INSIDIOUS

Directed by: James Wan
Released: 2010

I'd watched this one when it first came to DVD, but I remembered absolutely nothing about it (although I do remember being drunk when I saw it, so there's that).  Having rewatched it with a clear head, I have to say, this is a pretty goddamn good horror film-- and I am very skeptical on new American horror films.  It's not a remake, it's not a sequel (although they made one, which I'll get to in the next post) -- it's not a rehashed story that's been told a million times-- although it seems like it will be, at first.  Family moves into old house, wife and kids start seeing/hearing weird things, decide house is haunted, so they move to another house.  I dunno what kind of world they live in where they can move into one house, live there a couple weeks and decide to just sell it and buy a new one like it's a fucking blu-ray player, but hey, whatever.  Anyway, whatever was haunting the first house follows them to the second, and that's where it gets more interesting.  I can't remember what was given away in the trailers, if anything, so I won't say much about why things are haunted, just know that there's several malevolent (or "insidious", as it were) forces trying to fuck with this family.  They call in some old psychic-type lady and her two bumbling assistants (big "Poltergeist" vibe with that, I quite liked the assistants, they provided just a small amount of comic relief, but not so much as to be campy) and she tries to take care of business.  It ends up being more about astral projection and other worlds of existence than anything else, which is why I said it starts out as a pretty typical story, but takes a turn into something that isn't discussed often.  And the ending...  well, put it this way.  When the credits started to roll, I said, out loud, "THAT is how you end a fucking movie."  7.5/10