“Insidious” feels an awful lot like “Poltergeist”. Both films are ghost stories where young children are taken into a ghostly dimension while eccentric old women try to bring them back. “Insidious” was directed by James Wan, who previously did “Saw” and would go on to do “The Conjuring”. This is not quite as clever as the first “Saw” but I found it more tolerable than “The Conjuring”.

In “Insidious”, a family have moved into a new home when strange stuff starts happening. The young Dalton (Ty Simpkins “Iron Man 3”, “Jurassic World”) goes into a coma and doctors are unable to provide any answers about the cause. The mother (Rose Byrne “Spy”, “Bridesmaids”) begins to see ghostly entities in the house. Eventually, an expert (Lin Shaye “There’s Something About Mary”) is brought in to try and tackle the problems tearing the family apart.

The family is not particularly interesting. Rose Byrne is okay as Renai. Patrick Wilson (“Watchmen”) is completely forgettable as Josh. A lot of the characters make really dumb decisions throughout the whole film. The ghosts in this movie are meant to be scary but they just look ridiculous. One of them even looks like Darth Maul from “Star Wars”. It’s so hard to be shocked by the haunting when you see Darth Maul is the one doing it. Seriously, did the filmmakers not realise how dumb this was?

“Insidious” is not terrible but it’s just so generic. Although it was silly, the original “Poltergeist” had some impressive special effects for its time. I suppose the twist at the end of “Insidious” would be somewhat unsettling and interesting but by that time, the script has abandoned any sense of logic. If you were scared by “The Conjuring”, you’ll probably be equally scared by this. However, I just think Wan is wasting his time with ghost movies.