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Insidious (2011)

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All Critics
Top Critics

Average Rating: 6/10
Reviews Counted: 158
Fresh: 106 | Rotten: 52

Aside from a shaky final act, Insidious is a very scary and very fun haunted house thrill ride.

Average Rating: 5.6/10
Critic Reviews: 28
Fresh: 16 | Rotten: 12

Aside from a shaky final act, Insidious is a very scary and very fun haunted house thrill ride.

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Average Rating: 3.5/5
User Ratings: 57,851

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Movie Info

Saw franchise veterans James Wan and Leigh Whannell team with Paranormal Activity writer/director Oren Peli to give the familiar haunted house story an exciting new twist with this tale of a family that moves into an old house and begins to suspect they are under siege from otherworldly forces when their young son inexplicably falls into a deep coma. As devoted parents Josh (Patrick Wilson) and Renai (Rose Byrne) struggle in vain to uncover the root cause of their son's condition, the stress of

PG-13, 1 hr. 42 min.

Horror

Directed By: James Wan

In Theaters: Apr 1, 2011 Wide

On DVD: Jul 12, 2011

Box Office:$54.0M

FilmDistrict

Insidious Trailer & Photos

More Photos (10)

Cast

Patrick Wilson
Josh, Josh Lambert
Rose Byrne
Renai, Renai Lambert
Lin Shaye
Elise Rainier
Ty Simpkins
Dalton Lambert
Barbara Hershey
Lorraine Lambert
Angus Sampson
Tucker
Andrew Astor
Foster Lambert
Corbett Tuck
Doll Girl #2, Nurse Ade...
Heather Tocquigny
Nurse Kelly
Ruben Pla
Dr. Sercarz
John Henry Binder
Father Martin
Joseph Bishara
Lipstick-Face Demon
Philip Friedman
Old Woman
J LaRose
Long Haired Friend
Kelly Devoto
Doll Girl #1
Leigh Whannell
Chelsea Tavares

Critic Reviews for Insidious

All Critics (158) | Top Critics (28) | Fresh (108) | Rotten (52) | DVD (11)

Wan and Whannell have, in effect, ripped pages from the "Poltergeist" playbook and stripped the formulas down to old-style gothic scares.

April 11, 2011 Full Review Source: New Yorker

| Comment (1)

Bruce Diones

New Yorker

Top Critic

If 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.

April 3, 2011 Full Review Source: ReelViews

| Comments (13)

James Berardinelli

ReelViews

Top Critic

Insidious isn't scary. It's laughable. And kind of sad.

April 1, 2011 Full Review Source: Detroit News

| Comments (62)

Tom Long

Detroit News

Top Critic

There's little new here. And what is new isn't well done.

April 1, 2011 Full Review Source: Newark Star-Ledger

| Comments (4)

Stephen Whitty

Newark Star-Ledger

Top Critic

Nothing slows down a movie down like people sitting around a living room discussing the meaning of "astral projection."

April 1, 2011 Full Review Source: Globe and Mail

| Comments (7)

Liam Lacey

Globe and Mail

Top Critic

"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.

April 1, 2011 Full Review Source: Wall Street Journal

| Comment (1)

John Anderson

Wall Street Journal

Top Critic

Reminds of those mazes during Halloween, where figures jump out of the shadows and attempt to scare you--and one look at them beyond a second reveals them to be obnoxious people in even more obnoxious makeup.

April 8, 2012 Full Review Source: TheMovieReport.com

| Comment

Michael Dequina

TheMovieReport.com

Insidious clearly borrows from several sources, but where it fails as a narrative, it succeeds as a shock-a-minute fright fest with plenty of atmosphere and dread.

January 29, 2012 Full Review Source: IGN DVD

| Comment

R. L. Shaffer

IGN DVD

The ending struggles to explain too much and take itself a bit too literally, but mostly Insidious is an engaging treat.

September 9, 2011 Full Review Source: Scene-Stealers.com

| Comment

Eric Melin

Scene-Stealers.com

It may be an essentially shallow ride, but it will make you scared of the dark again. It is a strangely comforting to be reminded of what that feels like.

August 16, 2011 Full Review Source: Fan The Fire

| Comment (1)

Andrew Simpson

Fan The Fire

An engagingly unassuming presentation of an effective yet disappointingly derivative shocker.

July 26, 2011 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine

| Comment

Chuck Bowen

Slant Magazine

There is much to recommend in this reunion of the creative forces behind the dazzling first Saw movie.

