Next month, HBO Max will become home to director James Wan’s iconic 2010 horror movie Insidious. All the Insidious movies are worth watching, although director James Wan’s 2010 original still stands out as the strongest entry in the franchise. Insidious follows Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne’s Josh and Renai Lambert.

These two parents are horrified and confused when their young son falls into a coma and becomes possessed by malevolent demonic enтιтies. Insidious was a mᴀssive hit upon release, earning $100 million on a budget of only $1 million. The subsequent sequels made the Insidious franchise timeline harder for fans to follow.

Fortunately, viewers will get a chance to reintroduce themselves to the series in July 2025. HBO Max will become home to Insidious from next month, allowing fans to revisit the acclaimed horror movie.

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Although a lot of James Wan’s movies have been even bigger thanks to major hits like The Conjuring and Aquaman, the 2010 movie still represents a turning point for his career. Wan made a name for himself with 2004’s Saw, a blend of psychological horror and police procedural that earned $104 million on a budget of only $1 million.

Saw spawned an entire franchise, but Wan’s next movies weren’t as successful. 2007’s Death Sentence underperformed at the box office and was slated by critics, while the same year’s ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Silence was a critical and commercial flop. As such, the arrival of the Insidious movies marked a huge turning point for Wan.

After six years of struggling to match his original success, Wan’s Insidious was relatively well-liked by critics. However, its mᴀssive box office success was what spawned an ongoing franchise. Wan followed Insidious with 2013’s one-two punch of Insidious: Chapter 2 and The Conjuring, cementing his status as one of horror’s biggest directors.

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This also proved that Insidious could sustain a franchise as easily as the Saw movies. Wan’s Insidious remains one of his best horror movies, avoiding the campy excess of Malignant and the self-seriousness of The Conjuring movies to produce a terrifying, straightforward ghost story.

The later outings in the franchise might have lost critical favor thanks to their increasingly convoluted plotting, but Insidious remains a fine reminder of how well Wan can craft a chilling horror. Updating the classic haunted house setup, Insidious toys with themes of generational trauma while still providing the masterfully crafted shocks viewers come to horror for.

These elements combine to make Insidious a deservedly acclaimed, memorable horror hit. As such, genre fans need to check out Insidious once the movie arrives on HBO Max in July 2025.