Maybe Insidious: Out of the Further‘s main issue is simply that viewers need to see the prequels — or at least one of the five films stretching back to the original James Wan horror movie that introduced this world. A world first established by the spookily depressing “It’s not the house that’s haunted; it’s you” conceit that helped define the franchise — alongside a Darth Maul-fuelled jump scare and the dulcet tones of Tiny Tim’s Tiptoe Through the Tulips.
This time, it’s a return to the same: A scary story told through an emotional lens. A sort of frightening, sort of funny, more-than-flimsy family-drama morality play that reads like “Pennywise goes to the psychologist.” One that works when it works — competent and restrained in ways that feel mature and suspenseful and, aesthetically, quite impressive.
But one that stumbles, falters and fails the longer it wears on, showing its age and flimsiness as its various, incompatible tones clash over a plot that feels just a little too rote to sustain our interest when combined with an intentional lack of actual fear.
One that uses parenthood, aging and the pain we inexorably pass on to our children as its big bad, populated by a world of ghosts and ghouls — white-faced, wrinkle-grinning monsters straight out of George Romero’s central casting. Assuming that casting office was kitty-corner to the local senior’s centre.
WATCH | Insidious: Out of the Further trailer:
It’s all related to the preceding films, you see. It’s a movie ostensibly for the fans — not a disqualifying fact, even if it does make the plot harder for newcomers to discern. But combined with a near-complete lack of scares in what is, you’d think, a horror film, the biggest hurdles to enjoying Out of the Further is an odd mix of both under- and overwriting.
For example, and most importantly, there are our characters.
Who do we follow? That would be Gemma (played by Charli Penton as a child, and Amelia Eve as an adult), the traumatized daughter of a traumatized, raccoon-eyed mother, Ingrid (Laura Gordon).
Ingrid is a woman who screams violent nonsense to herself as young Gemma does homework and makes her own dinner by flashlight, then cowers under her blankets as those screams float up from downstairs. That is, until those screams suddenly stop the night a deeply unwell Ingrid bashes her own head against the shower tiles.
As is obvious to us, it’s a death clearly related to the otherworldly whispers and general supernatural goings-on around her. It’s also a death that becomes a traumatizing memory Gemma carries into her own motherhood of young Maya (Island Austin), morphing into a barely suppressed fear she’ll fail her daughter the same way her own mother failed her.
Of course, that fear is supercharged when those whispers and white-faced seniors come for her, too. Out of that unfolds a complicated — but still poorly fleshed-out — paranormal race against the clock involving a mysterious, coke-nail-wearing villain (Sam Spruell), a trio of balding cultists and trips to and from the “Further” — the indigo-tinged purgatory where Insidious‘s entire lore resides.
But for all the layers and self-references in this setup, it isn’t supported by an equally fleshed-out plot. There is Gemma’s partner, Nick (Brandon Perea): a cardboard cutout in the shape of a boyfriend who exists solely to doubt, then immediately and unquestioningly believe, that literal demons are the root cause of his girlfriend’s increasingly obvious mental health struggles.
There is Clare (Maisie Richardson-Sellers) the medium-slash-tattoo artist in charge of connecting Gemma to the other side of the Further. Her arc seems to rest on a gimmick involving headphones and a trance that is portentously set up only to be dropped and ignored.
There is series veteran Elise (Lin Shaye), the spirit guide stuck in the Further, whose Gerber Baby-like representation of the franchise is slightly undercut by her appearing in what feels like four scenes total. Two characters whose lack of growth in this story is seemingly excused away by the tacit argument that they were interesting and dynamic in earlier entries.
Then, of course, there are the monsters: a group of geriatric goblins dressed in Spirit Halloween costumes, whose eerie similarity to the background characters of that old photo from The Shining probably means something to those who watched something between Chapter 2 and The Red Door.
And it is all that baggage that may really be the disqualifying factor for Out of the Further — the need to know all the elements hand-waved over, and to adore the franchise staples that had a mob of fans screaming at Shaye’s arrival in Peru.
Because ignoring that, there is something here. Eve’s Gemma is genuinely spellbinding, and her scenes with young — but incredibly capable — Austin can be heartrending in their simple honesty.
Meanwhile, writer-director Jacob Chase understands and values the reserved, slow-reveal style of horror that simultaneously draws you into a world while putting you closer and closer to the edge of your seat, waiting for the scare you know you’re being lulled into.
He also understands the narrative and cinematographic language needed for his angsty, elevated horror. That’s all obviously apparent in the isolating visions and traps that communicate both danger and emotional confinement — from an infinite prison built from a soft, unyielding couch fort to a torture chamber constructed entirely of childhood memories. And apparent in the blue-black colour grade and intense use of shadow to evoke the chiaroscuro needed to evoke drama and isolation.
There’s also the increasingly prevalent cinematic tendency underpinning the kind of sad-boy cinema that fuelled Chase’s ultimately disappointing Come Play — where demons and darkness serve as metaphors for all the evils set against children in the internet era. But it’s a tendency that also supported A Monster Calls, Skinamarink, The Babadook and The Grudge: horror that supplants the omnipresent fear of death with the deadening terror of depression.
In these “elevated” films, the real horror isn’t evil; it’s ennui. There is nothing scarier than the deep void threatening to engulf us all — all the more so because we seem inescapably drawn into it.
That sort of framing can work wonders in modern horror — especially in a world where hope and happiness can feel more fictional than any cryptid creeping out of frame. But while Out of the Further does an admirable job setting up that conceit, it’s the follow-through that’s lacking.
Instead of digging into either the characters or story enough to make that message land, both are dropped into a streamlined, stereotypical third act that feels over before it begins. Bizarre and alienating attempts at humour undercut the seriousness Out of the Further would otherwise rely on. And the stylistic choice to pursue camp aesthetics over actual fear leaves the experience more frustrating than frightful. Even though it manages to craft an immersive and visually stunning world, it isn’t quite enough to bring it all home.
Or maybe, you just need to watch the prequels.
