movie review of insidious the red door

Insidious: The Red Door

At least Patrick Wilson still cares about “ Insidious.” A staple of the James Wan-iverse (he also stars in the “Conjuring” series), Wilson makes his directorial debut with “Insidious: The Red Door.” He also stars in the movie, reprising his role as protective dad Josh Lambert from “ Insidious ” and “Insidious: Chapter Two.” In classic “why the hell not?” deep-franchise style, he also performs a hard-rock number with the Swedish band Ghost over the end credits. (Did you know Patrick Wilson could sing? Neither did I.)

“The Red Door” is the fifth, and supposedly final, “Insidious” movie. And, with the caveat that you can never trust a horror franchise to end when it says it will end, it does deliver a reasonably satisfying wrap-up to the story of the Lambert family. They’ve been absent from “Insidious” since 2013, when Blumhouse pivoted to focus on Lin Shaye ’s motherly psychic character Elise Rainier in a string of prequels. (Although she died in the second one, she appears here, because again—why not?) And much has happened while the series was away.

Young Dalton Lambert ( Ty Simpkins ) has grown from a possessed little boy into a brooding 19-year-old art student beginning his first semester of college. His parents, Josh (Wilson) and Renai ( Rose Byrne ), have separated. And his grandmother Lorraine, who played a role in saving Dalton from the evil spirits of The Further, has died. Dalton doesn’t remember his trip into The Further, nor does Josh; the film opens with a scene of the two of them being instructed to forget an entire year of their lives by a hypnotist.

This is accomplished remarkably quickly—if “The Red Door” was an anti-drug PSA, its tagline would be, “Hypnosis: Not even once.” Counting backward from 10 is all it takes to wipe huge chunks of the Lamberts’ minds clean, and those memories resurface just as easily when Dalton is asked to perform a meditation exercise in his painting class. “The Red Door” plays a little with the trope of artists creating possessed or otherwise supernatural works as seen in horror movies like “The Devil’s Candy.” But most of its runtime is spent exploring something less inspired.

Here, Josh and Dalton’s gift for astral projection isn’t just a mysterious phenomenon. It’s that old saw of inherited trauma and mental illness that’s been wreaking havoc on horror movies since “ Hereditary .” This manifests in the form of revelations about the father Josh never knew, which overlap with Josh’s guilt and Dalton’s resentment about the divorce. It’s not the most labored use of the metaphor in recent years—that would be another of co-screenwriter Scott Teems ’ credits, the nonsensical “ Halloween Kills .” But it’s such a rote theme at this point that it sucks all of the interest from the family drama.

Callbacks to other “Insidious” films are half-hearted, and “The Red Door” seems to give up on trying to make all of the pieces fit after a while. What does work are a handful of scares in the film’s first half. As a director, Wilson proves himself familiar enough with the mechanics of a jump scare—clearly, he picked up a few things from working with Wan all those years—to give audiences what they want. An early scene where Josh hallucinates a ghastly old woman while trapped inside an MRI machine is especially well done and ties in with a subplot where Josh seeks treatment for persistent fatigue and brain fog. (Long COVID? Nope, The Further!)

However, once the college-centric main plot kicks in, the movie slowly declines toward an underwhelming finale. Visually, Wilson faithfully re-creates the misty look of the previous films. Tiny Tim ’s “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” warbles in a room full of broken dolls somewhere in the negative space of The Further. This is all fine—as are the jokes, the supporting characters, and the concessions to the film’s PG-13 rating by replacing explicit gore with fake vomit and pancake makeup. Wilson is pretty good as Josh, but that’s to be expected. He’s the one that’s still invested in the whole thing.

Now playing in theaters.

Katie Rife is a freelance writer and critic based in Chicago with a speciality in genre cinema. She worked as the News Editor of The A.V. Club from 2014-2019, and as Senior Editor of that site from 2019-2022. She currently writes about film for outlets like Vulture, Rolling Stone, Indiewire, Polygon , and RogerEbert.com.

Ty Simpkins as Dalton Lambert
Patrick Wilson as Josh Lambert
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‘Insidious: The Red Door’ Review: The Ghost of Jump Scares Past

Patrick Wilson makes his directorial debut with this fifth installment of the horror franchise haunted by a red-faced demon.

