‘Insidious’ and the Sacred Rules of Ghost Movies

What happens when James Wan, the Sultan of Saw (which, let us never forget, is the most important film series ever made) makes an old-school ghost movie?

Well, for one, he steals. From Argento, Polanski, Spielberg, Amenábar, even Shyamalan (who, let us not forget, did make one great ghost movie). And yes, James Wan even steals from himself. When faced with the prospect of a meat-and-potatoes horror film, the maestro of torture fetish has spackled together bits and shards from nearly everything in the genre, forming a pasty drywall that’s scary in some places, and just silly in others. And thus we have Insidious — in theaters today!

Do you really need me to tell you the premise of this movie? No, you don’t. It’s a formula that’s fueled countless ghost stories through countless decades (well, ok, around ten decades). Ridiculously attractive family enjoys the spoils of suburban life, with strapping dad (Patrick Wilson) heading off to work while fragile mom (Rose Byrne) writes girl-folk music and minds her brood. They wear matching PJs and drive SUVs and traipse through their well-appointed mahogany-paneled McMansion, until something goes… wrong. Something SPOOKY! Bumps in the night, doors creaking louder than a supersonic jet, windows mysteriously cracking at 100 decibels (seriously, this movie is LOUD), and all of it centered around a sweet, overly-shrewd child who winds up in a coma. Beautiful mother is besieged with fear and grief, while stoic husband bears it all. The marriage frays, the other children cower, the ghosts get nastier, and then… well, Jigsaw shows up? (No, that’s not a spoiler.)

The reason this premise is a cliché, of course, is because the cliché WORKS. There is nothing more terrifying than a big suburban house (seriously: I will only live in apartments). And there is no character more poignant and empathy-rousing than a terrorized child (or the terrorized mother trying to save him).
But to transform a cliché into a great horror movie, you need technique, and pacing — the slow, gradual reveal, the building of dread and unease that mounts until your chest hurts and your knuckles crack. Classic ghost-in-the-house films can have you reaching for an oxygen mask and crawling under your chair by the second half, even over something seemingly-mundane (remember the ball bouncing down the stairs in The Changeling? Yeah, me too, since I was shrieking like a tween watching Justin Bieber die by chainsaw).

The key to all this ghostly mastery, of course, is SUBTLETY. Shadows, dark corners, strange noises, all presented with patience and nuance and skill. So now you see the problem: Is there anything remotely subtle about Saw? Take away the bone-crushing machines and vats of hypodermic needles, and what are the Saw films really? Some cheap sets, a crazy albino, and a fetid shitpile of terrible acting. Which is essentially what we get with Insidious.

To be fair, despite all the clumsiness and mess, the first hour or so is pretty friggin’ scary. While Wan falls victim to every trap in the Ghost Gospel — excessive melodrama at every spooky sighting, screechy violins for every self-opening door, revealing the first ghost (a carbon copy of Vigo from Ghostbusters 2) way too soon — he does have a flair for using sound and mechanics in a horror film. Say what you will about Saw, but those death contraptions looked and sounded terrifying, and he puts those skills to use here.

But around two-thirds of the way through, it all devolves into mush. Specifically, we take a dive when Wan breaks Commandment Number ONE in ghost lore: Thou shalt not overexplain. Ghosts cannot be rationalized. There is no place for them in logic. Attempting to re-cast them within the sphere of lucid thinking will destroy your entire movie. (Remember the whole “demon expert” scene in Paranormal Activity? Remember how it was boring as shit?)

So when Byrne calls in “The People Who Can Help,” they proceed to steer the movie off a cliff. Wan can get away with stealing, and over-showing, and over-soundtracking, and even absurd character set-ups (I mean, Jesus: a four-bedroom house, an SUV and six months of medical bills on a lone teacher’s salary?). But when a set of hipster ghostbusters show up to help an old lady perform a séance in a gas mask, you officially know your movie has been composted into mineralized waste.

From there, it just gets laughable — which is a shame, since this one could have gone any number of ways. Even a Jigsaw cameo would have been preferable. At least he could have tossed in a catchy tagline.

Melissa Lafsky wants to be scared by your movie.

In this coming Monday’s New York magazine: “Tomorrow’s Hot Neighborhoods Today.” Pack your bags, kiddos! You can only hope to live in “Twenty under-the-radar microneighborhoods that may just be the Next Big Thing, from McGolrick Park to the Lower East FiDi. Including: Four micro-micro-neighborhoods that are blossoming on side streets, thanks to a slew of new storefronts.” Okay, if you are proposing McGolrick Park — Greenpoint’s stretch of Nassau and Driggs on the far side of McGuinness, then times are strange. Mmm, the screaming emanating from PS110! And the Polish weeping at Arthur’s Funeral Home! How delicious, a nine-block walk to the Nassau G train stop. Great for the unemployed! At least property values will always be depressed, thanks to being directly adjacent to one of the most contaminated sites around. Easy access to cancer!

