Insidious 2

I’m not really sure why I insist on watching scary movies. Every time I watch one I am screaming, grabbing hold of someone’s hand, covering my eyes and wishing for the movie to be over. I’ve seen numerous horror films in the past years ranging from the corny, Prom Night, to the insightful, The Call. I’ve sat through three movies of The Ring, four movies of Paranormal Activity, seven movies of The Saw and endless amounts of Friday the 13^th. Yet, I have never seen a horror movie quite as disappointing as Insidious 2.

Insidious is an American horror film that was released on April 1, 2011, written by Leigh Whannell and directed by James Wan. The movie is about a married couple whose son inherits a gift that allows him to enter the spirit world during his sleep. The movie is fantastically written, with a thought-provoking plot that was completely original and enthralling compared to other corny horror flicks involving ghosts. Due to its ability to capture my attention and scare the crap out of me, I went to see Insidious 2 this past weekend. As you would expect, I had high hopes to be absolutely terrified. However, I was incredibly disappointed when I realized that the movie combined poor acting, corny effects and misleading writing.

Although many of the actors stayed the same, the quality of the acting greatly decreased. For example, in one scene the father is possessed by the spirit of a serial killer. In order to portray this, the actor uses a large cheesy grin that made everything he said come across as humorous rather than creepy. The supporting characters were also not up for the same acting performances that they had put into the first movie. In fact, almost everything they did called for comic-relief. For instance, whenever the middle-aged psychic, Carl, played by Steve Coulter, tried to communicate with the dead, he would roll these cheesy lettered dice and then slowly read the message as if we all couldn’t read. Just when it seems like the acting couldn’t get much worse, at the end when we finally figure out what the heck is going on, one of the actresses actually turns to the camera and exclaims, “So that’s what that was about!”

The first movie had been extremely low-budgeted, so my hopes for production for the second movie weren’t high. However, last year, the film that had grossed $55 million and I would have thought that production could have afforded something less generic than old rocking horses and a self-playing piano as props. In the first movie the musical score was creatively composed by Joseph Bishara and was perfectly fitting. However, even though Bishara also composed the music in the sequel, it wasn’t as great as it was in the first. In fact, the introduction to the movie’s title alone was a loud, cheesy chord that was more startling and out of place than it was horrifying. All things considered, production could have used special effects to replace the obvious creaking door slams, the moving baby toys and the large red door that you simply walk through to enter the spirit world. 

All in all, everything about this sequel screamed weird and cheesy. In fact, the plot even includes an old cross-dressing serial killer. Oh, and one of the villains is an over-the-top bloodthirsty mother. It was so weird you just couldn’t help but to laugh out loud, which is probably not what the director was going for.

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be an end to this train wreck in the near future. The ending was a predictable cliffhanger much like the ending of the first movie. However, when the movie ended with the psychic screaming and the camera cutting to black, I wasn’t on the edge of my seat like I had been while watching the first. In fact, I was basically rolling on the floor with laughter, much like the rest of the audience. I can’t say I really got a lot out of this movie other than the fact that this was the first time I’ve ever seen a horror film when the entire audience laughed all the way through rather than screaming.