Insidious Was Sooo Scary (Sarcasm Detected)

Last night I got a chance to sit down and watch Insidious. I didn't watch it in the theater, just on my 3 year old laptop, There were a lot of good reviews about it and almost everyone was calling it probably the best horror movie they've ever seen. Being a big horror movie buff, I was sort of expecting it to be well, one of the best horror movies I would ever see. I didn't know how wrong I was. I know it was a bit low-budget but there are a lot of awesome low-budget films and this was not one of them.

The opening credits were nice and creepy. I had settled down under the covers and was starting to feel creeped out already. So basically this movie is about some kid who goes into some sort of coma which doctors can't explain. Shortly after, things start happening around their house and his mother starts seeing apparitions, even his brother and his baby sister are affected. They move out, only to find that whatever was at their old house had followed them to their new house. In a moment of desperation, the dad's mother (the grandma) calls in some experts (and by experts I mean two nerdy guys with one of them sporting a horrible beard and an old lady) to help out. Turns out, the kid can do astral projection or something and was now stuck in another dimension called "The Further". The plot thickens when grandma reveals that her son had the same experience when he was a kid and he was his son's only hope now. The plot is sort of good, could have been better, but I was expecting the film to handle it well, nonetheless. Nope.

Quite frankly, I laughed for more than half of the movie. The main bad guy was a cheap knock-off of Darth Maul. Frankly, I think Darth Maul is way scarier than him since he at least had a lightsaber (and that's pretty awesome) and that character from Insidious had a goat's ass.

On one hand, we have a Sith Lord, on the other, a stoned guy 

with Halloween facepaint screaming that the tree is eating the sky. 

Many parts of the film were downright comedic, from the old lady wearing a gas mask to the dad's wrestling match with one of the extras from Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Also, the movie is like a bad rip-off of Poltergeist, with touches of other stuff from films like The Shining, etc. The shrieking violin sound effects were highly overused in the film, as was the fog machine. The acting (especially from that guy that got his balls cut off by Juno) was bland and unconvincing. Although I sort of liked the psycho family living room scenes and the way a lot of the characters sported Joker-esque smiles. But the thick (obviously fake) make-up on the characters and their oooh-I-don't-know-if-I'm-a-zombie-or-a-ghost-or-whatever walk, as well as the stupid scary decor in "The Further" part just made everything look like a cheap haunted house attraction at a carnival merely good for cheap thrills.

Now I admit, I jumped once or twice, but everything was easily forgettable. I had no trouble falling asleep at 3 AM and I did not worry about demons peeking in through my bedroom window or ghosts hovering over my head. 

Also, as horror movies go, there's a plot twist at -you guessed it- the end which was very predictable and quite frankly made me scream "Oh gawd, please let there not be an Insidious 2".

Blegh,