Favorite Scene Friday! Insidious: Tip Toe by the Window

As usual, for the month of October we're looking at our favorite scenes from the world of horror. Today's post is from Lindsay Street of French Toast Sunday.

October brings with it many beautiful offerings – cooler temperatures, cozy sweaters and the comforting embrace of horror movies. While I will happily watch a ghost story or gory blood bath any night of the week, most people stick to Halloween for scary movies.  Over the past few years, there have been a number of great mainstream horror flicks and you can thank director James Wan for more than a few of them. Wan is responsible for the first Saw film and both of The Conjuring movies, but today I’m looking at a scene from the first movie of his that really got my attention.

I honestly don’t remember knowing anything about Insidious before I went into the theater. I do, however, vividly remember the loud imposing title card that filled up the screen. The whole thing had a retro vibe and I was digging it. Shortly after the opening credits I found myself fighting off cardiac arrest as Wan ratcheted the tension and played mercilessly with my emotions.

Insidious is a fairly straightforward Haunted House story with a dash of possession thrown into the mix. A suburban family starts to experience radial paranormal disturbances after their son suddenly slips into a coma. Terror ensues. Admittedly, it can be hard to choose a scene from the movie that is effective out of context but this one I choose demonstrates exactly what Wan does best.

 

Let’s break this down a bit. While our matriarch Renai (Rose Byrne) is busy expelling the trash from her gorgeous Craftsman house she sees a small child through the window. This would be strange for anyone but not necessarily creepy. What Wan does in this scene is enhance the suspense by letting the viewer in on just a few more key details: the first identifier being a short but still lingering camera pan to a back shot of the boy in the laundry room, then when Mom is out of the house the music changes. The audience is on the hook and terrified of what this will mean. Now back to Renai’s troubled reaction, “Who is that? Is he real? Am I really seeing this?” She rushes inside to scope out the situation. Nothing. Then a door slowly creeps closed. The audience shivers but Renai is startled, still not sure what to make of the entire scene. Then SHIT! That is a little kid! It just ran through the house. We all fucking saw it now! Stunned, Mom follows the kid into her son’s room.  It seems still but…that rocking chair is moving…it’s…FALSE alarm. But what about those boots? Now both Renai and the audience are shaking with fear. When the curtain pull reveals another false alarm, Wan wastes no time hitting us with a legit jump scare.

You see, Wan is so good at what he does because he knows exactly how to leverage dramatic tension. He knows when to show, when to fold and when to do whatever that other poker reference is that’s equivalent to scaring the shit out of you.

The Conjuring Review

In my humble opinion, director James Wan’s 2011 horror flick Insidious set the bar for modern horror and set it good. I can say - without reservation - that it’s the scariest film I’ve ever seen. If I had experienced it as a kid I’d most likely be in a mental institution at this point. So Wan’s follow up film, The Conjuring (coming out mere months before Insidious: Chapter 2), has a lot to live up to.

Wikipedia

A spiritual (no pun intended) sequel to Insidious, The Conjuring concerns Ed and Lorraine Warren, a husband and wife team of paranormal investigators. When the Warrens aren’t lecturing at colleges and solving legitimate cases (like one involving a demon inhabiting a fantastically creepy doll) they’re debunking supposed hauntings and laying homeowners’ fears to rest. Basically, they’re paranormal activity rockstars.

Meanwhile, the Perron family moves into an ancient farmhouse in Rhode Island and, soon after, ghastly, unexplainable events begin to transpire. That’s when they call the Warrens (it was smart to introduce the Warrens first...it really tells the audience that they’re the stars of the film). The Warrens investigate and, soon after, truly terrible things start happening. Do Ed and Lorraine have what it takes to save the Perrons from the unspeakable horror obsessed with them?

If, like me, you went into The Conjuring hoping for something that lives up to Insidious, you won’t be disappointed. The new film has it all - creepy dolls (holy shit, Wan, you have a thing for dolls and puppets, we get it, please leave us alone), witches, ghosts, demons, dark basements and attics, possessions, and exorcisms. Wan mostly makes it work, using menacing music, shadows, and his talented cast. The guy can raise the hair on the back of your neck just by showing you how afraid his characters are of something you as an audience member can’t even see. Dozens of horror films a year are churned out that make me worry about the state of the genre. Knowing that James Wan is somewhere out there behind the camera puts my mind at ease.

One of the only aspects of the film that I didn’t like revolved around the human element. Sure, Ron Livingston is great as sad, working class father Roger Perron and even Lili Taylor, returning to the big screen horror limelight after last dipping her toe in the water with 1999’s The Haunting, turns in a good performance as Carolyn Perron. And Patrick Wilson as Ed and Vera Farmiga as Lorraine have good chemistry, but there’s a “God brought us together for a reason,” motif between the two that runs throughout the film that doesn’t quite work. This is, I suspect, really part of the larger plan to make a franchise out of the Warren’s lives, something Wan has had an interest in for a while, apparently. It just feels a bit hollow and forced is all.

See this movie, horror junkies. With Wan’s now signature brand of tense-until-it-hurts terror in full force, you will not be disappointed. And if you are, you always have Insidious: Chapter 2 to look forward to.

4 Out of 5 Stars