Wan knows how to use his familiar bag of tricks to make us squirm and jump at the right moments, and today that’s rare among this brand of haunted house fright movie.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 31, 2023

While it’s long been time to call a moratorium on both haunted-house thrillers and creepy-child sagas, Insidious milks a bit of innovativeness from both these sub-genres before self-destructing.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 27, 2023

There have been far scarier movies that have been made and, while some are better than Insidious, there are many more that are MUCH worse.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jun 14, 2023

With Insidious, Wan and Whannell prove that they are not just one-trick ponies and deliver one of the scariest and best horror films of the new century.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 30, 2020

What it does it does with enough thrills, chills, and laughs to make it easily worth a view for connoisseurs of all things horror.

| Original Score: 3.0/4.0 | Sep 12, 2020

If Insidious were willing to really embrace the connection between insidious possession and the insidious allure of gender deviance, it would be a much better film.

| Sep 16, 2019

A cinematic version of one of those corny Halloween houses.

| Dec 7, 2018

Despite following a fairly formulaic narrative, Insidious pulls off more than the usual compliment of spine-tingling scares and memorably grotesque imagery

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 7, 2018

Insidious has no higher ambition than to scare the audience, and it succeeds much of the time.

| Dec 7, 2018

A scary movie that doesn't rely heavily on CGI and gore like many horror movies of today, but rather more on plot and interesting characters.

| Dec 7, 2018

The film's main source of horror - the spirits - seemed like they were borrowed from previous horror films. They're intended to be scary but having seen similar ones so many times before.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 28, 2017

"Insidious" ultimately works because of Mr. Whannell's script, which manages to be inventive and unpredictable despite its paint-by-numbers formalism.

| Oct 7, 2015

A tale of intriguing situations that rise to the surface carefully and cautiously before they explode in a flashy series of stimulating resolutions.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 4, 2015

Finds a pitch-perfect balance between homage and originality.

| Aug 26, 2015

This is a movie that wants to be several movies at once. It turns out to be none of them.

| Original Score: C | Jun 22, 2013

Insidious is effectively creepy and is able to provide some great horror elements without the gore.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Jun 2, 2013

After a suspenseful and shock-filled first hour, it loses control and veers off into routine supernatural silliness. I hate it when that happens.

| Feb 15, 2013

About as subtle as a fart at a séance

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 27, 2012

"Insidious" has a lot going for it, but sadly it's brought down too much by its silly & poorly executed final act, which quashes the film's momentum and has it stumbling too much as it tries to reach the finish line.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 20, 2012

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.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 8, 2012