Insidious Review

A family – sceptical dad (Patrick Wilson), sensitive Mom (Rose Byrne) and assorted kids (one soon in a coma) — are pestered in their new ideal home by paranormal apparitions and polter-phenomena. They move to rented accommodation, but the spooks follow. Director James Wan and writer-actor Leigh Whannell founded a modern horror franchise with Saw, but this is more like their lesser-known, retro-styled follow-up, Dead Silence. A blatant patchwork of every haunted house movie ever made, it still delivers a creep-out (the midget dancing to Tiny Tim), a face-at-the-window shock or a well-crafted scare (it’s behind you!) every few minutes. Not especially well acted and weighed down by silliness, but consistently scary. It hasn’t got more to offer than cheap chills, but sometimes that’s enough.