Monday, April 04, 2011

Saturday Matinee

Browsing through my Entertainment Weekly on Friday, I was surprised to see that a new horror movie called "Insidious" was given a rating of A-. The commercials made it appear to be another one of those jump-cut fests that is only scary because of the loud noises that accompany various reveals. This one appeared to be a cut above. I went to Rotten Tomatoes where more than 50% of the reviews were positive. Being that some of my favorite films are PG-13 spookfests ("The Others", "The Ring", "The Orphanage"), I decided that I wanted to check this one out.

I woke up at around 9am on Saturday and told my wife that I planned to see Adam Sandler's new movie followed by "Insidious". She had already seen the Sandman's movie, but said it'd be OK to see it again. We arrived at the theatre and were told that there was no early showing of "Just Go With It", that a kid's movie was playing instead. I informed them that their website said that the Sandler movie was playing at the given time. They said that it was corporate which displayed the movie times and they never knew ahead of time which show was going to be replaced by the kid's movie. I gave a bit of lip, but not too much as I actually wanted to see "Insidious" more.

We got a seat way in the back as we awaited the starting of the show. My girl had a small popcorn to pass the time. As the credits rolled, a number of teenagers were yapping, so I told my girl I'd prefer to sit near the front, less distractions, you see. Usually the first 20 minutes of a scary movie are a bit boring as this time is used to establish characters, not to scare the audience. It's kinda like a first date in that there's a lot of conversation, but no touching quite yet. This film was no different.

Directed by the man who did the original "Saw", I admired some of the small touches he'd made. In an early scene, the husband puts some anti-wrinkle cream on his forehead before going to bed. Before long, the scares started coming. One clever scene involved a baby monitor. Later, a couple ghost hunters are brought in. They delivered a much needed dose of levity.

Though not the scariest thing I'd ever seen (that would be me looking at myself naked in the mirror), I was reminded again that movies need not have a lot of gore to be effective in getting one's heart racing. Almost as cool is that the film was made for a paltry one million dollars. I don't usually get scared when going to bed on the night that I've seen a horror film, but did get a bit uneasy before nodding off on Saturday, thinking about the old lady from the movie.


4 comments:

Unknown said...

hey tom
nice review....thanx for not disclosing the story line....i hate reviews....i always try to enjoy a book or movie as a virgin....without any bias....
the others, the ring or ringu, the orphanage....awesome movies....although my most favourite scariest movies are blair witch project and paranormal activity....they still haunt me...lol
haven't seen a single one of saw movies....hate gore and torture...they should change the genre from horror to "sick" movies....

Rocketstar said...

Trailer gave me the chills... I've heard good things about Source Code, let me know if you check it out.

Chris Ledgerwood said...

Might actually go see it with the wife.

Phats said...

OOO I want to see this movie I love scary movies :) Good review I know what to expect going into it thanks!! The wife and I are definitely hitting Scream 4 can't wait for that one.