The American supernatural horror film ‘Insidious’
was released in theatres in 2011, written by Leigh Whannell and directed by
James Wan. The story centres on a couple, Renai and Josh, who have just moved into a new house with
their sons Dolton, Foster and their baby girl Cali. Events occur that worry
Renai about the new house, she explains that she doesn’t feel ‘alone’ in the
house and tells Josh that she wants to move again. Despite moving to a second
house paranormal events continue to happen suggesting that it wasn’t the house
at all that was haunted, and we later find out that it was in fact their son
Dolton. Dalton then falls into a
comatose state. Lorraine, who is Josh’s mother, recalls these kind of events
happening when Josh was just a boy like Dolton and so paranormal investigator
is hired, Elise Reiner. Elise tells the family that Dolton isn’t in a coma and
explains that he has the ability to ‘astral project’. (This is the ability to
leave your body and travel to different places,
but in astral form, and that he has travelled too far and has consequently
become ‘lost’ in a spirit world called "The Further", which is a
place for the tortured souls of the dead). We realize that the reason Dolton is
able to travel to “The Further” is because Josh could do it too. We discover
that the reason Josh is petrified of his photo being taken is because every
time someone took a photo of Josh, they would see a woman in each picture.
Elise tells Josh that the only way to rescue Dolton is if he goes into the
“Further” himself. After being put in a trance Josh finds Dolton in “The
Further” chained to the floor. He frees his son after having to fight off
demons and returns safety home with Dolton. While Josh and Elise are in the
living room alone packing up after the long night, Elise senses something and
quickly takes a photo of Josh, to which Josh reacts violently by strangling and
killing her. Renai enters the living room to find Elise dead and Josh gone. She
picks up the camera and sees the women in the photo (the same women from Josh’s
childhood), but instead of the women being ‘in’ the photo, she ‘is’ Josh,
implying that the women has possessed Josh. This is where the film ends,
leaving an open story for ‘Insidious 2’ which was later released in
2013.
Scenes that ‘impressed me’:
I felt that the very first scene of this horror captured the audience straight away. It starts with a very slow moving tracking camera that gradually travels through the house. Wan uses collision cutting to create suspense; the camera begins slowly and progressively speeds up as we get closer to a scary old women’s face lit by a singular candle (which we later find out is the same women from Josh’s past). To add to the tension further, high pitched parallel violin music is used which is uncomfortable to listen to and fits well with horror generic conventions. The music begins to get loader as we approach the women with a close up shot. I felt that this added to the creepiness of the scene as it sets the audience on edge expecting something more to happen, except the action stops there and cuts straight to a ‘normal’ situation. This scene becomes even more interesting later on in the film when Dolton is sitting on the stairs. Like the old women, the outer part of the shot is shadowy and gloomy due to low key lighting, and Dolton is lit by a single lantern. The audience automatically makes a link back to the old lady allowing our own minds to scare us as we begin to associate the creepy old women with Dolton himself.
Another scene which I again found particularly effective at creating suspense is the scene where Renai is playing the piano and hears voices over the baby monitor coming from her daughter, Cali’s, room. As an audience we identify a baby girl as vulnerable and defenceless, so just the thought of strangers being uninvited in her room and immediately sets us on edge before anything has even happened. The scene begins with Renai trying to write some music, she plays a slow song which relaxes the audience. The baby monitor is closer to the camera than Renai is and so focusses the audience on the monitor and this conveys the idea that something is wrong. The same tracking shot is then used again as the very first scene of the old women, and we follow Renai round the house slowly. The scene is very silent except for the sound of the baby monitor which I found effective as the audience is forced to listen to strangers in the baby’s bedroom instead of muffling the sound. When Renai gets to the bottom of the stairs a point of view shot is used which helps the audience put themselves in Renais position and a medium high angle shot is used on Renai which makes her look weak and helpless and exposed, weakening her character. The crackling voices on the monitor become aggressive and get loader and finally after the voice screams "I WANT IT NOW" Cali begins to violently cry and Renai rushes upstairs to comfort her daughter. Wan uses montage here; to minimise the emotional effect as soon as the voice screams “I want it now” Renai drops the monitor and the shots are sped up and there is a huge increase of amount of cuts from one scene to another. This creates a sense of panic for the audience. Load, fast beat music immediately starts which again adds to the terror.
