Maintaining quality in any franchise is difficult. Maintaining quality in a horror franchise is especially difficult. That’s because most horror franchises are based on singular characters or ideas that get stale or repetitive quickly. The Insidious franchise ran into that pretty early on, resorting to prequels to get around the fact that it had killed or lost access to its main characters. Now though, with Insidious: Out of the Further, the franchise makes a welcome U-turn. The general ideas of the franchise are still in place. Even some main characters. But more than any other Insidious sequel to date, it provides us with a smart, fun spin on the series that’s once again not beholden to anything. It’s free to do as it pleases. The result is the best Insidious film since the original.
Written and directed by Jacob Chase, Insidious: Out of the Further stars Amelia Eve as Gemma, a young single mother who doesn’t like talking about her past. That’s because her mother, Ingrid (Laura Gordon), killed herself in front of her as a child. Gemma just wants to raise her daughter Maya (Island Austin) the right way, but that quickly becomes difficult when beings from the Further—the demonic place between life and death at the center of the franchise—start to intrude on their lives.
Out of the Further doesn’t have the best opening, and it takes a little bit of time to get its footing. But once it does, it becomes hugely rewarding. Continuing the Insidious tradition, the film is rated PG-13 but never feels like it. Instead of leaning into gore, Chase makes seemingly normal things terrifying. A teeth cleaning. A pile of garbage. A pillow fort. Using extreme close-ups and deceptive editing, Gemma is put through some very unsettling ordeals that may not be exactly scary, but are delightfully uncomfortable and exceedingly disgusting.
Once Gemma has had enough of that, the story takes a few convenient twists and turns, and we get the return of Lin Shaye as Elise. Yes, she’s still dead, and has been since the original film. But Out of the Further gives her a slightly simpler, more defined role, before setting up a clear path forward.
Elise explains that Gemma is a courier, someone who can not only visit the Further, but bring things back from it (hence the title). An evil being (played by Sam Spruell) has been manipulating her, hoping that she can bring not just him back to Earth, but everyone in the Further. And so a plan is put in motion to stop him at all costs.
This is where Insidious: Out of the Further really locks in. It takes the ideas and rules from previous films, gives them a quick scramble, and raises the stakes. Previous movies were about saving a person or a family. In Out of the Further, if Gemma doesn’t succeed, demons will take over the whole world. You don’t necessarily feel that weight as much as you’d hope, but it’s there, and helps drive the film’s very fun third act.
Then, just when you think Out of the Further is merely a serviceable sequel, it pulls out some fun surprises at the end—a few you’ll see coming, others you won’t—that really raise the bar. There are some subtle but additive connections to the rest of the franchise (though you don’t need to know any super deep lore to appreciate the film). Then, on top of all that, it even throws in some emotionally charged links back to that otherwise mediocre opening, recontextualizing the whole thing.
Eve is a solid anchor to the film, having to give a really expansive performance to showcase Gemma’s struggles. Brandon Perea is charming as her boyfriend, Maisie Richardson-Sellers is fun as Elise’s real-world proxy, but the standout is Austin as the daughter, who has an effortless charm about her. No one has a performance that’ll set the world on fire, but each, like the movie, does the job well enough to not bring it down. Which can happen in a horror movie.
Insidious: Out of the Further has some conveniently placed plot points here and there, that slow start, a few small pacing issues, and way, way too many flashlights (seriously, so many). It’s not a masterpiece. But in terms of a sixth installment in a horror franchise that had begun to lose its way, it’s way, way better than you’d expect. It’s got laughs, it’s got jump scares, it’s got creepy moments, cheer-worthy moments, and even some heart. It shows that sometimes, when a franchise hits the reset button, it can deliver the chills and thrills that made it successful in the first place.
Insidious: Out of the Further is in theaters August 21.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
