Review
At its best, it is a brilliant depiction of the hypnagogic state separating the awake and the unaware. It functions as a form of cinematic sleep paralysis, trapping the audience between the suspense and the horror, immobilizing entirely your ability to look away.
At its worst, it feels like a tacky haunted house whose conclusion cannot come fast enough. It’s a horror Jackson Pollock painting, throwing all the horror genre has to offer at the canvas: creepy kids, creepy old people, demons, and creaky doors.
It’s a sound movie, technically speaking. Joseph Bishara’s score is haunting, bordering on terrifying, and John Leonetti’s work behind the camera is arguably the scariest thing about the film. The camera moves constantly, giving off a severe sense of anxiety and claustrophobia.
There are parts that are dreadful, and there are parts that are downright terrifying.
However, its biggest contribution could be that of Insidious’ insertion into the vernacular.
🐘🐘
This pick is objectively the least scary movie on this list. This film is arguably the overall worst film on the list. This pick is personal.
When I was a sophomore in college, I went on a date. Well, it was more two friends not having anything to do on a Friday night, but for the sake of the story, we will call it a date. She wanted to go bowling. I wanted to go to the movies. Having the luxury of hindsight, we should have gone bowling.
I don’t remember what the other options were, but I insisted we go see Insidious. What an idiot I am. We got to the theater a little early, and what happened standing in the ticket line should have been an indicator for the direction the night was headed. In my attempt to smuggle two glass bottles of Smirnoff Ice, yes, Smirnoff Ice, I dropped one. The bottle shattered, glass went everywhere, the entire line was staring and laughing. My date was not impressed. It was not off to a good start.
We sat down in the back row. I cracked my lone remaining Smirnoff Ice, opened my Reese’s Pieces because they’re the greatest movie theater snack known to man, sat through what felt like 37 minutes of previews, and then we were on our way.
Now, I remember seeing the two girls walk in. I remember because I thought I knew one of them. I remember seeing them sit down a few rows in front of us. Turns out I didn’t know either of them, so I forgot about them.
The movie moves rather quickly. Within the first 20 minutes, there were even a couple of jump scares. As far as horror movies go, it was pretty much what I expected. Acting was not very good, at times terrible. It was loud, very loud. And they suspected the house to be haunted, the house is always haunted.
I would guess, and I can’t be totally sure, but I think I remember hearing the first cough around the 20-minute mark. It could have been that I heard it before that and just started paying attention to it around the 20-minute mark, but I know around the 23-minute mark I was becoming irritated. It was coming from a few rows in front of us and it was progressively growing louder and more frequent. I cannot stress this enough, it was unbelievably loud. The fact that it went on this long without any theater-goer intervention is astonishing.
I am not a confrontational person by nature, but after about 20 minutes of non-stop coughing, I was prepared to at least ask them to step outside. I mean it’s a movie for Christ’s sake! Luckily my ambition was thwarted by a man in the very front row. He stood up, found the stairs, marched right to their row prepared to be the hero that everyone in that theater needed at the time. What I didn’t realize was the coughing was coming from a few rows in front of us. It was the two girls that I thought I knew earlier.
What I expected to be a very quiet exchange, possibly asking them to simply be courteous and step outside, was not. Once he arrived at their row, this mysterious man from the front row shouted, “Oh my God! Why are you not helping her?”
As you might expect, my attention was no longer on the film that I just paid $20 to see. I was now a concerned, and slightly scared, bystander. The man from the front row then yelled to Cynthia, who was also on the front row, “Cynthia, go get help now!” While Cynthia ran to get someone, the entire theater at this point was focused on what was happening. I stood up to try to get a better look but couldn’t see anything. I was concerned, of course, and wanted to help, so I sat back down in my seat.
At that point, a young guy carrying his patented movie flashlight, who also probably made $7 an hour and was in no position to actually help, entered the theater. He took one glance at what was transpiring and immediately ran out of the theater. The movie was still playing.
Out of nowhere, the lights turned on. If you are ever in a theater and the lights come on, something terrible has happened. I stood back up to now get a better look, not impeded by the darkness. One of the two girls that I saw enter the theater earlier was lying on the floor having, what I would find out later, an asthma attack. Her friend was sitting in her seat doing nothing to help. The movie was still playing.
I would say around 8 minutes passed before the emergency exit was opened, and a stretcher was brought in. Shout out to Shallotte EMS. The stretcher made its way to the row in turmoil, ready to save this poor girl’s life.
Spoiler alert, the girl was completely fine. No thanks to her friend. But the worst part of the night would be what would happen next. The theater decided to pause the movie. About halfway through the film, something happens. It is in some way the turning point of the film. The antagonist demon makes his first appearance. The clip lasts approximately half a second. It was during this half-second appearance where the movie handler thought it to be a good idea to hit pause. This picture would be what I looked at for the next 15 minutes.
I could tell you that I was uncomfortable, but that would be a tragic understatement. There isn’t anything about this picture that is overwhelmingly scary, but given the circumstances and the general direction the night was going, it was terrifying.
The theater returned to “normal,” and the movie resumed. I spent little time assessing what I was watching in real time because I was processing what I had just been a part of. The ending is wild, not a good wild.
Throughout the years, I have told that story to many people, and each time it feels less and less real. How could that actually have happened? I have seen thousands of movies in the theater in my life, and none of the experiences before or since have come even remotely close to that of Insidious. In total, I saw Insidious five times in the theater. The only way to get people to see it was to go with them. And while I love horror movies, I don’t think I was rewatching it out of love for the film. I was trying to capture the pure horror that was my first viewing.
We left the theater and I drove my “date” home. While driving home I was still enamored by what I had just seen. I couldn’t shake it. So, I formulated what I thought was a good plan of attack once I arrived home. I turned every light on that I possibly could, made my bed on the couch, locked all of the doors, and turned on Finding Nemo.
Ranking
I rank all of my movies out of 5 🐘, because I love movies and I love elephants.