Generic genre conventions:
During the film I spotted quite a few generic genre conventions used, for example, ‘a creepy location’. At the beginning of the film, during the credits, we see different images of the house that the family live in. Each shot is in black and white, and is held for around five seconds. The house is old fashioned and ‘creepy’. It looks very lonely which creates a sense of isolation. The house is very big and so although it doesn’t portray the fear of ‘claustrophobia’, it takes away the comfort of a ‘home’ suggesting that there is no ‘coziness’ and instead presents an idea of seclusion and aloneness. In all of the images there is one light source, whether it’s from a window, candle, or a lamp and the rest of the shot is very shadowy and dim suggesting that darkness or ‘evil’ is closing in, this is portrayed through the use of low key lighting.. In one of these images where the window is the light source we can see a back silhouette of a person standing in the corner. We can’t tell if the person is male or female, and because it doesn’t move or make itself ‘obvious’ as an audience we doubt that we have even seen it, and before the film has started we are already doubting our minds and think its playing tricks on us. I found this particularly effective and would love to use this idea within a shot of my own horror trailer. Another feature used is close up shots. Close up shots are used within horrors to show emotion. An example of this within ‘Insidious’ is when Dolton falls off the ladder up in the attic. He hears creaking sounds that imitate footsteps, and the camera zooms in to a close up on Dolton’s face so that the audience can depict his fear. Horror genre uses ‘binary oppositions’ in order to show the contrast between good and evil. This is used a lot in ‘Insidious’ when it comes to lighting. In a lot of shots half of Dolton’s face will be lit, but the other half left unlit. The unlit side represents the ‘possession’ over Dolton, the ‘evil’ within him, and the lit side symbolises the innocent young boy that we see him as at the beginning and end of the film. High angle shots are also used a lot within many horrors and definitely ’Insidious’, for example when Josh goes into “The Further” to find his son and eventually finds him chained to the floor there is a high angle close up used on Dolton, which then cuts to a medium high angle shot. This firstly shows the audience the emotion of the scene through Dolton’s face; fear and distress, and then widens the shot to explain to us why he is feeling like this; we see that he is chained up. The expressionist high angle shot makes Dolton seem inferior and fragile.
Ideas for my own trailer:
In thinking about my own horror trailer I spotted two aspects that I found very interesting and would like to try something like this for my own piece of work. The first example is when Renai spots a dancing ‘ghost’ in her house. The feature used in this scene which I found effective is contrapuntal music. The boy is dancing to ‘tip toe – through the tulips’, which is a ‘bouncy’, ‘happy’ piece of music. This unsettles the audiences mind and makes us see the scene as incredibly creepy and uncomfortable as it confuses us as to how we should feel. The second example is when Lorraine is explaining that she has ‘had a bad dream about the house’. We as an audience see the dream being played to us, but we can still hear Lorraine’s voice over the top of the action. The dream is played very slowly to us, and Lorraine’s voice, although not faint, is calm and smooth, but then collision cutting is used and we snap out of the dream to Josh who is listening to Lorraine, and we see the ‘Devil’s’ face behind Josh which cuts to Lorraine screaming. The juxtaposition of Lorraine’s calm voice being shot to the ‘Devil’s’ face and Lorraine screaming makes the audience jump which I feel is essential for a horror film. I also feel that having movement of a scene almost commentated on by a character would be powerful for a trailer as you can show a lot to the audience and explain about what your showing only what you want the audience to focus on.
