Haunted-house tale ‘Insidious’ gets inside you

April 1, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

Movie

Insidious

Josh and Renai have a happy family with their three young children. When tragedy strikes their young son, Josh and Renai begin to experience things that science cannot explain.

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By Roger Moore

Orlando Sentinel

One of the demons in “Insidious” is wearing what looks like a Darth Maul Halloween mask. And the finale is both a tad too literal and a lot too long and drawn out.

But that doesn’t spoil what is, without a doubt, the spookiest and most entertaining horror flick since “Paranormal Activity.”

“Insidious” is a haunted house tale in the “Poltergeist” mold — a child in jeopardy, a mother (Rose Byrne) struggling to get her head around what may be happening, a father (Patrick Wilson) in denial.

Renai and Josh and their three kids have just moved into a nice, older wooden two-story home. But at home alone, Renai is hearing things in this quiet, creaky house. So does their oldest son, Dalton (Ty Simpkins). He investigates, and next thing you know, he’s in a coma that medical science can’t explain.

James Wan, graduating from the “torture-porn” genre he helped launch with “Saw” and working with both his “Saw” screenwriter/collaborator Leigh Whannell and producer Oren Peli (”Paranormal Activity”), builds tension with glimpses of cadaverous faces, people in odd costumes and the like.

Doors open and close, whispers rumble through the baby monitor. And the hairs rise on the back of your neck.

The best horror movies get the audience talking back to the screen, and “Insidious” does that, and how. You’ll have to fight the urge to yell “Don’t go in there.”