It’s Time To Support A Knockout Performance

by Michael Sullivan

It’s a common misconception that awards season is now finally over, which makes sense. Who could blame a weary Hollywood for calling it quits after the Oscars? Months of campaigning do take their toll. But there’s another major award show waiting in the wings, and this time, Academy be damned, every American has his or her vote. And thank goodness, as the MTV Movie Awards have neglected to include the rock from 127 Hours on their shortlist for Best Villain.

It’s disheartening, I know, but don’t despair! A grassroots viral campaign is underway to get the rock nominated as a write-in candidate. If you want to fight the good fight, go here, scroll to the bottom and make your voice heard. There’s no limit to the amount of times you can vote in a day, so vote as often as you care too. The rock is up against two opponents from The Twilight Saga: Eclipse and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 each — not to mention The Dude in Tron — so it needs as much help as an inanimate object could ask for.

Michael studies film and television for work. Michael studies cocktails and REM cycles for fun.

“A Montana RadioShack owner said he will continue to give away guns with satellite television subscriptions despite the corporation’s insistence he halt the promotion. Since October, independent dealer Steve Strand has been offering a gift card for a $125 pistol or $115 shotgun and a free background check to customers who sign up for two-year Dish Network packages. Those not interested in the firearms can opt for a $50 pizza gift certificate.” [Related]

And so, yes indeed: at the expense of some coworkers, the curse of the lottery attaches itself to seven fresh victims, and workers at the New York state Division of Housing and Community Renewal will each take home $19.1 million. (Footnote: they’re all IT workers! Which I kind of love. Also: wow, big IT department, am I right?) And now they are all going to die in horrible ways, as the lottery demands. The most important thing to know is: it seems reasonable to suggest that lottery winner Gabrielle Mahar has already won the lottery, if the photo of her with her boyfriend can be believed. Hmm!

“I have a job with the state doing work I love. I’m not going to sit around and ask myself that question for the next 20 years. I’m moving on. It’s all good.”
 — New York State Homes and Community Renewal Agency employee Michael Kosko discusses his reaction to skipping out on his office’s lottery pool, which wound up winning $319 million. It is terrific that Kosko can embrace that attitude (and he’s probably fortunate not to have won) in the face of a situation like this. And while Kosko’s line about how, working for the state, he feels like he has already won the lottery, will undoubtedly be used by some Post columnist in that paper’s ongoing campaign to engender resentment against anyone with a public sector job, it’s the bit on the front page referring to the rest of the story, “See LOSER Page 5,” that really rams the message home. You’d think a rightwing rag like the Post would salute someone who refused to participate in a government program that redistributes wealth. Anyway, stay strong, Michael Kosko!

by Philip Larkin

Every year on the first of April the editors of The Awl commission a poem by a respected scribe to best encapsulate our feelings about the day. This time around we went with an Englishman of the 20th century known for his bleak and unsparing view of modern life. Enjoy!

They Be The Worst

They fuck it up, the April fools.
They think they’re funny, but they’re not.
Not only are they stupid tools
They’re each the saddest kind of twat.

But they were pranked by older clowns
Whose jokes were just as bad and lame:
Pathetic gags inspiring frowns,
Transparent hoaxes, all the same.

Fool hands on foolishness to fool.
Of lousy jokes we’ve got a glut.
Please listen to this simple rule,
And keep your fucking fool mouth shut.

Philip Larkin did not have any kids himself.

by Jay Caspian Kang

I’m thinking today about Hedwig and “The Origin of Love” and the time when the earth was still flat and clouds were made of fire and mountains stretched up to the sky, sometimes higher. When folks roamed the earth, like big rolling kegs, with two sets of arms and two sets of legs and two faces peering out of one giant head, who sang the songs?

Last night on “Idol,” Mary J. Blige came and visited Jacob Lusk in the studio and when they embraced, I had a vision of the two-headed, four-legged singing genius, who, by the cruelty of Zeus, was split into two separate pieces, each one spectacular on his/her own accord, but also not complete until one found its other half.

It’s been noted in the past that while Mary J. takes the listener on an emotional journey like none other, the logistics of that journey can sometimes be mucked up by her lack of range. That’s not evident in the clip above, which is pure genius, but in Mary’s career, there have been several notable moments when her voice couldn’t quite match up with her heart and her tears.

Enter Lusk, who has an exploding problem, a theatrics problem, but one of the rangiest, most powerful voices we’ve heard in, like forever. Temper him with Mary’s pain, her beautiful phrasing, the motherfucking stank she puts on every word, and you would create the perfect singing monster, one that could reclaim the earth for the Righteous Army of Teddy P and the Holy Sisterhood of Etta James.

