Insidious | |
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Directed by | James Wan |
Written by | Leigh Whannell |
Produced by | |
Starring | |
Cinematography |
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Edited by |
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Music by | Joseph Bishara |
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Release dates | |
Running time | 101 minutes |
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Language | English |
Budget | $1.5 million [7] |
Box office | $100.1 million [7] |
Insidious is a 2010 supernatural horror film directed and co-edited by James Wan, written by Leigh Whannell, and starring Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, and Barbara Hershey. It is the first installment in the Insidious franchise and the third in terms of the series' in-story chronology. The story centers on a married couple whose boy inexplicably enters a comatose state and becomes a vessel for a variety of demonic entities in an astral plane.
Insidious had its world premiere on September 14, 2010, at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and received a wide theatrical release on April 1, 2011, by FilmDistrict. The film is followed by two sequels, Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013), Insidious: The Red Door (2023); and two prequels, Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015) and Insidious: The Last Key (2018).
Married couple Josh and Renai Lambert have recently moved in to a new home with their sons, Dalton and Foster, and their infant daughter Kali. One evening, Dalton sneaks into the attic, where he encounters a mysterious entity after falling from a rickety ladder and hitting his head. The next day, he inexplicably slips into a coma.
Three months later, with no signs of improvement, Renai and Josh take Dalton back home. The family starts to experience frightening paranormal events, including strange noises and their home security alarm going off on its own repeatedly. Foster also claims he has seen the comatose Dalton walking around the house and Renai finds a bloody handprint on Dalton's bed. Later, Renai begins seeing a fiendish, long-haired apparition that tries to attack her. The Lamberts decide to move, with Renai believing the house to be haunted.
However, the supernatural activity continues in their new home when Renai sees the ghost of a young child dressed in period attire. Josh's mother Lorraine arrives and explains she had a nightmare about a demon with a red face in Dalton's bedroom. She later sees the same demon behind Josh, and Dalton's bedroom is ransacked by unseen forces. Lorraine calls psychic Elise Rainier and her paranormal investigators Specs and Tucker. [8] In Dalton's bedroom, Elise sees a vision of the red-faced demon.
Elise explains that Dalton is not in a coma; he was born with the ability to astral project his consciousness and had been unknowingly doing so in his sleep, believing he was simply dreaming. This time he has travelled too far and has been captured in a purgatory realm called "The Further," a place inhabited by the tortured spirits of the deceased. Without his consciousness present, his body is comatose, but spirits desire to use it so they can re-enter the physical world. Josh accuses Elise of being a scam artist and throws her out, but later finds drawings in Dalton's room that seem to confirm Elise's theory.
Josh brings Elise and her team back. After an attempted séance goes horribly wrong, Elise explains that she has known Lorraine for decades, and had previously helped Josh when he was a child. Josh also possesses the ability to astral project, but had suppressed his memory of it years ago with Elise's help, after she helped him beat the parasitic spirit of an evil old woman that wanted to possess him. The only way to rescue Dalton is for Josh to go into The Further and save him.
Elise puts Josh in a hypnotic trance and he is able to project himself into The Further. He finds his way to Dalton, encountering multiple perilous and horrifying ghosts along the way. He frees his son, but they are chased and attacked by the red-faced demon while the spirits of The Further invade the real world and terrorize Renai, Elise, and the others. Josh is confronted by the old woman that tormented him as a child. He tries once and for all to overcome his fear, and she appears to retreat from him. Josh and Dalton wake up in the real world and the invading spirits vanish.
The family celebrates their victory, believing that the nightmare is over. Elise senses that something is amiss about Josh. When she snaps a photo of him, Josh goes berserk and strangles her. Renai discovers Elise's corpse and sees the photograph she took. The photo reveals that Josh is now possessed by the ghost of the old woman from his childhood, the latter having slipped into his body when he confronted her in The Further. Josh appears behind Renai and she lets out a frightened gasp.
