InSight

(2011) In/ Sight PSYCHOLOGICAL MYSTERY THRILLER

A young lady with multiple stab wounds gets submitted into the hospital. But before she died, an ER nurse by the name of Kaitlyn (Natalie Zea) telepathically start to inherit visions from the deceased, after a defibrillator was used between them to revive her. And a portion of the movie dwells on Kaitlyn attempting to convince others about her visions, while looking after her mother at the same time who has cancer, leading to a twist that doesn't make much sense. Co-produced and directed by Richard Gabai making yet, another movie that has already been done before, but with a much lower budget.

InSight is not a film that is easily forgotten nor brushed over. It starts off with some pretty extreme circumstances, we learn through fast cuts and dialogue that a girl named Allison Parks has been brutally attacked and we don't know why. Neither does the main character in the film, Kaitlyn, who plays one of the nurses trying to save Allison's life, as she is suffering from multiple stab wounds. Kaitlyn thinks for a moment that Allison is trying to communicate with her in some way, but before Kaitlyn can find out much, a defibrillator shocks Allison and she dies. The electricity travels through Allison's body and knocks out Kaitlyn, who then begins to see memories from Allison's life or so we are lead to believe for much of the film.

The uniqueness of InSight is how in which the story is told. Methodically, as slowly we learn more and less at the same time. I imagine it's hard for an audience to piece together what is real and what is only in Kaitlyn's mind, and I imagine that's the whole point. We struggle as the main character does to try and figure out whether Allison's murder was a random killing or something more. Along the way we are introduced to a skeptical detective, Kaitlyn's sick mother, a sleazy psychiatrist, and Allison's ex-boyfriend, all of these characters add to the mystery. None of them confirm for the audience on which end of the spectrum the story will end. Whether or not this was just a random killing and Kaitlyn is just hallucinating these memories, or there's something more to this murder, and Kaitlyn is the only one who can figure it out.

Richard Gabai directs this thriller in a way that allows the audience to piece-by-piece figure things out with the characters. By the end it's really up for interpretation what the truth is. If you see this with a friend, you will be discussing it long after the credits roll.

The story/idea of this psychological thriller is fantastic. That said, the directors made a complete mess out of it. I understand it was a low budget movie, but they had a great story and could have utilized the direction of this movie much better. Acting was alright. however, It was slow and boring. I almost stopped watching it halfway through nevertheless somehow made it to the end. The ending gives you some "InSight". It leaves you with quite a few scenarios that might have happened. The overall movie did give me a bit of a cringe, dark and sad feeling. I was gonna give it a 1/10 then notched up another +4 for the ending.

In the movies, the idea of crossing spirits or visions between two people that are experiencing death is not new, but sometimes is effective like in this case. it looks like the main characters are well defined and this is not cause the script. It happens because the acting is good enough. The problem begins when a good idea have not a good development and the ending it is not well justified. Even till close to the end you can think you are watching an average movie and that it was not a waist of time. But when the justifications of almost everything you suspected are shown just with images, if you were awake, you realize that there are loose ends and that makes you feel you saw a crappy movie. The idea is good but it is not well finished. Natalie Zea is correct in her role as well as Sean Patrick Flanery. It is always a pleasure to see Veronica Cartwright's acting but her role is small. If you don't have anything else to do, look for something better than this movie.

This movie kept me guessing throughout the entire movie. This wasn't intended to be the easy, mass-marketed schlock where you can figure it all out and they spell the ending out for you in the end, in case you don't have a brain or any imagination. This is one you want to go back and watch again to see if you can catch any more clues. It's a dark story with a generous helping of hope, decent to good acting and I have always had a thing for Sean Patrick Flannery, so that never hurts in my book. My only real complaint is that the camera-work and lighting sometimes got a little too artsy for my tastes. Oh, that and it's tough to see Juliet Landau as anyone not evil/insane.