Comparative research and textual analysis: Insidious

Insidious is a 2011 American independent supernatural horror film written by Leigh Whannell and directed by James Wan. The storyline: A family looks to prevent evil spirits from trapping their comatose child in a realm called The Furthur. At the end of the film, the evil spirits eventually make it into the real world and to cause pain to others. Like my media product, their is an evil spirit lurking after victims in our world.

Here is the trailer for Insidious:

This film, in my opinion, has great cinematography. Even from the opening credits, the makers create an intense, haunting tension by editing the lighting to make it darker and more creepy, and zooming in slowly makes the audience anxious. It does not rely on blood and gore to scare the audience. The tension is much deeper, and heavily relies on sound. It uses quiet, sneaky sounds to bring you in, and makes you jump when non-diegetic loud music is played, and this is when you know something will happen. It intensifies every situation and is what separates its self from other realistic horror movies like Paranormal Activity.

The mise-en-scene is typical for a horror film. The regular family live in a nice middle-class house in a quiet neighbourhood. The hospital equipment in the boy's room gives the feeling of something dangerous and unstable. It also may indicate pain and death. Beds usually symbolise resting and comfort but it is uncomfortable knowing that a possessed boy is always in this bed.

There is an eye-line medium close-up of the father which is a very powerful shot as it shows the his distressed facial expression. This is quite unconventional because men are usually seen as strong.

There is a montage of shots when the child is in hospital. It begins with a close up of the distressed couple and then changes to an over-the-shoulder long shot of the child in the hospital bed. A hospital has connotations of death, pain and illness so seeing the couples gaze at their injured child can actually cause other people to emphasise with them as a parental instinct. There is an eye-line pan when the mother is investigating the rooms as she senses a presence, the camera angle is from her perspective and the pan represents her head movement as she gazes at one room and then to another. This creates suspense as the audience can only see what the character is seeing so it puts you in her perspective that creates a creepy tension.

There are many fast cuts (editing) later on in the trailer for suspense. There is a quick close-up of a demon which makes the audience jump, especially because the red of the demon's face stands out. It leaves the viewer with a mental image of the demon actually looks like and this can vary on each viewers perception which then influences social interaction.

In terms of 'Maslows Hierarchy of Needs', this film trailer includes few of the key themes promoted by the theory. The theme of safety isn't offered, but slightly juxtaposed, it may be taken away by the intelligent storyline of which provokes the emotion of fear and adrenaline with the twisted plot. The theme of affiliation is offered as the viewer feels like they aren't the only individual that is feeling this emotion, its reassuring to know that everyone is witnessing the same thing. Lastly the sense of esteem, this may just be from the feeling of knowing "its just a film" and that you can return to safety and reality after.

The words "Insidious is" cross fades and changes place for example, "Insidious is...Is Insidious". This is a powerful technique as not only is the film title ambiguous they have adapted the definition of Insidious to link to the definition of the film. Insidious means something that proceeds in a gradual, subtle way, causing harmful affects.

The website http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/insidious/ says that Insidious got an average audience rating of 3.5 out of 5. A critic from the Daily Telegraph said "Plays out in such a high, trilling key of baroque anxiety it's both jumpy and ludicrous."

On http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1591095/ratings, 38,729 IMDb users have given a weighted average vote of 6.8 / 10. This shows that a lot of people have seen the film, which means it probably has a good trailer. This film has attracted more males than females. We can see this because 30,288 males have voted, and given an average of 6.8. 6,936 females have voted and given an average of 6.9. Stereotypically, Women get more scared than men, and this contributes and backs-up these statements. In the age categories, the ages that have voted the most are between 18 and 29 (even though it is rated a 15).