In Lusk’s performance last night, you can see how much he needs Mary J. Instead of making the song cry, he just up and cries. Part of this inability to properly emote a sad song probably comes from Lusk’s roots as a church singer, where everything he sang was about the Glory of Jesus. To be fair to God, that’s why he’s so good with “I Believe I can Fly” and “You’re All I Need to Get By.” Both are about uplift and believing in both yourself and the presence of a better, steadier hand.

When asked to sing about something truly sad and personal, he faltered and flubbed and looked horrifically constipated. Blessed with all the tools to sing the blues — the high notes, the low lows, the spine-shivering minor notes, Lusk lacks Mary’s pain, her life experience, her ability to know exactly when one note should end and the next should begin.

Perhaps, then, the vision of the two coexisting on one body is not the ideal vision for the Lusk/Blige hybrid. Maybe, instead, we should look towards Iron Man or “True Blood” and think of Lusk as the weird whirly power plant thing or the vampire blood that would enable Mary J to live another century and devour the world.

Moving on…

“Idol’”s insistence on making everyone have a sob story is their attempt to cover up the fact that most of their contestants are soulless singing machines. With the exception of Jacob, not one of the contestants can properly emote a song. For example, if Tricky wrote a song whose lyrics were, “Here I am standing/sorta whispering the intro/and there is dry ice at my feet/and that awful spotlight that they used on Bo Bice/and here the song is building too quickly/and here are ten backup singers in robes who are singing with me/as I stand frigidly and screech/and where is my stage mom?/ who am I?” Pia Toscano would somehow make it seem like she was singing about Puppy Chow. To an auditorium of bored cats.

Which is all my way of saying that there will never be another Fantasia. “Idol” is now a showcase for guys whose voice sorta sounds like whoever has a hit on the radio, annoying girls whose moms have been training them for “this moment,” and screechy fake rockers. Nobody cares about taking the listener on an emotional journey anymore.

I mean, just listen to her! When she asks, “Why can’t we talk it over?” your heart just rips open and you want to sit down, pick up the phone and give Fantasia a call. Over the past two decades, only Mary J. has had that ability. Lusk, for all his pyrotechnics, doesn’t have it. At least not until we turn him into an Iron Man suit. Then he’ll be part of something greater.

And then there’s this…

Jay Caspian Kang’s debut novel, The Dead Do Not Improve, will be published by Grove in 2012. His previous work on divas can be read here and here.

Here you will find a Michael Jordan that resembles Adolf Hitler. Yeah, we didn’t see that one coming either.

by Mark Bibbins, Editor

Pic

Your mouth is putting me on
like a flower
that fits.

EARLY PHOTOGRAPHY: You are very quickly.
FOREST MUSHROOM: I am its beauty.
FOREST: I am it
with the whitensses of the mushrooms.
PACIFIC GARDENS: What was one thing

was moonesque.
What was wet ran

that way with the demon-gardener.
A SMOKE: I am the devotion of smoke.

HER: I’m the beauty of her beauty.
LIGHT: When I go somewhere

with my one eye
I don’t go somewhere else.

War Marvels

All of my Bernieces have turned into gods.
Light it up, Bernieces.
Miscarry this fineness,
like the million flares I wanted to exist.

THE FLARES THAT DO EXIST: We’re a tease.
EARTH: Eat me.
EARTH: I will if you do,
with my big mouth.
BALTHAZAR: I would have said the sky should eat

at this cannibal feast too,
but its diet

is comprised of souls and disco.
FLAME: Guillaume,
it is you who approached me in the centuries.

GUILLAUME: Let me tell you about it.
THE STORY OF GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE: A woman inside of a cannon
inside of a horse

got inside of Guillaume
inside of Guillaume inside of
what the future shall know.

The Smokes

And during that war is,
the earth goes ahead
getting gussied up.

FUME: Hup to, olfactory system.
BLACK FOG: The color tastes like the color.
FLOWERS: (a little light in the loafers) Can I have something?
THE ZONE: I mind

the way you can in me,
but yes, the way your hand can move

things that aren’t hair as if they were hair.
GRAVITY: I can do it where blue smokes.

OVERSEXED GOD: And where things soften up.
PAPER WITCH: I put fire,

I don’t know, wherever,
and it better stay put.

Paul Legault’s poems have been published or are forthcoming in Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, Maggy, SUPERMACHINE and other journals. He is the author of two books of poetry, The Madeleine Poems (Omnidawn, 2010) and The Other Poems, which is forthcoming this fall from Fence Books. He co-edits the translation press Telephone Books and works at the Academy of American Poets.

For more poetry, visit The Poetry Section’s vast archive. You may contact the editor at poems@theawl.com.