In a film scene, a man sits behind the wheel of a car looking at his phone. Through the rear window of the car a blurry figure can be seen.

By Jason Zinoman

“Insidious,” whose fifth installment opened Friday, is a second-tier horror franchise — it’s not even the best James Wan franchise starring Patrick Wilson, which would be “The Conjuring” — with a few elite jump scares, including one of the best in the genre. In the original in 2010, Lorraine Lambert (Barbara Hershey) is telling her son, Josh (Wilson), about a horrible dream when a red-faced demon suddenly appears behind his head. It’s a magnificent shock because of the askew blocking, the patient misdirection of the editing and Hershey’s committed performance.

In “Insidious: The Red Door,” a grim, workmanlike effort that collapses into woo-woo nonsense, Wilson makes his directorial debut, and demonstrates he grasps the importance of that jump scare, which is sketched in charcoal on paper next to his name in the opening credits. But that reference is also a reminder of what’s missing.

The movie begins nine years after the second “Insidious” at the funeral of Lorraine, and its first scare, a nicely oblique if relatively simple one, once again takes place above her son’s head. Josh’s memory has been scrubbed in the previous film but nags at him, and Wilson doesn’t move the camera from his own face inside a car as he goes through an array of emotions while texting his son Dalton (Ty Simpkins). This prickly relationship is at the center of the movie, as dad drives his son to college. They share the family curse, a habit of being visited by evil figures from another realm called the Further (think the Upside Down from “Stranger Things” ).

As has become cliché, trauma takes center stage, with characters mouthing lines like, “We need to remember even the things that hurt” — which is at least better than pretentious small talk like “Death floods the mind with memory.”

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Insidious: The Red Door Reviews

While the rate of scares still isn’t as consistent, it’s important to remember that “Insidious: The Red Door” is less your traditional horror fare than a tragic tale of the consequences of compartmentalizing trauma.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 9, 2024

it’s all down to Wilson and Simpkins who bring a wealth of onscreen history together to a father/son story that culminates in a deceptively simple resolution that tugs mightily at the heartstrings. Yes, it’s a trauma movie, but it’s one of the good ones.

Full Review | Jul 3, 2024

It still feels like a satisfying conclusion to a series of films that have continuously terrified us for over a decade. That alone is worth remembering.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Mar 6, 2024

Similar to Wan’s The Conjuring universe, Insidious has long overstayed its welcome, reaching the point where its spark has quelled and there’s nothing interesting buried within these characters anymore. We have reached the end of the Further.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Nov 17, 2023

The set-up was great, but the Insidious series has lost a lot of its luster.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Nov 11, 2023

Lamentably, this unusual study of family trauma and memory loss gradually loses its shine and capacity to scare. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Oct 5, 2023

The fact The Red Door works best as a family drama rather than a terrifying scare-fest -- to the extent that when the finale takes another trip into the Further is almost feels tacked on -- tells you it’s time to close the door on the franchise.

Full Review | Aug 24, 2023

This latest anemic attempt at a creepy film is tripped up by a fragmented story and lackluster efforts to pass off things that jump out of the dark to an amped up musical track as being scary.

Full Review | Original Score: D | Aug 9, 2023

Earlier franchise chapters featured a few smirkworthy scares and some stylish filmmaking flourishes, but The Red Door is merely an inert, boring drag.

Full Review | Aug 8, 2023

Wilson shows he can conjure (tee hee) some worthwhile bumps in the night as a filmmaker, and it will be interesting to see what he tackles next.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 4, 2023

Wilson makes his directorial debut with this film that is nice enough in an anaemic way.

Full Review | Aug 3, 2023

Insidious: The Red Door doesn't quite reach the heights of its predecessors. It tantalizes us with a few effective scares, but its pacing and character development fall short.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Aug 2, 2023

Patrick Wilson lands some cool shots and Hiam Abass is a welcome reprieve to predictable storylines and tropes. There is a tangible gap in what might have been achieved if the red door opened through expectations.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 1, 2023

Akin to Child's Play 3, Insidious: The Red Door sees grown-up protagonists facing old fears. Despite some flat moments, it's an interesting final chapter.

