Insidious: Out of the Further, the sixth film (!!!) in the long-running supernatural horror franchise, has two things that absolutely give me the creeps. Extreme dental work and cramped, claustrophobic spaces. These movies have largely lost their way over the years, despite 2023’s tame Insidious: The Red Door being the series’ top money earner. They haven’t been truly scary in ages, but writer-director Jacob Chase delivers an injection of terror by focusing on the phobias many of us share.
Amelia Eve stars as Gemma, a dental hygienist and single mom who still lives in the childhood home where her troubled mom committed suicide years earlier. The place is packed to the gills with trinkets from the past, as Gemma holds onto painful memories with a death grip, much to the confusion of her nine-year-old daughter Maya (Island Austin). It’s also confounding to Gemma’s concerned cop boyfriend, Nick (Brandon Perea), who rightly suggests they should get as far away from that house as possible.
Nick’s concerns come to life as Gemma becomes another unfortunate person with the ability to travel to The Further, a Hellish dreamscape where restless, evil spirits roam. Chase offers a twist on what we’ve come to expect. No longer are the demons content to drag the living into their world, now they want to enter our reality. Gemma isn’t just a traveler; she’s a courier, able to bring them into our plane of existence. An evil entity and supernatural cult leader seeks to exploit Gemma’s power to bring legions of the world to our side, where they plan to throw a big party and attend baseball games. After they kill everyone, of course.
While the plot is a bit thin, Insidious: Out of the Further is bolstered by a series of creepy setpieces that will leave you shook. The most disturbing finds a creaky old man with disgusting baked bean teeth, strapped to a chair while Gemma scrapes chunks of brown gunk from his mouth and tongue. With disgusting, black, rotting molars undoubtedly causing lethal bad breath, things only get worse when he attacks her with a second set of teeth. The man, one of the Big Bad’s three ancient acolytes, stalks through the neighborhood eyeing Gemma and Maya like meals they can’t wait to devour.
Another skincrawling scene begins innocently enough: Maya’s love of building pillow forts in the living room. Gemma is lured into it, only to find a Backrooms-esque maze so tight she can barely move. When the acolytes emerge from the darkened corners and give chase, it’s enough to give claustrophobes heart palpitations.
Even though she died in the first movie, Lin Shaye’s popular psychic Elise Rainier returns. Usually the glue that holds this franchise together, it’s diminishing returns at this point, as filmmakers struggle to keep her relevant. Elise has less to do this time than ever before, and speaks through a tattoo artist/medium, Clare (Maisie Richardson-Sellers), in concocting a convoluted plot to free Gemma and Maya from The Further’s grip for good. The final act is too messy to hold onto the well-earned frights from earlier, and the primary baddie pales in comparison to Fire Face, Doll Girl, Parker Crane, and others, some of whom return as if attempting to prove this point themselves.
The Insidious movies have always been about family, and the path through Hell that they’ll walk to stay together. That throughline continues lovingly in Out of the Further, as Gemma fights to be a better mother to Maya than she had growing up. Even though this is a welcome return to form, Insidious has said all that it has needed to say and then some. Now is as good a time as any to let this franchise rest in peace on a high note.
Insidious: Out of the Further opens August 21st.
