Film Essay #5: James Wan's "Insidious"
May. 4th, 2011 12:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forbidding_archivistThis film is a remarkably cogent homage to the classic haunted house/ghost story that was prevalent during the 1950/60s. In "Insidious", James Wan has taken what would have been a film of the classic horror era and updated it with special effects, but has retained all of the visual techniques and impact of the earlier style. This creates a sense of immersion and deliberate creeping horror that I have found to be absent from the majority of current horror films.
The narrative of the film follows the travails of a family that has recently moved into a rather striking house. The Lamberts are a working couple with three young children, two sons of similar age and an infant daughter. At first, the house seems merely like any other house that has been lived in previously, full of creaks and groans. But as expected, events in the house start to turn sinister, first with the eldest son, Dalton, falling into a coma that cannot be explained. With the medical establishment at a loss and Dalton returned home for constant care, creepy events begin to occur with voices, visions, and felt presences that cannot be explained.
A wash of blue tones permeates the entire movie, muting light and creating shadows and darkness, conveying a sense of uneasiness that cannot be readily ignored. There are no bright and vibrant colors, just dark tones and oppressive shading, with even white walls appearing to be somewhat dimmed and gray even in full sunlight. The lighting could be best described as that which appears in a particularly bright thunderstorm, with the yellow of the sun filtered out by cloud cover. Combined with this is a truly classic soundtrack, composed primarily of soft violins that jar into a harsh screech at the appropriate moments. The effect is truly classic, as if a black and white film of the late 1950s has been suddenly colorized into horrific reality.
The truly outstanding elements of the film, though, are seen in Wan's adherence to classic horror cinematography. The camera is held at claustrophobic angles, so that you are never looking straight at a character but always from below or above. There is an omnipresent sense of limited vantage point, with sounds and sights always seeming to occur just out of frame. Even in the later part of the movie, with a venture into the astral world that is called "the Further", an omnipresent mist obscuring sight creates both a sense of empty drear space with a hugely claustrophobic and enclosed sense. Of special note are the opening credits, which show mostly-normal looking backdrops that you will see later on...but always with an element out of place, something that is not right that when noticed creates a chill.
Avoiding the usual overabundance of gore and shocking violence that tends to characterize current horror, we have in "Insidious" a return to the classic haunted house film that uses psychology and terror to make its point. It is a distinct pleasure to see, as films such as these are sadly absent from the screen today.
The narrative of the film follows the travails of a family that has recently moved into a rather striking house. The Lamberts are a working couple with three young children, two sons of similar age and an infant daughter. At first, the house seems merely like any other house that has been lived in previously, full of creaks and groans. But as expected, events in the house start to turn sinister, first with the eldest son, Dalton, falling into a coma that cannot be explained. With the medical establishment at a loss and Dalton returned home for constant care, creepy events begin to occur with voices, visions, and felt presences that cannot be explained.
A wash of blue tones permeates the entire movie, muting light and creating shadows and darkness, conveying a sense of uneasiness that cannot be readily ignored. There are no bright and vibrant colors, just dark tones and oppressive shading, with even white walls appearing to be somewhat dimmed and gray even in full sunlight. The lighting could be best described as that which appears in a particularly bright thunderstorm, with the yellow of the sun filtered out by cloud cover. Combined with this is a truly classic soundtrack, composed primarily of soft violins that jar into a harsh screech at the appropriate moments. The effect is truly classic, as if a black and white film of the late 1950s has been suddenly colorized into horrific reality.
The truly outstanding elements of the film, though, are seen in Wan's adherence to classic horror cinematography. The camera is held at claustrophobic angles, so that you are never looking straight at a character but always from below or above. There is an omnipresent sense of limited vantage point, with sounds and sights always seeming to occur just out of frame. Even in the later part of the movie, with a venture into the astral world that is called "the Further", an omnipresent mist obscuring sight creates both a sense of empty drear space with a hugely claustrophobic and enclosed sense. Of special note are the opening credits, which show mostly-normal looking backdrops that you will see later on...but always with an element out of place, something that is not right that when noticed creates a chill.
Avoiding the usual overabundance of gore and shocking violence that tends to characterize current horror, we have in "Insidious" a return to the classic haunted house film that uses psychology and terror to make its point. It is a distinct pleasure to see, as films such as these are sadly absent from the screen today.