Patrick Wilson shows some promise for directing and delivers some genuinely well-crafted scares. Unfortunately, the story that spends most of its runtime uncovering events the audience already knows just shows the franchise shouln't have gone further.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.75/5 | Jul 27, 2023

A disappointing entry that, sadly, spends more time recapping the previous films instead of carving its own path.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Jul 24, 2023

Insidious: The Red Door plays it safe and takes it a bit too slow, but it's good performances and nostalgic scares make it worth the viewing.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 24, 2023

This isn't a meaningful exploration of trauma's lingering impact, the current genre go-to, as much as it wants to be.

Full Review | Jul 22, 2023

The fifth Insidious movie starts strong, with fresh character touches and chilling, eerily quiet moments, but it eventually suffers from a sequel's usual diminishing returns.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 21, 2023

While not as good as some of the film in the Insidious franchise this does more than enough to suggest that Patrick Wilson has what it takes to be a decent genre director.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 21, 2023

'Insidious: The Red Door' Review: What Patrick Wilson's Directorial Debut Lacks in Scares It Makes up for in Character

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It might sound weird to read a review where the critic talks about how the first Insidious film was one of the first true horror movies they ever sat down and watched, yet that's exactly how this review is going to start.

The Insidious franchise has always felt like the perfect gateway for burgeoning horror fans. Even with their PG-13 ratings, the first two films, and even the third film, can get pretty damn scary with their clever uses of tension, jump scares, and worldbuilding. The first two installments delivered some solid scares while also telling a surprisingly compelling story about a family being haunted by demonic forces. The third film decided to go the prequel route and even found some success in doing so by putting the spotlight on Lin Shaye 's Elise Rainer. However, much of the franchise's reputation was hindered by a near-disastrous fourth entry with The Last Key .

Insidious: The Red Door opts to move the story of the first two films forward, with franchise vets Patrick Wilson , Rose Byrne , and Ty Simpkins all reprising their roles, plus Wilson taking over the directorial reins in his feature directorial debut. The film opens nine years after the events of Insidious: Chapter 2 with Josh and Dalton Lambert (Wilson & Simpkins) having no memory of the horrific events that transpired nearly a decade ago. Josh has since divorced Renai (Byrne) and has a tumultuous relationship with Dalton who's getting ready to go off to college. Following a death in the family, Renai suggests that Josh drop Dalton off at school to which the father and son reluctantly agree. After a heated argument, both Josh and Dalton's memories of their haunted pasts begin to terrorize them, causing each to seek out the truth.

RELATED: Why Patrick Wilson Made His Directorial Debut with 'Insidious' Rather Than 'The Conjuring'

'Insidious: The Red Door' Feels Different From Previous Installments

Josh Lambert driving with a possessed Dalton behind him

One aspect that jumps out immediately about Insidious: The Red Doo r is just how different a director Patrick Wilson is compared to Wan, Leigh Whannell , and Adam Robitel . The aesthetic feels different, and even the mood does as well. The first two installments had a lingering sense of dread looming over them and, while you do feel that at times with The Red Door , the film also manages to use some of its runtime to delve into family drama as well as Dalton bonding with his new college friend Chris ( Sinclair Daniel ). Some of it works, and fans will likely find themselves rooting for Renai and Josh to get back together and put their tragic past behind them, while some of it just felt unnecessary and tacked on, including Dalton and Chris going to war with the douchey frat guy Nick ( Peter Dager ). That's not to say that a film like this can't have some moments of levity and laughter, but some moments feel like they're ripped out of a mid-2000s college comedy rather than a horror movie. As a result, they just feel jarring.

That being said, Wilson does show quite a bit of promise as a filmmaker from the way he can deliver some effective scares while also creating moments that will be sure to have audience members clenching their armrests. Even with the unnecessary subplots that are thrown in, The Red Door flows at a pretty brisk pace, with the film almost working better as an epilogue rather than some world-shattering finale that will forever change the way you look at the franchise.

The screenplay itself, written by rising genre scribe Scott Teems , at times doesn't know how to truly balance all the story elements together. There are attempts at creating fan service moments that allude to previous installments, but it also never seems fully interested in exploring the world of The Further in a new light. It's Wilson's direction that ultimately helps the film stand out a bit more, proving that he has a firm grasp on what works about the franchise while also telling a story that feels personal.