July 14, 2011 Full Review Source: Digital Spy

| Comment

Ben Rawson-Jones

Digital Spy

For all its creaky-old-dark-house cliches, Insidious is a fun ghost-train ride, full of truly terrifying moments. But once it's over, it's forgotten.

July 4, 2011 Full Review Source: Empire Magazine Australasia

| Comments (2)

David Michael Brown

Empire Magazine Australasia

Director James Wan here proves himself very adept at building dramatic tension and making you anxious about the things going on in your peripheral vision.

June 16, 2011 Full Review Source: The Age (Australia)

| Comment

Jim Schembri

The Age (Australia)

Is this reminding you of anything? Like, say 77.2% of any horror movies ever made?

May 20, 2011 Full Review Source: Movies.com

| Comment

Grae Drake

Movies.com

Insidious is certainly part of a great tradition of scary films, but it's a little too bland and visually unappealing to be memorable.

May 14, 2011 Full Review Source: Cinema Autopsy

| Comment

Thomas Caldwell

Cinema Autopsy

They're having such a joke on us because there is a ridiculous element to it and one of the things that I think they fall into the trap of showing too much. Horror and being scared is much more effective without actually seeing.

May 12, 2011 Full Review Source: At the Movies (Australia)

| Comments (6)

Margaret Pomeranz

At the Movies (Australia)

If the film was attempting to be more than just a horror movie, it doesn't work on that level either.

May 12, 2011 Full Review Source: At the Movies (Australia)

| Comment

David Stratton

At the Movies (Australia)

Insidious is very much a 21st century modern horror movie, which is to say it's more interested in tricks and scares than 'horror'.

May 12, 2011 Full Review Source: sbs.com.au

| Comment

Peter Galvin

sbs.com.au

Insidious is happy enough with elevating your breathing pattern every now and then, as opposed to choking you outright with one shock after another.

May 12, 2011 Full Review Source: Herald Sun (Australia)

| Comment

Leigh Paatsch

Herald Sun (Australia)

While the third act descends into silliness, for the most part this is a superbly crafted and genuinely scary flick that borrows brilliantly from horror classics.

May 12, 2011 Full Review Source: FILMINK (Australia)

| Comment

Matthew Pejkovic

FILMINK (Australia)

It's intelligent, it's well-paced, it's packed with both unsettling scenes and pop-up shocks that never feel cheap.

May 12, 2011 Full Review Source: The Vine

| Comment

Anthony Morris

The Vine

For the majority of its running time Insidious is a scary good time at the movies.

May 12, 2011 Full Review Source: Trespass

| Comment

Glenn Dunks

Trespass

This is a good ol' fashioned haunting, one with a tangible atmosphere, strong performances and plenty of skin-crawling scares.

May 11, 2011 Full Review Source: Moviedex

| Comment

Anders Wotzke

Moviedex

More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Insidious

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James Wan is slowly becoming one of horrors finest young directors. With a string of solid horror films under his belt, James Wan is one of the most talented directors in the genre today. After such films as Saw and Dead Silence, Wan delivers Insidious, a truly terrifying horror film. While most films in the horror

August 17, 2011

Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski

Super Reviewer

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 + THE LAST EXORCISM + INCEPTION = INSIDIOUS. (To use the most modern examples, of course.)This movie is probably the freakiest piece of work I have ever before seen in my life (well, maybe that's a good bit of exaggeration), and I am a HUGE horror movie buff. It has screeching in the background

June 14, 2011

Alexander Diminiano

Super Reviewer

Insidious Quotes

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1. Tucker: Helps weed out the nut jobs.
– Submitted by Katlyn B (3 months ago)
1. Dalton Lambert: Last night I watched myself sleep. Then I flew away.
– Submitted by Isabella K (5 months ago)
1. Lorraine Lambert: I asked it, 'Who are you?' ... I said 'What do you want?' ... I can still hear that voice.
– Submitted by James W (8 months ago)
1. Josh: Renai, I'm right here.
– Submitted by James W (8 months ago)
1. Renai: Is there anything we can do to bring Dalton back?
2. Elise Rainier: There is something we could try.
3. Elise Rainier: It's a little unorthodox, but i will need your complete trust.
4. Josh: No, no, I'm sorry this has gone too far.
5. Renai: Oh, no please. Josh you said that you would give her a chance.
6. Josh: I have given her another chance, honey. But I can't have somebody come into our home and tell us that the reason our son is in a coma is because, that his soul has floated somewhere into another dimension.
7. Renai: We bring her all the way here and not even consider what she's saying?
– Submitted by Nick P (9 months ago)