Ideas to avoid within my own trailer:
There was only one scene within ‘Insidious’ that I would definitely avoid using in my own trailer. This is when Josh and Dolton are in “The Further” and we see a shot of ‘the Devil’. I found this to be quite humorous which ruined the atmosphere of that scene. I personally don’t think that any part of a horror should be amusing or comical because I feel that they are both very opposing ideas and only one aspect should be focuses on fully. The ‘Devil’s’ face also made the film highly unrealistic and ‘silly’.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching ‘Insidious’ and think that my favourite part of the film was when Josh entered ‘The Further’ and met some ‘wax-like’ people who were all sitting on the sofa. However, Josh walks off for a while, and when he returns the ‘wax-like’ people have been shot by another of their kind. On edge, Josh turns around and walks away, when he spins round all four of the ‘wax-like’ people are standing right in front of him, grinning. This made me jump due to the collision cutting, and the high speed montage used afterwards when Josh ran away from them. The quick shot back to the creepy, smiling faces created shock, which made me jump, and the fact that the shots sped up when he ran away and scary, fast paced music started to play created a huge amount of panic and terror.
Scenes that ‘impressed me’:
I felt that the very first scene of this horror captured the audience straight away. It starts with a very slow moving tracking camera that gradually travels through the house. Wan uses collision cutting to create suspense; the camera begins slowly and progressively speeds up as we get closer to a scary old women’s face lit by a singular candle (which we later find out is the same women from Josh’s past). To add to the tension further, high pitched parallel violin music is used which is uncomfortable to listen to and fits well with horror generic conventions. The music begins to get loader as we approach the women with a close up shot. I felt that this added to the creepiness of the scene as it sets the audience on edge expecting something more to happen, except the action stops there and cuts straight to a ‘normal’ situation. This scene becomes even more interesting later on in the film when Dolton is sitting on the stairs. Like the old women, the outer part of the shot is shadowy and gloomy due to low key lighting, and Dolton is lit by a single lantern. The audience automatically makes a link back to the old lady allowing our own minds to scare us as we begin to associate the creepy old women with Dolton himself.
Another scene which I again found particularly effective at creating suspense is the scene where Renai is playing the piano and hears voices over the baby monitor coming from her daughter, Cali’s, room. As an audience we identify a baby girl as vulnerable and defenceless, so just the thought of strangers being uninvited in her room and immediately sets us on edge before anything has even happened. The scene begins with Renai trying to write some music, she plays a slow song which relaxes the audience. The baby monitor is closer to the camera than Renai is and so focusses the audience on the monitor and this conveys the idea that something is wrong. The same tracking shot is then used again as the very first scene of the old women, and we follow Renai round the house slowly. The scene is very silent except for the sound of the baby monitor which I found effective as the audience is forced to listen to strangers in the baby’s bedroom instead of muffling the sound. When Renai gets to the bottom of the stairs a point of view shot is used which helps the audience put themselves in Renais position and a medium high angle shot is used on Renai which makes her look weak and helpless and exposed, weakening her character. The crackling voices on the monitor become aggressive and get loader and finally after the voice screams "I WANT IT NOW" Cali begins to violently cry and Renai rushes upstairs to comfort her daughter. Wan uses montage here; to minimise the emotional effect as soon as the voice screams “I want it now” Renai drops the monitor and the shots are sped up and there is a huge increase of amount of cuts from one scene to another. This creates a sense of panic for the audience. Load, fast beat music immediately starts which again adds to the terror.
