Insidious

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Year:	2010
Country of origin:	USA
Director:	James Wan
Genre:	Silly possession guff
Starring:	Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Andrew Astor, Ty Simpkins, Lin Shaye
Rating:	3/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1591095/
Tagline:	It's not the House thats Haunted.
Favourite line:	"A parasite."

Schizophrenic horror that is by turns terrifying and ludicrous.

The plot:
A normal family move into a new house and, not long after, their youngest son has an accident leaving him apparently comatose.
Soon, the mother begins to believe the house is haunted; terrifying apparitions at windows, bloodied handprints on bedsheets, the sense of being watched.
That sort of thing.
After some convincing, the husband agrees to move and, wouldn't you know it, the haunting seems to have followed them. Step forward an aged medium who claims to be able to help but, in order to do so, she must send the husband out of this realm and into The Further, to save themselves and their coma-stricken son.

So let's start with the good.
The first 45 minutes or so is great. Tense, claustrophobic and genuinely frightening in places. Sure, it uses every cliched trick in the book, but it uses them well and with enough skill to send a chill up even the hardiest of horror fan's spines. Then we get to the bad.
Once we get the big reveal, the reason behind all of the happenings and the protaganists begin to work towards a resolution, it really does veer into the absurd. No longer frightening, this seems as if the director has tapped into the thought processes of an eight year old and put them on screen. Commendably accurate given the premise of the movie, but no fun to watch at all, which is a real shame as everything started off so promisingly.
Whilst I would have given a straight 5 for the first half, I can only give a 1 for the second, so that levels out at a middle of the road 3 out of 5, I guess.
Yeah, 3 out of 5