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91A haunted-house movie that has some of the most shivery and indelible images I've seen in any horror film in decades. Yes, it's that unsettling.
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75If there's a complaint to be made about Insidious, it's that the film's second half is unable to live up to the impossibly high standards set by the first half.
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75All calculation aside, scary is still scary, and Insidious makes up in old-fashioned tension what it sometimes lacks in originality.
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75Nicely acted by all and photographed in creepy, cold, under-lit tones.
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75A tidy terror flick, and refreshing with its intention to make viewers gasp rather than gag.
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75The spookiest and most entertaining horror flick since "Paranormal Activity."
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70No blood, no gore, no hacked-off arms and legs, but plenty of creepy set pieces, quick cuts and blasts of music that will have you both squirming in your seat and jumping out of it. Until the bone-headed part kicks in.
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70We need visionaries-but also solid craftsmen who seem to enjoy their work. Insidious is the product of the latter. It doesn't build a better haunted house but, when on its game, reminds us of the genre's pleasures.
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70Successful to a point (though seemingly unaware of the chuckles it produces in between shrieks), the movie has strong prospects with genre audiences but won't spawn a phenomenon resembling the filmmakers' previous franchise.
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70A possession thriller less terrifying than fun.
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63This one is not terrifically good, but moviegoers will get what they're expecting.
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63Here's a better than average spook-house movie, mostly because Insidious decides it can haunt an audience without spraying it with blood.
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63If your idea of a fun night out is to be manipulated by freaky sound effects, jumpy edits, and point-of-view shots of ceiling fans whooshing menacingly, Insidious is the film for you.
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63By the time it's over, Insidious is less scary than a mortgage payment.
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60A concerted effort to make a scary movie without spilling a drop of blood, Insidious is earnest to the point of suffocation about scaring you silly.
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60The pleasant surprise when you actually watch Insidious is that it turns out to be a moderately effective suburban-family creep show, majorly in debt to "Poltergeist" and "The Exorcist" and capturing at least a little of their spirit.
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60Insidious could have been something special: a horror movie that actually horrifies without resorting to gore. Instead, thanks to too many cheap jokes and a bit of silly music, it falls short.
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50Creepy spirits in old-timey dress, ear-stabbing sound cues, slamming doors and bloody handprints: The horror flick Insidious isn't scared to be trite.
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50Throughout, Wilson and Byrne play these parts straightforward and there's an undercurrent of real anguish in the struggle of parents coping with a child's long-term care.
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50The movie is hampered throughout by little inconsistencies.
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50It's far more annoying than frightening.
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50The strongest analogue for the second half of Insidious is one that the filmmakers probably weren't trying for: it feels like a less poetic version of an M. Night Shyamalan fairy tale.
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50The thing is scary as hell when it's all creaks and thumps and doors swinging open. Then come the explanations, the special effects, and the inevitable feeling of been-there-been-bombarded-by-that.
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40Insidious doesn't feature the lazy, home-video-style terror of "Paranormal Activity," thankfully. But it's also pretty normal activity for a ghost story.
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40None of this is particularly well wrought, and only a bizarre gas mask worn by the séance leader counts as an inspired (if slightly silly) touch.
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38It feels more like a poor man's "Poltergeist, " minus the static-filled TV.
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38You can't criticize it for false advertising.
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Mar 31, 201138The crazy train of Insidious runs fully off the rails when the filmmakers go logical and some of the strange gets explained away as a double shot of demonic possession and astral projection.
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Mar 31, 201130Aesthetically, Insidious operates at the level of a decent high school video project.
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0The only remotely entertaining aspects of Insidious come from Whannell and Sampson as a comic pair of hypercompetitive hipster ghost hunters, and even that schtick is repeated ad nauseam.