Ladies and gentlemen, I am stunned. The unthinkable has occurred. For the first time in years, a horror movie has been produced that is actually-for lack of a better word-horrifying. And it's a movie that has been delivered by none other than director James Wan and screenwriter Leigh Whannell, the creators of the Saw series. To their credit, the original Saw was quite intense, if not altogether frightening. But with Insidious, they have crafted a classic, haunted-house scarefest that is both frightening and intriguing. The original story by Whannell is one of those rare scripts that takes a beleaguered genre like horror and injects it with adrenaline-fueled doses of inspiration. The plot sometimes borders on utter gut-punching absurdity, but in a good way, because it's all completely new. Wan manages to take Whannell's pumped-up screenplay and turn it into a vividly frenetic film full to the brim with inspired camera tricks.

The story begins with a series of mysterious shots in which the camera creeps slowly down a long hallway and turns a corner to reveal a boy asleep in his bed. The camera pan continues to reveal a horrific face pressed against the boy's window that looks like the Joker wearing a bridal gown. The next shot is of massive block letters spelling out "INSIDIOUS" in blood-red lettering.

This admittedly cheesy introduction paves the way to the story's proper introduction as we meet the Lambert family that has just moved into their innocent-looking new home. Josh (Patrick Wilson) is a school teacher who is away from home too often, and Renai (Rose Byrne) is a songwriter/stay-at-home mom who spends most of her time with their three children. Of the three, the middle child Dalton (Ty Simpkins) becomes the major catalyst for the ghostly events that will soon befall the ill-fated family. Dalton, an ordinarily active and curious lad, is one day found by Josh to be asleep and cannot be woken. Doctors assume he is comatose, but there appears to be nothing wrong with him.

Three months pass with Dalton in this state, during which mysterious events start to occur: doors swing open on their own, unidentified voices are heard over a baby monitor and ghostly figures appear at random. These events increase, and soon, demonic figures are walking all about the house. The family must figure out the cause of these events and if they're linked to the condition of their chronically sleeping son.

The basic setup of these events is fairly straightforward, and during the movie's first half hour there isn't anything particularly eventful to earn notice. Some of the film's early scares are generated a bit cheaply-with doors slamming and the volume of the score cranked up to deafening proportions in order to make the audience jump-but these early tricks soon segue into genuinely frightening material.

Some of the best scares can be attributed to Whannell's extremely creative artistic designs for the demons that haunt the Lambert family. These original creations include the Joker bride described earlier; a dancing boy/puppet hybrid wearing a beret; a gigantic figure with a melted face resembling Halloween's Michael Myers; and a freakish black and red demon with clawed hands, hooved feet and a face that strikingly resembles Darth Maul of Star Wars.

Whannell and Wan prove to be an extremely collaborative team, as Wan takes Whannell's freakish material and combines it with his brilliantly twisted camerawork. Wan's camera has a way of showing the demons without really showing them, portraying them with a slightly skewed angle that cuts off parts of their bodies or covers them in shadows. This trickery makes it harder for the demons to be seen, and sometimes unnoticeable even when they're fully framed in the shot-but this makes them even scarier when they are finally seen.

The film hits its highest note in the third act, when the film's setting shifts from the human world to a dream world haunted by demonic spirits called the Further. Although I think the name the Further sounds like it's trying to be too cool for its own good, its concept is the film's most original aspect and what sets it apart from many other horror films. Some viewers may find this hard to swallow, as it does take a departure from traditional haunted-house movie formula, but I believe it is exactly this change in setting that makes the idea so intriguing. Wan's direction during this sequence is especially interesting, as he shows us a kind of alternate version of the Lamberts' house, swathed in Wan's characteristic green lighting (made famous in Saw) amid a shadowy and murky fog. This manages to give the world an ethereal quality that is both terrifying and hauntingly beautiful.

The actors all do a fine job playing their respective roles, although I found Wilson's portrayal of Josh to be rather annoying and self-serving, and he hams up the role a bit. The best acting is probably to be found in Lin Shaye, who plays Elsie Rainer, a woman who can communicate with the dead. Elsie's two ghost-hunting cronies are played with great comedic affect by Angus Sampson and Whannell, who seems to love popping up in his own films. But acting is never the strong point in horror, and it is the creators who put their stamp on Insidious.

It may not be the best horror film ever created, and it's quite possible that Insidious will not leave any lasting impression on the genre. It's nevertheless a fun, intense and well-crafted film that delivers on its promise. With Insidious, Wan and Whannell have proven two important points-that they have a creative life after Saw, and that horror films can still, indeed, be horrifying.