Regular visitors to this site know that I not only love horror movies, but nearly every sub-genre of horror. (But, I've never been crazy about vampire movies. I'm not sure why.) And while horror trends come and go, one which never seems to get enough attention is the ghost movie. In the middle-to-late part of the 20th century, ghost and haunted house movies were quite prevalent. But, as the millennium drew closer, they seemed to go away. Sure, a popular one would pop up every now and then, but it remained a mystery as to why the sort of story which personified what most people think of when they are asked about scary tales rarely made it to the screen. (Even with direct-to-video releases, which are dominated by horror movies, we don't see that many ghost stories.) So, when a good one comes along, we must celebrate it, and that's where Insidious comes in.

As Insidious opens, we meet Josh (Patrick Wilson) and Renai Lambert (Rose Byrne), a couple who have just moved into a new house, along with their kids, Dalton (Ty Simpkins), Foster (Andrew Astor), and Cali. Not long after moving in, Dalton falls off of a ladder in the attic. The next morning, he cannot be roused from his sleep. Doctors tell Josh and Renai that Dalton is not in a coma, but he will not awaken. Three months pass, and, despite the fact that Dalton is back at home, his condition shows no sign of improvement. Suddenly, the family is terrorized by strange sounds and visions in the house. Renai sees a strange man on several occasions. So, the Lambert's do the smart thing: they move. But, even in their new new house, the occurrences increase. Josh's mother, Lorraine (Barbara Hershey) comes forward to say that she has an idea of what is happening and that she knows someone who can help. Josh and Renai soon find themselves confronted with a supernatural situation which goes far beyond a haunted house.

Regular visitors to this site know that I rarely get to go to the cinema anymore, but I actually saw Insidious in the theater...twice. Yes, it's that good. The movie played some festivals and got minor buzz and then it was suddenly released in theaters in April. It had a good opening weekend and then remained in the Top 10 for several weeks as word-of-mouth grew. The movie went on to gross over $50 million at the U.S. box office. I know that doesn't sound like much, until you take into account that the movie only cost a little over $1 million to make. But, Insidious is so much more than the "little movie that could".

Without exaggeration, I can say that Insidious is one of the scariest and most well-constructed horror movies to come along in years. Director James Wan and Writer Leigh Whannell have built a movie which takes simple, universal ideas and constructs incredibly jarring and creepy scenes around them. The movie starts with a seemingly normal American family (shades of Poltergeist) and slowly takes them down a dark journey. And the audience is right there with them. The entire movie is scary, but from the 22-minute mark until the 47-minute point, Insidious turns into a shock machine. Creepy figures emerge from the shadows and appear in the background in an unpredictable fashion and the movie immediately lets the viewer know that anything can happen in this universe.

This barrage of frights puts the audience on edge, so it's somewhat of a relief when the movie shifts gears in the second act. Again mimicking Poltergeist (Wan openly admits that Insidious is a love-letter to that Hooper-Spielberg classic), psychic investigators are brought in to help the Lamberts. This takes the movie in a slightly different direction. The second half of the film doesn't contain the hammering shocks of the first half, but instead focuses on bizarre imagery. It also introduces the explanation as to why everything is happening, which is somewhat unique. When the film is done, the viewer feels spent, having endured a roller-coaster ride of fright. But, like any classic horror movie, the scares linger with you and you find yourself thinking about images from the movie for days afterwards.

Insidious gets a lot of mileage out of a toy lantern on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. The film has been letterboxed at 2.35:1 and the Disc contains an AVC 1080p HD transfer which runs at 25 Mbps. The image is very sharp and clear, showing only trace amounts of grain and no defects from the source material. This is a very dark movie, but the image is never overly dark and the action is always visible. The colors look good, most notably the reds. The level of detail is good, allowing us to see textures on objects. The Disc carries a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which runs at 48 kHz and an average of 3.7 Mbps. The track provides clear dialogue and sound effects. To be honest, I was disappointed in this track. In the theater, Insidious offered great surround sound which showed a lot of detail. This Blu-ray track isn't as detailed and I felt that the surround sound effects were abundant. The subwoofer effects were good, as they accentuated the shock scenes. The stereo effects worked well too, highlighting sounds off-screen.

The Insidious Blu-ray Disc contains only three extras. "Horror 101: The Exclusive Seminar" (10 minutes) has Wan and Whannell explaining their motivations for making the movie, and how they tackled certain aspects of the story and the look of the film. We get their take on haunted house movies and why they work. "On Set with Insidious" (8 minutes) is exactly what it sounds like -- it takes us behind-the-scenes to see certain scenes being shot and to see Wan working with the actors. This also contains a continuation of the comments from Wan and Whannell from the first featurette. We also see the shooting of a scene which was then re-shot for the finished film. This also gives us an idea of how the budget was kept so low. "Insidious Entities" (7 minutes) examines the looks and peculiarities of the different ghosts in the film. (This piece shows a clapper which shows the film's title as "The Astral".) These extras, through brief are pretty good, but they don't replace a commentary. This is that rare movie where I really wanted to hear specifics about certain scenes.