Zabrak Sith Lord is poking me in my shorts.", thought Nite Owl.
Patrick Wilson, who's usually turning up in overblown duds like Schumacher's Phantom of the Opera(2004) and Watchmen(2009), has scored a genre credit in 2005's Hard Candy.Australian Rose Byrne has fared slightly better, genre-wise, earning credits in Danny Boyle's Sunshine(I liked it a lot, I just won't review it.There's enough Sci-Fi on the interwebz, don'tcha think?) and 28 Weeks Later in 2007.Lin Shaye, on the other hand, has a veritable cornucopia of genre credits to her name, appearing in everything from the original Nightmare on Elm Street, Andrew Dice Clay's underrated Brain Smasher...A Love Story(1993), and Jeckyll and Hyde Together Again, to 2003's Dead End and Snoop Dogg's Hood of Horror(2006).Sorry about that last one, Lin.Let's not forget the always sexy bungalow-born Barbara Hershey who's appeared in everything from Last Temptation of Christ and Boxcar Bertha to Falling Down(1993) and Black Swan(2010), when she wasn't getting felt up by ghosts in The Entity(1981).Besides Saw(2004), Wan has also helmed Dead Silence and Death Sentence, both in 2007.I'm slapping three big ones on Insidious, but for a movie with such high hopes and truly excellent beginnings, the solid rating has got to be looked at with a certain degree of disappointment.Still, you're gonna wanna see it for yourselves, as it's mostly very good.

"ZOMGses! He totally videoed me singing into his pink microphone!!!"

The Entity(1981)d/Sidney Furie

The fact that nothing much is going on in the one-sheet should tip you off...
I hadn't thought much about this entry since seeing it in its first run,only acquiring it at the request of my then-girlfriend who claimed it frightened the shit out of her when she last saw it,sometime in the early 90's(when she was probably like nine years old,mind you).I did not have such fond memories of it.Did we watch the same movie? After revisiting Furie's big screen take on the Frank deFelitta novel,the stale taste in my mouth had returned.I suddenly remembered why most of the movie had eluded me at first mention.It sucked.
I just don't buy it for a second.If I was in the same paranormal situation,being visited nightly by an unseen horny succubus...let's just say there'd be one bottomed out ectoplasmic bitch limping back to hell and asking the dark lord and master for an ice pack and a few nights off.Hell,most of the girls I know would make this otherworldly horndog blush in the first five minutes.I'm just skeptical as to whether an invisible main character makes for good cinematic copy these days.It doesn't help that there's little help elsewhere in the flick to back up the see-thru gent.Whatever scares the filmmakers try and ante up here seem invisible at times,but sadly,I think it's because they just aren't there in the first place.

Women aren't naturally bad drivers,they might just have an invisible incubus trying to kill them while they're driving a vehicle,is all.
Carla Moran(Barbara Hershey)is a single mother of two,living a normal existence in Los Angeles,until one night,while innocently slapping some cream on her gams,she is given the forceful in-out by an unseen assailant.After post-coital investigation turns up no evidence to support this,she wrongly slags it off as a vivid nightmare,until her bedroom violently explodes all around her,causing the frazzled woman to spend the rest of the night at a friend's house.When she returns home,she's given the supernatural high hard one again,this time right as she's drawing herself a bath.The next morning in the car,the invisible force takes over once again,erratically swerving her through traffic and nearly killing her in the process.At this point she seeks out mental help from a psychiatrist named Sneiderman(Ron Silver),who believes the distraught dame is merely physically manifesting her own deep-rooted fear of sex instilled in her through her upbringing.Her harrowing polter-goosings drive her from the arms of her boyfriend Jerry(perrenial cinematic scuzbag Alex Rocco)and to the attention of a pair of nerdy investigative ghostbusters,who offer to try and lend her a hand she can actually see for a change.

Carla(Barbara Hershey)shares some quality alone time with the netherworld's elbow-tittin' champeen.
After the two dorks set up their paranormal pots n' pans equipment at Carla's place,the ethereal incubus only manages to manifest electric energy from the ceiling.But when Jerry later returns,he finds his partner sprawled naked on the bed,her body being pawed by invisible hands,and when he tries to rescue her,her son misconstrues his attack on the ghostly being with a chair as an assault on his mother,when he clobbers the poor girl in the head with it instead,in mid-spirit fuck(!).At this point,the two ghostbusters call in reinforcements,who set up a roofless replica house in a high school gymnasium,arming it with huge tanks of liquid helium to freeze the spectral rapist in his tracks,since he can move physical objects,and therefore must have some semblance of physical mass himself.Sneiderman makes a mad dash to save Carla before their experiment plays out,but is taken into custody,and forced to watch the whole thing from the sidelines with the parapsychologists and the military.The incubus shows up and tries to do in his earthly squeeze with the helium spray nozzles,and ultimately exploding the tanks themselves in a vulgar display of power,emptyheadedly freezing himself in a mountain of solid helium,which he bursts out of in an even more impressive and vulgar display of power.At the tail end of a very long and drawn out two hours,Carla finally moves her family to another city,when titles roll,telling us that her attacking apparition still scores with her from time to time.

"If we magnify this corner of the photograph,we might be able to make out something happening(but I doubt it)."
The perpetually plain Barbara Hershey breaks out her own real sweater puppies here,and also pops her head out of a hole in the bed with an unconvincing nude latex body designed by Stan Winston(!!) to move on its own,as it were being groped by invisi-mitts.Not his proudest FX moment,I'm sure.Hershey remains very busy on the acting circuit,though I only really dug her in Boxcar Bertha(1972) and Falling Down(1993).They could have cast a hotter chick,I'm saying.The whole story is allegedly based on the real-life ordeal of Carla Moran,who may or may not still get poked by a poltergeist.If so,at least one of us is scoring some regular sex.Good for you,sister.Personally,I felt the whole thing dragged along,clocking in at over two hours,with precious few hump-scares to mention.You may get an unintentional chuckle from the spectre boobs,or the Charles Bernstein-composed incidental rock guitar rape score,but you probably won't.Hideo Nakata plans to remake this mess,and that's really all it needs to be permanently cemented into dragsville:Japanese genital-fogging.The scale's rating this time around materializes as a disappointing:

If you're looking for massive frozen helium mountains exploding in a gymnasium,then look no further.