So we rented the movie “Insidious” without very high expectations. It seems like our movie choices lately have sucked, so we just thought the bad streak would likely continue with this horror movie. I also wasn’t sure about it because it’s only rated PG-13, and usually that’s a sign that I may not like the movie.

Especially since it was of the horror genre, I thought it would have to be rated R. But this movie pulls it off, and pulls it off very well.  Insidious is a unique take on the traditional haunted house and possession story.  It’s a mix of both, and it even adds a little bit of something else we’ve never seen – astral travel, or astral projection.

What this mix makes is a totally unique, well directed and well acted horror movie. You really do root for the characters. I felt like there were touched of a few of my favorite horror movies in this, which I think is also why I liked it. I saw touched of Poltergeist and The Exorcist, and it seemed like the makers of the movie may have loved those movies as well.

Rose Byrne, who is most well know for her lead role in Damages, is one of the lead characters. She plays a devoted stay at home mom to three young kids. One of the kids is the adorable actor Ty Simpkins, who plays their gifted son Dalton. You can tell he’s special from the start, but you’re not sure why.

Patrick Wilson plays her husband, and as is traditional in horror movies, he’s the biggest skeptic of them all when his wife begins to suspect that the house is haunted. The family then moves, but the apparitions follow them. This leads them down another path and they discover something about their son Dalton who has suddenly fallen in to a comatose like state which the doctors cannot explain.

This movie is really exceptional. First of all, they don’t rely on the fake scares that many other horror movies do. When they scare you, you really do jump in your seat. My cat was sitting in my seat during one particularly creepy scene, and I scared the crap out of him by jumping.

We watched the extras on this film, and it’s clear that the cast and crew had a great time filming this movie, which I think lended itself to the movie becoming such a great one.

I’d recommend this movie to anyone who likes genuinely scary, creepy movies where you are invested in the characters.

So, my husband and I watched the horror movie “Wrong Turn” last night. We had it on our DVR for a while, and decided to finally give it a try. This is a horror movie from about eight years ago with Eliza Dushku and the guy that plays good/bad cop on Dexter (don’t remember his name, he’s totally forgettable in this, as is the entire movie).

We thought this might be an interesting horror movie as it is about a group of people that, through strange circumstances, end up out in the middle of nowhere in the mountains of West Virginia – sort of like in Deliverance, still one o fthe best movies made in its generation.

But this is anything but Deliverance. The actors barely have any lines. Thank goodness, because when they say them, they are so ridiculous that you roll your eyes.  There is really no character development at all. You could care less if any one of these morons gets killed off at any point in this dragging movie.

One good point is that it is less than an hour and a half long. Perhaps when they were in the editing room and saw what a piece of junk they made, they decided to at least edit most of it out, sparing the audience of the most ridiculous script, horribly paced acting, and terrible story line.

Basically, all the girls are in skimpy outfits for no apparent reason. The lines delivered are so contrite that they aren’t even campy or funny, so if the director was going for camp, they totally missed the mark on it.

We were kind of hoping it might be campy and fun, like Cabin Fever was, but it wasn’t even close to managing that.  Eliza Dushku is usually decent, but she totally mailed it in too.  The whole movie was a total waste of time and I’d never recommend it to anyone. I can’t even believe we sat through the whole thing!

Sometimes when I read the front page news, and I see fluff headlines mixed in with the serious news headlines, it makes me wonder why celebrity worship and obsession has gone so far in this country – and other countries too now.  It’s not just a US thing any more. Celebrity worship is happening all across the globe.

It’s a pastime to talk about the latest gossip in the entertainment world, let’s face it.  We always want to gossip about who’s getting divorced, who’s moving in together ( apparently Justin Theroux and Jennifer Aniston are now), who’s hooking up, who’s going to rehab, and who is cheating on their spouse or is having some sort of mental breakdown.

Not that Tinsel Town doesn’t give us tons of stuff to work with. These spoiled, rich stars certainly don’t know how to stay married or make a relationship work. They’re pretty much so self absorbed from living in a place of self worship for so long (Hollywood), that they’ve lost touch with reality.

Sure, there are your occasional exceptions to the rule like Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson, or Paul Newman and his wife Joanne Woodward (who lost him a little while ago unfortunately to cancer).  But they are the few and far between.

I think that we like to read about their failures and exploits because it probably makes us feel good about our kinda boring lives in some weird way. At least that’s how I view it. Why else would we get a peculiar thrill out of reading about their failures, their problems and their imperfections?

Maybe we feel deep down that these rich stars do eventually pay a price for all their wealth and worship. Maybe it makes us feel better about not having so much money you can pretty much buy anything you want and will never want to anything again.

All I know is that I want the news to get back to being real news. I don’t want to read about the Kardashian wedding or the other sisters and their relationships. I don’t want to hear about who’s shacking up with who – unless I open a gossip mag or go to a gossip site!

I haven’t seen Fright Night yet (the remake I mean), but I can tell you one thing, I can’t wait to! My husband will be a hard one to get to the theater to see yet another vampire flick. It’s hard enough to get him to watch the Twilight Blu Rays with me!

But this one should be a little grittier – I hope at least. I LOVED the original movie that was released in 1985. It starred a lot of little known actors, and was largely a lower budget movie that did better on video than it did in the theater.

I had a period of time when I was a younger tween where I went through a fascination with vampires. Much like the tweens are going through today I suppose. There was something so appealing about these beautiful beings that seems to skate above the laws of humanity and live forever as well as have special powers.

It’s very sexy. Let’s face it. That’s why the vampire legend has gone on so long and been such a popular subject for movies, television shows and more.

In the remake, Colin Farrell plays the Jerry Dandridge character that was played by the uber hot (at least I thought back then) Chris Sarandon (yep, he was married to Susan Sarandon for a while a long time ago).

Colin Farrell does look like he’s made quite a sexy vampire from the previews I’ve seen. The casting is also pretty good, except I’m going to have a hard time separating the original movie from the new one because I was such a huge fan of the original campiness.

I also loved the special effects of the original Fright Night, and with all the CG that’s done now, I’m not sure it will still maintain its original appeal. The special effects were actually better back then, in my opinion. I mean sure, you have the occasional mold breakers like Matrix and Lord of the Rings, but largely the special effects in the eighties and nineties just looked much more real.

Anyways, the remake has gotten good reviews so far. One said the movie is a little too long. Another said that some of the interesting characters weren’t utilized enough.  Most of them seemed to agree that the new movie was a very fun ride.

That’s all I’m asking for!