Saw (the first) tends to be remembered for two things: launching a seemingly unkillable movie franchise, and kicking off the fad for “torture porn” in the horror genre as a whole. But the original Saw isn’t just about watching a guy cut off his own foot any more than 127 Hours is just about watching a guy cut off his own arm. The true terror in Saw is the mental warfare between Jigsaw and his captives, inciting a Lord of the Flies-style blurring of the line between human civilization and animal instincts. The movie is also an ingenious example of how to make a horror film with no budget: keep it confined to one or two sets, use low-key lighting to mask makeup and effects, and extract as much fear as you can from the anticipation of terrible things to come. If the Saw sequels seem more concerned with upping the gore and sadism, well, blame Hollywood. But that first Saw is remarkably effective at creating a tense psychological atmosphere.
Saw director James Wan and screenwriter Leigh Whannell’s latest, Insidious, is a more traditional take on the horror genre. In fact, Insidious is retro to its core, drawing from haunted house pictures of the late ’70s and early ’80s like The Amityville Horror, The Shining and Poltergeist. The special effects are mostly practical rather than computer generated, and the spirits are portrayed by actual people in makeup and costumes. One of the major plot devices even involves astral projection, which I’d wager no one outside of a commune has thought about in decades. Yet Insidious is also remarkably scary for a PG-13 movie. Wan and Whannell have honed their psych horror skills to such a point that they don’t even need gore. A few too many of the frights come from things suddenly jumping out and the like, but for the most part they effectively sustain a base level of dread that at times verges on unbearable. There’s a matter-of-factness about Insidious that anchors it in the real world, making it even creepier. The medium isn’t a Zelda Rubinstein-type eccentric, she’s a middle-aged woman in a cardigan and ballet flats. She’s accompanied by a pair of employees who check the house for faulty wiring before launching their paranormal investigation. The character most resistant to the idea of supernatural influence comes around fairly quickly, rather than raging absurdly against evidence to the contrary. Wan and Whannell do draw a few too many pulls from the well of horror movie clichés (marionettes and Tiny Tim records?), but they have good instincts for what scares people. Unlike Saw, Insidious is a bit too familiar to inspire leagues of imitators and sequels. Still, there’s a lot of pleasure to be drawn from an old-school horror movie that hits its marks in a genuinely frightening manner.
Insidious is in theaters April 1.
Look, Sally, Look 