Oh James Wan... no matter how hard you try you still aren't convincing any scares out of me.
Following the events of the first film, Chapter 2 follows the Lambert family as they attempt to leave the horrors behind by moving into father Josh Lambert's old home. But when they do it is apparent something is still lingering and following Josh from his previous experiences.
To say I hate 2010's Insidious would be... accurate. I found it abrasive, stupid, childish and worst of all not scary. You might wonder then why I even bothered watching the sequel? Well I am a man who looks for the best in people, and perhaps Chapter 2 might prove to be director James Wan's redemption.
It isn't really.
All of Insidious 2's saving graces are in its final act where it takes what little original ideas it has and spins some clever, elaborate trickery for the briefest of moments. As a film it also drops a lot of the "stupidity" I mentioned from the first film: instead of Darth Maul from the Star Wars films being the ghoul in question (and silly Irish-jig-ghost-boy) we get a more traditional ghost story woven together with some unnerving domestic abuse undertones. Patrick Wilson as the father plays his part well too, and is probably the only stand out performance here.
The tone and pacing feels much the same as Insidious, we still have our gormless "ghost hunter" sidekicks chewing up the scenery. If you actually liked Insidious you will enjoy this just as much!
But James Wan still treats his film like amateur-hour ghost stories. The soundtrack still drives me completely batty, telegraphing surprise scares like a great big warning sign with a narrator. "EAK EAK EAK EAK" "WooooooOOOOOOOooOooOoOOOEOOOEOEEEeeeeeeeeeEEEEE".
James... it is possible to scare people without the silly violin and piano chords.
In fact, there was one, ONE moment that actually freaked me. In this entire film, one fleeting shot was actually clever enough to surprise me, and you know what? It didn't have any music playing during.
I've never seen so many badly timed and badly implemented jump scares, at least not since the first Insidious. I kid you not, one such initial scare was basically the mother walking into a toddler's walking frame. THE HORROR. The first hour was extremely dull and so predictable that you'd have to be seeing this film with a friend to get any enjoyment out of it. A friend who has the spacial awareness and self security of a paranoid doormouse.
So no, I didn't care for Insidious Chapter 2, there are far far better scares in superior films (I couldn't help but feel this was directly ripping off one such film, The Woman in Black) and while its third act has a bit more merit and intrigue, it takes a long hour to get there.
Perhaps it is from railing so hard on Insidious earlier that I went into Sinister with such low expectations that I actually enjoyed it?
That isn't to say it doesn't have its issues; straight off the bat we have the classic setting of a family moving into a house with a history of grisly murders, and experience a host of spectral horrors. But if the creators of Insidious have apparently learned anything, it is learning the meaning of tension.
Ethan Hawke plays a fiction writer who, after success in writing non-fiction crime stories, looks for inspiration by moving his family to a house subject to murders. While not telling his family this. But when his two kids start acting strangely, and his investigations lead to an old film projector showing serial murders... he questions whether his loyalty lies with his work or his family.
Sinister starts out very calmly and actually establishes its characters, who they are and what they do, we get to know them and they each have a role to play in the story. Even side characters are useful, helping or hindering Hawke's character, but not taking the focus off him. It is a horror film tied around investigation; we see this writer returning to the seedy, unpleasant video footage repeatedly, trying to uncover the truth of the mystery. The camera work is slow, the atmosphere is dark and limiting, shot-compositions are thought out and set up most of the scares well.
Most. Some of the jump scares are predictable if you have seen a lot of horrors before. Hawke will be carrying a phone as a torch, limiting our view, only to stop and turn the light on himself... in total darkness. No one does that with a torch. The soundtrack drops too; audio jump scare and character reaction is imminent!
It doesn't "jump the shark" like Insidious, it doesn't get overly stupid. Yes, the evil spirit looks like the lost member from Kiss, but he is used sparingly; all of the tension is built from the raw, grainy footage we are compelled to watch. The soundtrack is better too, maybe a little OTT, but full of angry, grungy, bass sounds to set you on edge.
With much better characters and a stronger sense of humanity within the family involved, Sinister is surprisingly okay. It isn't amazing, but for any horror junkie it is a sure-fire fix.
Insidious, more like Insipid.
Wow, I'm reminded straight away how October's horrorfest can really bring out the worst in movies. Nothing is quite as bad as a horror film without any scares!
Insidious tries some new concepts and new imagery in a tired genre, but it collapses like a deflating balloon; comical and silly.
We see a family of five move into a new house only for one of their sons to fall into a coma, but when stranger things begin to happen around them they realise it is no ordinary coma, and that spirits and creatures from the ether are being drawn to the boy.
Perhaps its from seeing The Woman in Black this year, but Insidious is rife with laughable attempts at building tension and executing scares. Even the atmospheric, generic stuff that works as a prelude feels contrived; never before with a horror film have I felt like I was watching actors bumbling around in someone else's house while a camera wobbles around behind them. Not this much!
Once things get... intense? No... "different" is a better word, you wonder where the Ghostbusters are at. Certainly two characters called in to investigate remind me exactly of Bill Murray wandering around with a squeezy bag and a hose pipe.
As for the "demon" that presents itself, I was hoping its initial goofiness would be balanced with an almost Hellraiser-esque ferocity in the film's climax but nope... the film just keeps up the quirky blandness and the total absence of terror. He's like something from a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode. For your information: apparently the best way to dispel evil creatures is to shout at them in a mildly annoyed tone, they don't like that at all. You'd think a hell demon wouldn't be so easily startled by harsh tones.
The characters are more two-dimensional than in most horrors, some of them are barely explained or even needed (the family's daughter and other son seem to vanish midway through the film), and twists in the plot are predictable and textbook. The soundtrack is simply ghastly too; it shouts at you "You WILL find this scary!" OooooooOooo, EEK, EEK, EEK!
There are hundreds of more visually impacting and chilling films out there than Insidious, so don't even bother with it unless you are morbidly curious. Even people with a nervous disposition will find it laughable.
