Insidious review: Scary movie genre could use more of this kind of homage

A family is haunted by beings from another dimension. WithPatrick Wilson,Rose Byrne. Director:James Wan(1:46). PG-13: Scares, violence. At area theaters.

Shhh, hear that? That cree-eee-eek-ing sound? Was that coming from inside the house in"Insidious"? No, it's"Insidious"itself, a horror drama aching under the pressure of so many cliches.

Yes, the scary movie genre could use more of this kind of homage than, say, another knife in the head. But there's a thin line between turn-of-the-screw appreciation and been-there/jumped-at-that redundancy. Not to mention that this new film from James Wan (director of"Saw") actually spends its second half haunting 1982's"Poltergeist."

Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne are Josh and Renai, parents of three young children who haven't even unpacked the boxes in their new home when things go bump in the day and night. After their oldest son hits his head while poking around in the dark attic, he goes into a coma and can't be awakened. Then Renai hears voices crackling on a baby monitor (movie ghosts love those things) and finds a bloody claw print on the kid's sheets. Time to move again.

The creepy hijinks continue in the second new house, so Renai and Josh's mother (Barbara Hershey, ahh!) call in a spiritualist (Lin Shaye) and her two goony assistants, who appear to be from anUpright Citizens Brigadesketch.

These otherworldly forces? They're from another dimension the boy has"astral projected"into, they're very familiar with the family and, naturally, now there's a fire-faced demon looking to inhabit the body of the comatose boy upstairs.

If a scare-fair is going to work such familiar territory, a new take or tone goes a long way, something like"The Others"or"Drag Me to Hell."To Wan's credit, most of the dread in"Insidious"does come from anticipation and is paid off by low-FX moments like the demon's shadow slowly opening his claws in a corner of a room, or a glimpse of a puckish ghoul dancing to old music on a phonograph.

Yet the movie's internal logic never makes sense— the malevolent spirits want to steal empty bodies, except when they seem to be able to cross over"into our world"anytime they want— and the vision-in-a-photograph idea just isn't startling anymore.

"Insidious"doesn't feature the lazy, home-video-style terror of"Paranormal Activity,"thankfully. But it's also pretty normal activity for a ghost story.

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