The film came as a result of the success of Wan's Saw series. [9] Wan directed the first Saw film in 2004, and while he stated in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that he was "very proud" of the film, he also felt that the film, specifically, the violence and gore of it, put some people off and made them hesitant to work with him. [9] Wan thus made Insidious in part to prove that he could make a film without the level of violence found in the Saw series. [9]
Principal photography for Insidious was completed over the course of three weeks in 2010, from late April to mid-May at the historic Herald Examiner Building in downtown Los Angeles. [10] In regards to the shorter shooting schedule, actor Patrick Wilson explained, "We had long days and a lot of pages a day, and we didn't get a lot of coverage or rehearsal. But luckily, the benefit of doing a movie that's not on a big budget—and the reason it's usually done like that—is so if the filmmakers feel like, 'OK, we're not going to sacrifice anything on screen,' which I don't think they have, it lets them have complete control. So we were in good hands." [11]
The musical score to Insidious was composed by Joseph Bishara, who also appears in the film as the demon. [10] Performed with a quartet and a piano, a bulk of the score was improvised and structured in the editing process, although some recording sessions began prior to filming. [12] On describing the approach of the film's soundtrack, director James Wan explained, "We wanted a lot of the scare sequences to play really silent. But, what I like to do with the soundtrack is set you on edge with a really loud, sort of like, atonal scratchy violin score, mixing with some really weird piano bangs and take that away and all of a sudden, you're like, 'What just happened there?'" [13]
Insidious had its world premiere in the Midnight Madness program at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 14, 2010. Less than 12 hours after its screening, the U.S distribution rights to the film and the worldwide distribution rights to any sequels were picked up by Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions. [14] [15] On December 29, 2010, it was announced that the film would be released theatrically on April 1, 2011 by the then-relatively new film company FilmDistrict. [16] The film was also screened at South by Southwest in mid-March 2011. [17]
Insidious was released on DVD and Blu-ray on July 12, 2011 through Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. [18] The Blu-ray bonus content includes three featurettes: Horror 101: The Exclusive Seminar, On Set With Insidious, and Insidious Entities. [19] On the day prior to the film's home media release, Sony Pictures and Fangoria hosted a free screening of the film at the Silent Movie Theater in Los Angeles followed by an interactive Q&A with director James Wan and screenwriter Leigh Whannell. [20]
The film opened with $13.3 million, making it No. 3 at the US box office behind Hop and Source Code . On a budget of $1.5 million, it has since grossed a total of US$54 million in the US and $46.1 million internationally, for a total of $100.1 million worldwide. [21]
Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 66% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 176 reviews; the average score is 6.00/10. The critical consensus is: "Aside from a shaky final act, Insidious is a very scary and very fun haunted house thrill ride." [22] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 52 out of 100 based on 30 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". [23] Roger Ebert gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "It depends on characters, atmosphere, sneaky happenings and mounting dread. This one is not terrifically good, but moviegoers will get what they're expecting." [24]
A number of negative reviews reported that the second half of the film did not match the development of the first. Mike Hale of The New York Times wrote that "the strongest analogue for the second half of Insidious is one that the filmmakers probably weren't trying for: it feels like a less poetic version of an M. Night Shyamalan fairy tale." [25] Similarly, James Berardinelli commented, "[i]f there's a complaint to be made about Insidious, it's that the film's second half is unable to live up to the impossibly high standards set by the first half." [26] Ethan Gilsdorf of The Boston Globe wrote that "[t]he film begins with promise" but "[t]he crazy train of Insidious runs fully off the rails when the filmmakers go logical and some of the strange gets explained away as a double shot of demonic possession and astral projection." [27]
Positive reviews have focused on the filmmakers' ability to build suspense. John Anderson of The Wall Street Journal explains "[w]hat makes a movie scary isn't what jumps out of the closet. It's what might jump out of the closet. The blood, the gore and the noise of so many fright films miss the horrifying point: Movie watchers are far more convinced, instinctively, that what we don't know will most assuredly hurt us... Insidious establishes that these folks can make a film that operates on an entirely different level, sans gore, or obvious gimmicks. And make flesh crawl." [28] Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune wrote: "director James Wan and screenwriter Leigh Whannell admire all sorts of fright, from the blatant to the insidiously subtle. This one lies at an effective halfway point between those extremes." [29] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone commented: "Here's a better-than-average spook house movie, mostly because Insidious decides it can daunt an audience without spraying it with blood." [30] Christy Lemire of the Associated Press stated: "Insidious is the kind of movie you could watch with your eyes closed and still feel engrossed by it." [31]
Year | Result | Award | Category | Recipient |
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2011 | Won | Fright Meter Awards | Best Horror Film | James Wan Leigh Whannell |
2011 | Nominated | Fright Meter Awards | Best Director | James Wan |
2011 | Nominated | Fright Meter Awards | Best Actress | Rose Byrne |
2011 | Won | Fright Meter Awards | Best Supporting Actress | Lin Shaye |
2011 | Nominated | Fright Meter Awards | Best Screenplay | Leigh Whannell |
2011 | Nominated | Saturn Awards | Best Supporting Actress | Lin Shaye |
2011 | Nominated | 2011 Scream Awards | Best Horror Film | − |
2011 | Nominated | 2011 Scream Awards | Best Horror Actor | Patrick Wilson |
2011 | Nominated | 2011 Scream Awards | Best Horror Actress | Rose Byrne |
A sequel, Insidious: Chapter 2 , was released on Friday, September 13, 2013. [32]
The fifth film, Insidious: The Red Door , which serves as a direct sequel to Chapter 2, was released on July 7, 2023.