'Insidious: The Red Door' Isn't Too Scary and That's OK

Patrick Wilson as Josh Lambert in Insidious: The Red Door

Insidious: The Red Door also dials it a bit back on the jump scares. While there are still a handful of moments that will shake the auditorium, there's nothing as notable as that infamous Lipstick-Face Demon scare in the 2011 film. However, the new installment manages to find other ways to get under the audience's skin, including one sequence that occurs within the first ten minutes involving Josh sitting in his car, texting Dalton, unaware of what's going on behind him. The audience won't feel as uncomfortable as they might have with previous entries, but fans of the films will be able to still be able to find a way to care because they've become attached to these characters. Even with a supposed grand finale that ends with more of a whimper than a bang, The Red Door still oddly feels like a satisfying conclusion to this story, and a lot of that might be because of the Lambert family.

Simpkins and Wilson take on the leading roles this time around with the latter turning another solid turn as the now divorced Josh. Simpkins is decent enough as well, but his character never really feels like a captivating protagonist. Instead, he's just kind of there. Byrne has very little to do compared to what she's been given in the past, only showing up in the first and third acts, but is still a more than welcome presence on screen. Hiam Abbass feels wasted in her role as Dalton's strict art professor, ultimately feeling like a side note once the credits start to roll.

Insidious: The Red Door might not be the scariest installment in the franchise, but it feels a lot more human than the others before it. The character moments end up feeling more effective than some of the film's big set-pieces and, while that may bug some genre purists, those who have stuck around since the first film released over 10 years ago will be pleased.

Insidious: The Red Door is now playing in theaters.

Movie Reviews
Insidious: The Red Door (2023)
Patrick Wilson

Review: ‘Insidious: The Red Door’ is sometimes unnerving, but even evil has an expiration date

A nervous man stares out of a window with pages taped to it.

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Director James Wan and screenwriter Leigh Whannell have had a massive impact on modern horror movies, not once, but twice: first with 2004’s “ Saw ,” which set off a wave of torture-heavy splatter films; and then with the atmospheric 2010 film “ Insidious ,” a crafty tale of paranormal intrusion. Over the last decade, “Insidious” has proved especially influential, inspiring dozens of movies about haunted objects, creepy kids and grizzled paranormal investigators — all of them filled with slow-mounting tension and assaultive jump-scares, many of them spawning entire universes of sequels, prequels and spinoffs.

“Insidious: The Red Door” is the fifth film in its series, and it seems at times like a conscious effort to remind everyone who’s the genre’s big boss. Wan isn’t involved this time, but Whannell co-wrote the story with the movie’s credited screenwriter Scott Teems, while Patrick Wilson — the star of the original “Insidious” and the costar of this one — makes his directorial debut. This team has produced something that maybe relies too much on the same old tricks, but which is often genuinely terrifying.

Wilson once again plays Josh Lambert, who in the first two films discovered that he and his son Dalton ( Ty Simpkins ) have the ability to leave their bodies via astral projection, thanks to their connection to a purgatorial dimension dubbed the Further, filled with unsettled ghosts and vicious demons who intend to use the Lamberts to help them drain the vitality from living humans. The third and fourth “Insidious” films were prequels that only mentioned the Lamberts in passing; but “The Red Door” follows directly from “ Insidious: Chapter Two ,” which ended with Josh and Dalton being hypnotized to suppress all their memories of the Further.

That cure has turned out to be a curse. Nine years later, severed from an essential part of themselves and their shared pasts, Josh and Dalton have become estranged from each other; and Josh is also now divorced from Dalton’s mother, Renai ( Rose Byrne ). But when Dalton leaves home to study painting at college, his favorite professor ( Hiam Abbass ) encourages him to tap into his subconscious, which begins to unlock his powers. At the same time, Josh starts digging into his own past to figure out why he’s such a jerk to the people he loves. The answers shock him — and awaken him, too.

Anyone who’s seen an “Insidious” movie before (or any of the “Insidious” knockoffs) knows what comes next. Both Josh and Dalton have their daily lives disrupted by visions of rotting corpses creeping toward them and making demands. From behind the camera, Wilson handles the visual grammar of all this well, though there’s no reason why he shouldn’t. He’s following a well-established blueprint. Wan (and later Whannell, when he directed the third film) perfected the art of weaponizing negative space on the screen, keeping the audience constantly on edge by threatening to fill the blurry areas around the heroes’ heads with something monstrous.

