The Astral.

Insidious.


I have been waiting for this movie and didn’t know it. I hate possession movies and ghost movies – well not hate, but I don’t believe in ghosts at all, so its hard to get behind it. See I don’t believe in vampires or zombies either, but they are visually appealing to me. I like demons and monsters, but ghosts don’t do it for me. I LOVE Ghostbusters of course, but the ghosts there are characters, not just strange hands that pop out, or books that move on their own, or doors that open and close etc.


It took James Wan (director of Death Sentence and the first Saw – and best?) to prove that ghosts can be done right.


This movie is pretty darn good and if I did believe in ghosts it would be pretty scary, I don’t, so it wasn’t scary, but it was damn cool!


Act one begins as all haunted house movies begin – books are moved, boxes are moved, doors open on their own etc. This was produced by the Paranormal Activity guys (and actually this movie ends up being what I wanted PA to be) and you can tell from this first act. Cool point – after some odd occurrences, the couple actually moves out of the house, instead of staying around like idiots!


Act two begins in the new house where they learn that their boy Dalton, is possessed, not the house. See he’s been in a “coma” for 3 months and his astral form has left his body and evil spirits are trying to get in. And they thought if they left their haunted house it would be ok, but the spirits are following him around (this is the plot to Near Death a film that us Fantomzone guys actually wrote and produced – they stole our idea! – well we may have seen it before too).


The big difference is that act two really ups the horror level. Now its actual ghosts running around causing havoc, which leads to act three which consists of the boys father (played by the Nite-owl guy from Watchmen) leaving his body to do battle with the spirits. The problem is, is that there is also a demon trying to gain control of the boy and an old lady (looking very creepy) trying to posses Nite-owl’s body too! This all leads to a battle in the netherworld – think of New Nightmare – where they go and fight Freddy on his own turf. The demon in control of this world is a great visual entity. I can see a possible franchise with him – excellent make-up. See, this is what I want. Have ghosts do weird shit, have books move, have cheap pops (like people walking by the screen – LOVE those – thanks to John Carpenter for that one), but then give me more. I want other dimensions, I want demons that run around in hoofed feet etc. Not just cheap kids saying boo.


All in all I highly recommend this to horror fans and if you believe in ghosts, you will be freaked out.


4.5/5


J-Man