A third installment, Insidious: Chapter 3 , with Leigh Whannell serving as director and writer, was released on June 5, 2015, to a high box office gross and a mixed critical response. [33]
A fourth installment, with Adam Robitel as director and Whannell as writer of the film, [34] Insidious: The Last Key was released on January 5, 2018, and received mixed reviews.
Saw is a 2004 American horror film directed by James Wan in his feature directorial debut, and written by Leigh Whannell, from a story by Wan and Whannell. It is the first installment in the Saw film series, and stars Whannell alongside Cary Elwes, Danny Glover, Monica Potter, Michael Emerson, and Ken Leung.
Patrick Joseph Wilson is an American actor. He began his career in 1995, starring in Broadway musicals. He received nominations for two Tony Awards for his roles in The Full Monty (2000–2001) and Oklahoma! (2002). He co-starred in the acclaimed HBO miniseries Angels in America (2003), for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and a Primetime Emmy Award.
Leigh Whannell is an Australian filmmaker and actor. He is best known for writing films directed by his friend James Wan, including Saw (2004), Dead Silence (2007), Insidious (2010), and Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013). Whannell made his directorial debut with Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015), and has since directed two more films, Upgrade (2018) and The Invisible Man (2020).
James Wan is an Australian filmmaker. He has primarily worked in the horror genre as the co-creator of the Saw and Insidious franchises and the creator of The Conjuring Universe. The lattermost is the highest-grossing horror franchise at over $2 billion. Wan is also the founder of film and television production company Atomic Monster.
Saw III is a 2006 horror film directed by Darren Lynn Bousman from a screenplay by Leigh Whannell and a story by Whannell and James Wan. It is the third installment in the Saw film series and a sequel to 2005's Saw II, starring Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, Angus Macfadyen, Bahar Soomekh, and Dina Meyer.
Angus Sampson is an Australian actor and filmmaker. He is best known for his performances as Tucker in the Insidious film series, Ray Jenkins in The Mule (2014), The Organic Mechanic in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024), Bear Gerhardt in the second season of Fargo, Dom Chalmers in Bump (2021-present) and Cisco in The Lincoln Lawyer (2022-present).
Dead Silence is a 2007 American supernatural horror film directed by James Wan and written by Leigh Whannell. The film stars Ryan Kwanten as Jamie Ashen, a young widower returning to his hometown to search for answers to his wife's death. It also stars Amber Valletta, Donnie Wahlberg, and Bob Gunton.
Lin Shaye is an American actress. In a career spanning over fifty years, Shaye has appeared in more than a hundred feature films. She is regarded as a scream queen due to her roles in various horror productions, which include the films Alone in the Dark (1982), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Critters (1986) and its sequel Critters 2: The Main Course (1988), Amityville: A New Generation (1993), Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994), Dead End (2003), 2001 Maniacs (2005) and its sequel 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams (2010), Ouija (2014) and its prequel Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016), Tales of Halloween (2015), Abattoir (2016), The Final Wish (2018), Room for Rent (2019), The Grudge (2020), and the Insidious film series (2010–2023).
Saw IV is a 2007 horror film directed by Darren Lynn Bousman from a screenplay by Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, and a story by Melton, Dunstan, and Thomas Fenton. It is the fourth installment in the Saw film series and a sequel to 2006's Saw III. The film stars Tobin Bell, Scott Patterson, Costas Mandylor, Betsy Russell, and Lyriq Bent.
Oren Peli is an Israeli filmmaker, best known for writing and directing the 2007 horror film Paranormal Activity. He acted as producer on subsequent films in the franchise, as well as on the first five films in the Insidious franchise.