That trick still works like gangbusters, and “The Red Door” features several sequences that are “watch through your fingers while slumped down in your seat”-level scary. (A scene where Josh is playing a game of Concentration with pictures taped to his living room window while an evil spirit slowly approaches undetected is almost unbearably intense.) Having two main characters suffering from hauntings separately works against this movie’s narrative momentum, but it does allow Wilson and Teems to bounce from scare to scare, without much setup — or respite.

“The Red Door” isn’t as good as the first “Insidious,” and may actually fall short of several of the “Insidious” clones. But it’s no impersonal bit of brand extension. There’s a strong idea here about how important it is for an artist — any fully alive human being, really — to confront past traumas instead of blocking them out. Granted, the Lambert boys have to face their fears or there’ll be no horror movie. But the point is still well-taken.

“Insidious: The Red Door”

Rated: PG-13, for violence, terror, frightening images, strong language and suggestive references.

Running time: 1 hour, 47 minutes

Playing: In general release

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‘insidious: the red door’ review: patrick wilson directs a desultory entry in the hit franchise.

Wilson helms and stars in this fifth installment, a sequel to 2013's 'Insidious: Chapter 2.'

By Frank Scheck

Frank Scheck

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Insidious: The Red Door

The Lamberts must go deeper into The Further than ever before to put their demons to rest once and for all. The Lamberts must go deeper into The Further than ever before to put their demons to rest once and for all. The Lamberts must go deeper into The Further than ever before to put their demons to rest once and for all.

Patrick Wilson
Leigh Whannell
Scott Teems
Ty Simpkins
455 User reviews
132 Critic reviews
45 Metascore
2 nominations

Top cast 34

Dalton Lambert

Josh Lambert

Renai Lambert

Chris Winslow

Professor Armagan

Foster Lambert

Kali Lambert

Nick the Dick

Alec Anderson

Lipstick Demon

Smash Face …

Supervisor Robbins

Elise Rainier

Sorority Girl #1
All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

Trivia Patrick Wilson 's directorial debut.
Goofs When Daltons dorm loses power, his fan is still running on the dresser.
Crazy credits At the conclusion of the credits, we see a flickering light, illuminating the now blackened door.
Connections Featured in Half in the Bag: 2023 Catch-up (Part 1) (2023)
Soundtracks Roll with the Changes Written by Kevin Cronin Performed by REO Speedwagon Courtesy of Mojo Music & Media

User reviews 455

claudio_carvalho
Aug 2, 2023
How long is Insidious: The Red Door? Powered by Alexa
July 7, 2023 (United States)
United States
Insidious 5
Morristown, New Jersey, USA
Blumhouse Productions
Screen Gems
See more company credits at IMDbPro
$16,000,000 (estimated)
$82,156,962
$33,013,036
Jul 9, 2023
$189,086,877

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Runtime 1 hour 47 minutes
Dolby Digital

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Insidious: The Red Door Review: A Mostly Successful Trip Back Into The Further

In 2015, someone made the boneheaded mistake of remaking "Poltergeist." It didn't go so well, even with the dependable presence of Sam Rockwell. Perhaps the film felt extra needless because five years earlier we were already given a pretty good new take on the ideas from "Poltergeist." I'm talking about "Insidious," a film that owes more than a few things to the Steven Spielberg/Tobe Hooper horror classic. Like that film, "Insidious" dealt with a suburban family falling apart as they dealt with a house of horrors. At their wit's end, the family calls in paranormal investigators to help. Sound familiar?

"Insidious" was a creepy little James Wan/Leigh Whannell fright flick that packed on suburban scares and managed to make audiences jump out of their seats. It was also a big hit, and when that happens in the horror genre, it can only mean one thing: franchise time! Sure enough, "Insidious" has spawned a slew of sequels. The latest is "Insidious: The Red Door," and while it probably won't be the final "Insidious" movie — there's still money to be made! — it is a film that attempts to close the book on the poor, haunted Lambert family. The Lamberts were the stars of "Insidious" and "Insidious: Chapter 2," and then they got to take a breather. Now we get to catch back up with them, and we see that things aren't going so great.

