Before we proceed into this month’s cover story on James Wan’s incredibly frightening ghost opus INSIDIOUS, allow us to quote a portion of our own review, published on Fangoria.com shortly after the picture’s world premiere at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival…

“As a lifelong horror-film enthusiast, I am forever chasing the dragon for the almighty fright. As you age and the divides between fantasy and reality become sadly concrete, it’s very difficult to totally suspend your disbelief and immerse yourself in the supernatural, to have films about ‘things’ from the ether affect you. But oh, how you want them to.

“Having just exited a screening of INSIDIOUS, feeling weak in the knees yet exhilarated, I’m overjoyed to report that Wan, once again working from a script by SAW partner Leigh Whannell, got me. He brought me back to that sweet, shuddery dark place I cowered in as a kid, where anything was possible, when I believed in the monster in the freaking closet or under the bed and was afraid to fall asleep, because I might get trapped in one of those abstract recurring nightmares that jolted me awake in the dead of night with tears in my eyes and my heart pounding in my tiny chest…

“I want horror fans to know that there is a picture out there that genuinely cares about craft, that desires to give you those old-fashioned spectral scares, to shake your spine and terrify you, but still ensure that—when the lights come up—you walk out inspired, not battered down by the terror on screen. INSIDIOUS is that film, a work of pure Gothic imagination and wonky dread. It’s like entering one of those rickety carnival haunted-house rides that whip you around, that trot out the ‘things’ that scream bells in your ears and reveal some new horror around every whiplash-inducing turn…”

Six months later, and we still firmly stand behind this enthusiastic write-up; INSIDIOUS (opening theatrically April 1 from FilmDistrict) is indeed Wan and writer/co-star Whannell’s stylistic apex, a film that takes the genre-bending promise of their juggernaut 2004 shocker SAW and fulfills it on every conceivable level. The film stars Rose (28 WEEKS LATER) Byrne and Patrick (HARD CANDY) Wilson as an average middle-class couple who move with their three children into a beautiful old detached Victorian home to start a new life. As mom vainly attempts to work on her music compositions while minding their infant daughter, their middle child has an accident in the attic and falls into a mysterious coma. Months pass, and not a single medical professional can determine why this darling little boy refuses to wake up. And yet—slowly, surely—“things” start to appear. Ghosts. Monsters. Bumps and screams in the night. Harsh whispers on the baby monitor. Bloody handprints on the bedsheets. Driven past the point of comfort by these unexplained phenomena, the family moves house…only to discover that the “things” have followed them…

For the whole story, pick up FANGORIA #302, on sale this month. Go here for full issue details, and here to order the issue or subscribe to the magazine!

Fangoria - Terror Tidbits