The Conjuring is a 2013 American supernatural horror film directed by James Wan and written by Chad Hayes and Carey W. Hayes. It is the inaugural film in The Conjuring Universe franchise. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga star as Ed and Lorraine Warren, paranormal investigators and authors associated with prominent cases of haunting. Their purportedly real-life reports inspired The Amityville Horror story and the associated film franchise. The Warrens come to the assistance of the Perron family, who experienced increasingly disturbing events in their newly occupied farmhouse in Rhode Island in 1971.
Insidious: Chapter 2 is a 2013 American supernatural horror film directed by James Wan. It is the sequel to Insidious (2010), and the second installment in the Insidious franchise, and the fourth in terms of the series's in-story chronology. The film stars Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne, reprising their roles as Josh and Renai Lambert, a husband and wife who seek to uncover the secret that has left them dangerously connected to the spirit world. The film was released September 13, 2013.
Blumhouse Productions, LLC, doing business as Blumhouse, is an American independent film and television production company founded in 2000 by Jason Blum and Amy Israel.
Joseph Bishara is an American composer, music producer, and actor, best known for his work scoring films such as Insidious, 11-11-11, Dark Skies, and The Conjuring. Although his career began with the 1998 Biblical drama Joseph's Gift, he composes music for mainly horror and thriller films, and has collaborated several times with director James Wan. Projects by directors John Carpenter and Joseph Zito, and musicians Ray Manzarek and Diamanda Galás have incorporated his work. In addition to composing, he frequently appears in films he is involved in, usually made up as a demon or other supernatural creature. He has also been a producer on Repo! The Genetic Opera and other projects.
Insidious is an American horror franchise created by Leigh Whannell and James Wan that has been produced by Blumhouse in association with Sony’s Stage 6 Films since 2010. The films in the franchise include Insidious (2010), Chapter 2 (2013), Chapter 3 (2015), The Last Key (2018), and The Red Door (2023). The films have grossed over $731 million worldwide on a combined budget of $42.5 million.
Insidious: Chapter 3 is a 2015 supernatural horror film written and directed by Leigh Whannell in his directorial debut. The film is a prequel to the first two films and the third installment in the Insidious franchise. The film stars Dermot Mulroney and Stefanie Scott, with Angus Sampson, Whannell, and Lin Shaye reprising their roles from the previous films.
Insidious: The Last Key is a 2018 American supernatural horror film directed by Adam Robitel and written by Leigh Whannell. It is produced by Jason Blum, Oren Peli, and James Wan. It is the fourth installment in the Insidious franchise, and the second in the chronology of the story running through the series. Starring Lin Shaye, Angus Sampson, Whannell, Spencer Locke, Caitlin Gerard, and Bruce Davison, the film follows parapsychologist Elise Rainier as she investigates a haunting in her childhood home. The film is the sequel to Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015) and the second prequel to Insidious (2010) and Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013).
The Nun is a 2018 American gothic supernatural horror film directed by Corin Hardy and written by Gary Dauberman, from a story by Dauberman and James Wan. It serves as a spiritual spin-off to The Conjuring 2 and is the fifth installment in The Conjuring shared universe. The film stars Taissa Farmiga, Demián Bichir and Jonas Bloquet, with Bonnie Aarons reprising her role as the Demon Nun, an incarnation of Valak, from The Conjuring 2. The plot follows a Roman Catholic priest and a nun in her novitiate as they uncover an unholy secret in 1952 Romania. It is followed by a sequel The Nun II, released in 2023.
Insidious: The Red Door is a 2023 American supernatural horror film directed by Patrick Wilson from a screenplay by Scott Teems based on a story by Leigh Whannell and Teems. Produced by Blumhouse and Screen Gems in association with Stage 6, it is a direct sequel to Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013), and the fifth installment in the Insidious franchise. Original director James Wan serves as a producer, as does Jason Blum through his Blumhouse Productions banner. Wilson, Ty Simpkins, Rose Byrne, Andrew Astor, Steve Coulter, Joseph Bishara, Whannell, Angus Sampson, and Lin Shaye reprise their roles from previous films. Sinclair Daniel and Hiam Abbass join the cast.
Insidious is the soundtrack to the 2010 horror film of the same name, which is the first film in the Insidious film series. The film's musical score is composed by Joseph Bishara, who would become Wan's recurrent collaborator, scoring for The Conjuring Universe and other films in the franchise. The score consists of 26 original tracks and was released by Void Recordings on October 11, 2011, six months after the film's wide theatrical release.