Unnoticed figures in photos and drawings; Barbara Hershey's character withholding the family history; the mother's protection standards; kids going into attics; Josh staying late to grade papers
Barbara Hershey's character sitting on the family history instead of telling her son is raised early as a nit; a parent would mention a ghost in every photo before their kids had kids.
How nobody notices the weird figure in the pictures, or the figure in the kid's drawings, is a red flag. — Bill Simmons
Rose Byrne's character is called a terrible mother whose protection standards were too low: she should refuse the new house and have everyone sleep in one room. — Bill Simmons
The son has brought home zero demon drawings despite watching hundreds of horror movies, and the mothering in this movie was pretty bad. — Bill Simmons
How Elise knows Dalton can astral travel is raised as a nit but disputed: a reply says she knew the father and went through it before, and mediums get a lot of leeway, like the Poltergeist medium.
Whether 600 dollars per exorcism can pay the bills is questioned; a Patreon pod is the joke answer. — Chris Ryan
Little kids do not go into creepy attics; a follow-up asks whether Dalton goes up because he is already called there, and heredity versus the fall is left a chicken-or-egg question. — Bill Simmons
Patrick Wilson's character staying to grade papers while his family is terrorized would mean the divorce papers are signed; he is a high school teacher, not working the Mueller Report. — Bill Simmons
James Wan is first argued to be at Apex because this breaks him out of the Saw pigeonhole and opens every door; Furious 7 is raised as a challenge.
The Conjuring is then accepted as Wan's Apex instead: it made three times as much, cost 20 million, is a better movie and a bigger contribution, and it leads to Furious. — Sean Fennessey
The Conjuring franchise is preferred; Insidious was abandoned around the third film, and doing Insidious before The Conjuring on the podcast would have made more sense. — Sean Fennessey
A joke imagines Wan living somewhere bright with no creaks rather than a Victorian mansion in Echo Park. — Sean Fennessey
Apex Mountain for astral traveling is raised, noting Behind Her Eyes, without an answer. — Sean Fennessey
Joseph Beshara is affirmed as at Apex Mountain, as both the demon and the score, likened to Johnny Greenwood acting in There Will Be Blood. — Bill Simmons
The film was originally going to be named The Further; Insidious is judged the better horror title. — Bill Simmons
Ethan Hawke turned down the lead, then made Sinister a year later, which is judged not as good as Insidious but not far off. — Bill Simmons
Asked whether the movie is better with Ethan Hawke, one answer is yes because all movies are better with him, and another agrees; it is also called a tough one because everyone loves Hawke. — Bill Simmons
Patrick Wilson being subtly off, staying at work grading papers while his wife is chased by a demon, is effective on a rewatch. — Bill Simmons
The first 60 percent is better than the last 40: the setup of people gradually realizing something is wrong beats the fix-it ending, and this is agreed. — Bill Simmons
Very few horror movies do both setup and payoff; The Exorcist and The Shining are the examples. — Chris Ryan
With a 2021 budget of 10 million instead of 1.5 the effects would be better; in the séance Patrick Wilson visibly jumps backward, overselling like 80s pro wrestling. — Bill Simmons
One participant thinks the movie has aged pretty well and still works. — Bill Simmons
The music is one answer: they crushed the score. — Sean Fennessey
The house is rated an eight and a half as a creepy house against a 10 for the Amityville Horror house, whose lit attic windows look like eyes. — Sean Fennessey
Patrick Wilson's horror IMDb (three Insidious films, two Conjurings, Annabelle Comes Home, The Nun, Lakeview Terrace, Young Adult) makes him an underappreciated Scream King or "horror daddy" to Jamie Lee Curtis's Scream Queen. — Bill Simmons
Barbara Hershey has something inherently creepy and grave about her, as in The Natural as the lady in black and even in Beaches.
Rose Byrne is utterly believable from the start, working on her songs, which makes you care about her.
What they squeezed out of such a small budget is both an aged-best and aged-worst point. — Bill Simmons
Insidious is a great word, added as a forgotten aged-best point. — Chris Ryan
The first listed scene is the kid falling off the ladder in the attic, which sets everything up; the attic works because of its high ceiling, trickling light and a ladder to another level, and the furnace is in the attic too.
A childhood attic is likened to the Raiders of the Lost Ark warehouse, and a family once heard running noises in their attic that the kids hoped was a ghost; an exterminator found rats that came up the ivy. — Bill Simmons
The Conjuring is a basement, East Coast movie while this is an attic, West Coast movie; creaky craftsman houses, also used well in Mike Flanagan's second Ouija movie, are underused in haunted house films. — Bill Simmons
The first evil baby monitor scene is next; a baby monitor that is always on and suddenly carries a strange voice works every time. — Bill Simmons
After the move, figures seen in and dancing through the new house in broad daylight, with the Tiny Tim needle drop, make the family realize the thing followed them; daylight can be scarier than 3 a.m.
The idea that the people, not the house, are haunted answers the usual question of why a family does not just move. — Bill Simmons
The revelation "it's not the house that's haunted, it's your son" is an always-great swerve. — Bill Simmons
The gas mask scene follows, then the face licker showing up when all hell breaks loose; her old-school analog ghost-detecting equipment, shared with Specs and Tucker, is loved. — Bill Simmons
The ghost figures noticed in the photographs is another listed scene, and Patrick Wilson saving his son is the last.
Favorite scene is the séance with the gas mask, with a shout-out to Rose Byrne uncovering the handprint on the sheets, which starts as worry that he is bleeding. — Chris Ryan
Two Barbara Hershey scenes matter; the kitchen-table scene brings the first demon reveal crouched behind Patrick Wilson, remembered as one of the scariest scenes seen in a theater, with a spilled Coke. — Bill Simmons
The whole gas mask scene with the face licker and the translating of what the spirits say is named as a favorite: "I'm going with that." — Sean Fennessey
An updated ten-episode streaming version is enthusiastically proposed. — Bill Simmons
A Dino Velvet prequel could explain his transition from aspiring filmmaker and show earlier opponents; a vice officer played by someone such as Patrick Wilson is suggested. — Van Lathan
The combination of this film and Girls supports a Patrick Wilson Apex argument; Little Children is preferred as acting work, and his franchise success is questioned as career leverage. — Bill Simmons
Aquaman and continuing franchise roles are cited against Wilson having substantially advanced; Little Children is another proposed career peak. — Sean Fennessey
Lili Taylor’s leading role in a major hit is accepted as her Apex despite personal affection for Say Anything. — Bill Simmons
Haunted-house films are proposed, but the late-1970s wave and Insidious compete with this period.
Rhode Island is considered without a settled answer; sports and other film references are floated. — Bill Simmons
Wilson and Farmiga are praised as talented, appropriately famous leads; her unusual energy makes her especially well cast. — Bill Simmons
The leads are praised for serving the horror premise rather than demanding showy character showcases; the period setting makes the film timeless. — Chris Ryan
Annabelle’s redesign from a less frightening real-life doll is praised, along with the opening claim that the case had been kept secret. — Bill Simmons
The first two horror rules are to leave a house with a secret crawl space and noose, and listen to a dog that refuses to enter. — Bill Simmons
The quick dismissal of the dead dog prompts a disputed claim that people cared less about pets in the 1970s.
Further rules concern a boarded-up cellar and researching a house bought at bank auction. — Bill Simmons
Repeated disturbances at the same overnight hour and unexplained bruising should alert the family. — Bill Simmons
Slow zooms, title fonts and homages to earlier horror films are praised; Lili Taylor is singled out as perfectly cast.
