Insidious (past review)

With the 'saw' franchise at its (depressing and three dimensional) end, a horror sized hole in Hollywood has been created. With insidious hoping to fill it. Insidious follows the story of a family who are looking to prevent evil spirits from trapping their comatose child in a realm called 'the further'. With quite a unique concept does insidious deliver? and above all, scare?

The effective technique to 'show as little of the villain as possible' in a horror film applies to Insidious all too much. This isn't a problem for the 1st half of the film, as the majority of the first 45 minutes doesn't include the main bad guy only his 'ghost henchmen'. When the main villain is eventually reveled to us the shocking effect of his first appearance quickly wears of, as he is showed time and time again. If they had just held back his screen time he would have been much more scary and shocking. Unfortunately this villain who was supposed to be the main centerpiece of the scares turns out the be the main centerpiece of the laughs.Saying that, I thought that some scenes where absolutely terrifying, showing sparks of genius at times.Especially at one point, which has to be one of the most unsettling scenes in horror film history ( in my opinion) I won' spoil it, all i'll say is 'tiptoe through the tulips'! The scares are partly down to tempo of the film, it takes a while to get started but once it does the scares hit hard in some clever sequences, this creates a really tense atmosphere that had me in hysterics. However i couldn't help but feel let down after the film as the terrific scares in this film are ruined by the ridiculous and unrealistic plot. As the plot gets more and more silly throughout the film, new characters are added, which just increases my annoyance! 3 characters enter the film who provide no scares or suspense whatsoever, they just drag the film down and pull the viewers away from the suspense by providing awful comedic value.

This film provided terrifying moments at times, but the disappointing lack of realistic plot dragged the film down. If this film had maintained its suspense that was created by the 'ghosts' in around the 45 minute mark, this film would be a real winner and one worthy of attention.

I want to give this film 8/10 but the lack of plot, silly characters and unconvincing, tame bad guy means that i have to give this film...

7/10
Calum. Russell

Chronicle review

 When the words 'superhero movie' are said, immediate thoughts draw to; Iron man, spider-man, batman and maybe even the awful spoof film of 2006! Competing with such superhero companies as D.C and Marvel and also going against the superheroes that most know and love, is quite a risky plan. Which is why I believe the recent release of Chronicle is such a interesting and important one. Not only does it compete against the big companies, it also offers something new and fresh as the whole film is shot with handheld cameras.

 

In the spring of last year I went to see X-men first class at my local cinema, and one (of the many!) aspects of the film I disliked was the fact that none of the teenage characters seemed to show any kind of personality, we didn't even get back stories for any of the characters. However in Chronicle strong personalities are shown, and the back story of the main character, Andrew, is sentimental and very fitting. The 3 teenage boys act as any other teenager would if they'd developed super powers, which gives a huge sense of realism to the film , something that is rarely shown in other superhero films. Theirs no cheesy looks at the camera neither any corny catch-phrases, just a realistic depiction of what boys of their age would actually do, which of course is go to the local shop and mess with peoples heads! But behind the fun of the film theirs the sinister yet sentimental back story to Andrew. This back story, which is told throughout the film, makes the crossover from the upbeat banter of the 1st half of the film to the sinister 2nd half, fluent and believable.

 The whole film is also shot only using handheld cameras, which at points is a bit ridiculous but is mostly very affective. The aspect of super powers in this film is obviously a huge one but in more ways than one, often the telekinisis power of the boys is used to manoeuvre to camera to show us different shots from different angles, which was used to great effect. However their were other excuses to 'keep rolling' which weren't so good, for example a girl was shooting a video for her blog for the entire length of the film, which I thought was slightly odd and unrealistic, I think they could've shown the girl perspective much more effectively. This however is my only negative point about the film as I thought on the whole it was much more engaging than originally expected, this film has come out from pretty much nowhere and sprung a sigh of relief upon the film industry showing you can compete against D.C and Marvel, and win.

 * * * *

 Calum Russell