The horror movie that Jenna Ortega called “traumatising”
Actor Jenna Ortega first came to our attention when she starred as a young Jane in the comedy-drama series Jane the Virgin before going on to perform in Stuck in the Middle on the Disney Channel. In recent years, though, Ortega has cemented herself as something of a modern ‘Scream Queen’ after starring in several horror films and TV series.
Ortega recently performed in the likes of Scream, the relaunch of the famous film franchise, its follow-up Scream VI and X, the critically lauded Ti West horror movie starring Mia Goth. Ortega has also portrayed the character Wednesday Addams in Netflix’s Addams Family reboot Wednesday.
Ortega once spoke of her five favourite horror films in a feature with Rotten Tomatoes and went as far as to say that one of them was actually “traumatising”. The reason was that the actor watched the horror flick when she was just 12 years old, and it left a terrifying imprint on her.
She said of James Wan’s 2010 supernatural horror Insidious, “[It] was one of the first horror films that I really saw and it… There are some shots in that film that stay with me, where I feel like I can still see the red-faced demon guy wherever I go.”
“James Wan obviously knows what he’s doing in the horror department, but watching that as a 12-year-old was traumatising,” Ortega added. “I have a lot of admiration for that one.” So although she found the film to be traumatising, it’s a feeling that she does not shy away from as a big fan of the horror genre.
The 2010 film is the first instalment in the Insidious film franchise. Written by Leigh Whannell and starring Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne and Barbara Hershey, Insidious tells of a married couple whose son suddenly enters into a mysterious comatose state before becoming a conduit for several demons to enter the real world from the astral plane.
Other films that Ortega admires are Persona, Prom Night, Possession and Robert Eggers’ The Witch. She said of the latter, “I have a lot of admiration for The Witch. Everything about it — the cinematography, storyline, the performances — it’s so high quality and so beautifully done. I think that’s a movie I thought about for weeks after I watched it. It just never gets old.”
Check out the trailer for James Wan’s 2010 horror movie Insidious below to get a flavour of Jenna Ortega’s favourite “traumatising” movie.
