The movie begins when teacher Josh (Patrick Wilson) and songwriter wife Renai (Rose Byrne) move into a big old house with their two sons and a baby. Very quickly, their oldest son lapses into some sort of a coma, and the doctors can't figure out what to do, so they send him home, where Renai takes care of him. Renai and Josh begin to have problems, because Josh often has to work late to grade papers (which, whatever), and around then Renai starts hearing voices over the baby monitor, finding bloody handprints on the sheets, and seeing figures hiding behind the crib and walking around the porch. One night Josh finds the front door wide open, setting off the alarm, and Renai finally convinces him that there's something wrong with the house. They move, but the strange figures show up again at the new place, and the family has to turn to a medium and her two assistants to figure out what's going on.

I won't spoil things by telling you what's going on -- the trailers all tell us that it's the oldest son who's actually the source, but it also ties in to Josh's past, for which they have to bring in his mother, played by Barbara Hershey -- but I will tell you that there are plenty of scares. The Exorcist, Poltergeist, The Shining, Paper House and The Sentinel are all clear influences on the scary side, but the movie has a comedic side, as well, with the two bickering paranormal investigators, so I would add Ghostbusters to that mix. That's not to say it doesn't have its modern-day parallels, as well -- Ghost Hunters is an even more apt reference, and Paranormal Activity and The Cell tread in similar territory. But Wan and Whannell have created a truly scary movie that's a hybrid of a lot of different films while still being fairly original. I give them credit for not throwing out a lot of cheap fake-out scares (cats screeching, shutters banging, etc.) -- everything that scares you in the movie is legitimately scary, and the shrieking violins, which kick in over the movie's title and stick around until the end, keep you on edge the rest of the time.

Check out an interview with Insidious star Barbara Hershey.

Did you see Insidious? Tell us what you thought below, then read more movie reviews here!

What are people saying about your favorite shows and stars right now? Find out with Talk Without Pity, the social media site for real TV fans. See Tweets and Facebook comments in real time and add your own -- all without leaving TWoP. Join the conversation now!