Movie Reviews

The third chapter in the Insidious series is a prequel, set before the haunting of the Lambert family. It’s pretty much the same stuff though as the first two movies, but with a different cast. Troubled teen Quinn Brenner (Stefanie Scott) is trying to contact her recently deceased mother Lilith, but reaches something evil instead. Things quickly go from bad to worse, especially after a traffic accident, which leaves Quinn bedbound and defenseless.

That’s when feisty demon hunter Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye) comes to the rescue, striking up the unlikely collaboration with ghost hunters Specs and Tucker along the way, which we already know about from the first two Insidious movies. Honestly, I don’t really see the point of this movie. Apparently neither did James Wan, who did not return to the directing chair for this one, leaving both the writing and directing to series co-creator Leigh Whannell.

It’s all fairly predictable stuff and while there are a couple of scares to be found throughout this movie, most of them come from suddenly raising the volume 300% at the same time you see a creepy face or a grasping arm. There’s just nothing here that you haven’t seen in a zillion movies before. Hell, things get so lame that the demon has to close the curtains, door and laptop screen itself to make things look creepier. It’s just pretty lame stuff. By the time they reach the Further (aka the Ridiculous), things become plain moronic when Elise starts headbutting ghosts and getting into shoving matches with demons.

The first two Insidious movies weren’t very original to begin with, but at least they had Wan at their disposal. The guy has a real knack for making things creepy as fuck. Without him, we end up with an extremely mediocre horror flick that is hopefully the last one in the series.