Generic genre conventions:
During the film I spotted quite a few generic genre conventions used, for example, ‘a creepy location’. At the beginning of the film, during the credits, we see different images of the house that the family live in. Each shot is in black and white, and is held for around five seconds. The house is old fashioned and ‘creepy’. It looks very lonely which creates a sense of isolation. The house is very big and so although it doesn’t portray the fear of ‘claustrophobia’, it takes away the comfort of a ‘home’ suggesting that there is no ‘coziness’ and instead presents an idea of seclusion and aloneness. In all of the images there is one light source, whether it’s from a window, candle, or a lamp and the rest of the shot is very shadowy and dim suggesting that darkness or ‘evil’ is closing in, this is portrayed through the use of low key lighting.. In one of these images where the window is the light source we can see a back silhouette of a person standing in the corner. We can’t tell if the person is male or female, and because it doesn’t move or make itself ‘obvious’ as an audience we doubt that we have even seen it, and before the film has started we are already doubting our minds and think its playing tricks on us. I found this particularly effective and would love to use this idea within a shot of my own horror trailer. Another feature used is close up shots. Close up shots are used within horrors to show emotion. An example of this within ‘Insidious’ is when Dolton falls off the ladder up in the attic. He hears creaking sounds that imitate footsteps, and the camera zooms in to a close up on Dolton’s face so that the audience can depict his fear. Horror genre uses ‘binary oppositions’ in order to show the contrast between good and evil. This is used a lot in ‘Insidious’ when it comes to lighting. In a lot of shots half of Dolton’s face will be lit, but the other half left unlit. The unlit side represents the ‘possession’ over Dolton, the ‘evil’ within him, and the lit side symbolises the innocent young boy that we see him as at the beginning and end of the film. High angle shots are also used a lot within many horrors and definitely ’Insidious’, for example when Josh goes into “The Further” to find his son and eventually finds him chained to the floor there is a high angle close up used on Dolton, which then cuts to a medium high angle shot. This firstly shows the audience the emotion of the scene through Dolton’s face; fear and distress, and then widens the shot to explain to us why he is feeling like this; we see that he is chained up. The expressionist high angle shot makes Dolton seem inferior and fragile.
Ideas for my own trailer:
In thinking about my own horror trailer I spotted two aspects that I found very interesting and would like to try something like this for my own piece of work. The first example is when Renai spots a dancing ‘ghost’ in her house. The feature used in this scene which I found effective is contrapuntal music. The boy is dancing to ‘tip toe – through the tulips’, which is a ‘bouncy’, ‘happy’ piece of music. This unsettles the audiences mind and makes us see the scene as incredibly creepy and uncomfortable as it confuses us as to how we should feel. The second example is when Lorraine is explaining that she has ‘had a bad dream about the house’. We as an audience see the dream being played to us, but we can still hear Lorraine’s voice over the top of the action. The dream is played very slowly to us, and Lorraine’s voice, although not faint, is calm and smooth, but then collision cutting is used and we snap out of the dream to Josh who is listening to Lorraine, and we see the ‘Devil’s’ face behind Josh which cuts to Lorraine screaming. The juxtaposition of Lorraine’s calm voice being shot to the ‘Devil’s’ face and Lorraine screaming makes the audience jump which I feel is essential for a horror film. I also feel that having movement of a scene almost commentated on by a character would be powerful for a trailer as you can show a lot to the audience and explain about what your showing only what you want the audience to focus on.
Ideas to avoid within my own trailer:
There was only one scene within ‘Insidious’ that I would definitely avoid using in my own trailer. This is when Josh and Dolton are in “The Further” and we see a shot of ‘the Devil’. I found this to be quite humorous which ruined the atmosphere of that scene. I personally don’t think that any part of a horror should be amusing or comical because I feel that they are both very opposing ideas and only one aspect should be focuses on fully. The ‘Devil’s’ face also made the film highly unrealistic and ‘silly’.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching ‘Insidious’ and think that my favourite part of the film was when Josh entered ‘The Further’ and met some ‘wax-like’ people who were all sitting on the sofa. However, Josh walks off for a while, and when he returns the ‘wax-like’ people have been shot by another of their kind. On edge, Josh turns around and walks away, when he spins round all four of the ‘wax-like’ people are standing right in front of him, grinning. This made me jump due to the collision cutting, and the high speed montage used afterwards when Josh ran away from them. The quick shot back to the creepy, smiling faces created shock, which made me jump, and the fact that the shots sped up when he ran away and scary, fast paced music started to play created a huge amount of panic and terror.