If you need a refresher, you're in luck — "The Red Door" liberally reuses footage from "Insidious: Chapter 2" to catch the audience back up. Most notably, the film opens by reminding us about some hypnosis. In the first two films, the Lamberts dealt with both ghosts and demons and also something called The Further, a dark and spooky otherworld where fog machines always seem to be in use. Specifically, Lambert family patriarch Josh (Patrick Wilson) and his son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) discovered they had the ability to astral project and leave their bodies. This resulted in them getting caught in The Further, because parasitic demons wanted to claim their human bodies. Josh and Dalton finally escaped, at which point father and son agreed to have their memories wiped so they never had to deal with this nonsense again. But never say never.

Now, nine years later, the Lamberts have fractured. Josh and his wife Renai (Rose Byrne, severely underused here) have divorced, and Dalton has grown up into a sulking teen about to start college. And Josh has grown estranged from his family over the years, chalking this up to a mysterious "brain fog." Father and son have no memories of ghosts or The Further, and it's pulled them apart. But that's about to change.

Building dread

Dalton goes off to college, and that's when the trouble begins. He's an art student, and one day in class, his no-nonsense teacher (Hiam Abbass) instructs the students to go "further and further" into themselves. Apparently just saying the word "further" is enough to start unlocking memories for Dalton, which begs the question: had he not heard that word in any form in nearly 10 years? No matter. What matters is Dalton rediscovers his astral projection skills — and also starts seeing some unpleasant ghosts.

Meanwhile, Josh is being tormented as well. Father and son are connected by their repressed memories, so it makes a certain amount of sense that they'd lose that repression together. And now the stage is set for more spooky shenanigans! And also a father/son reconciliation! Will the Lamberts journey back into The Further? Will the dead psychic Elise (Lin Shaye) pop up in some form to offer advice? Will there be plenty of callbacks to the previous movies? Well ... what do you think?

Wilson makes his directorial debut here, and he acquits himself nicely, especially in creating scenes that have a way of crawling under your skin. While there are jumpscares (one particularly effective jumpscare involves copious amounts of vomit) the actor/filmmaker is more interested in slowly building tension and dread, and he does so with several long, silent takes that build, and build, and build. They work exceedingly well at creating the appropriate creepy atmosphere — there's a scene with Josh inside an MRI machine that's probably one of the scariest things this series has ever done.

Thrills and chills

While the direction is as solid as (most of) the scares, the script by Scott Teems (with a story by Leigh Whannell) is occasionally flat. The college setting is almost an afterthought, although Sinclair Daniel steals several scenes as Dalton's outgoing roommate. The film can start to feel repetitive in how it unfolds — Dalton sees something scary, then we cut to Josh, and he sees something scary, then we cut back, and so on, and so forth, over and over again. It also doesn't help that this film is so indebted to "Chapter 2," one of the weakest entries in the series. Thankfully, "The Red Door" doesn't make the same mistakes as "Chapter Two," a film that took the silly route of over-explaining everything that happened in the first movie.

No over-explanation here. Indeed, some viewers might actually be surprised at how little the overall "Insidious" mythology is explored. But perhaps Wilson and company figured we already knew everything we needed to know. Perhaps they're right — it's okay to let some things remain a mystery, especially things in The Further. The unknown is always just a little bit scarier than the known. And Wilson seems more attuned to the family dynamics anyway, which isn't such a bad thing and even slightly elevates "The Red Door" above the usual thoughtless cash-grab horror sequel.

"Insidious: The Red Door" closes the book on the Lambert family and delivers more than a few thrills and chills. It doesn't reinvent the wheel, and it doesn't really add a whole lot to the series as a whole. But it'll probably give you the creeps on several occasions, and maybe that's all that really matters when you get to the fifth installment of a horror franchise. Or you can just watch "Poltergeist" again.

/Film Rating: 6 out of 10

Insidious: The Red Door Review

07 Jul 2023

Insidious: The Red Door

After two prequels, the Insidious series returns to the family where it began, the Lamberts, because no good monster ever stays dead. Franchise star Patrick Wilson turns director here and does as good a job as you’d hope with the character beats of these tortured souls. But he never hits the heights of terror that the franchise is capable of – perhaps his closeness to the character preventing him from really twisting the knife.

As we rejoin the Lamberts, we’re reminded that son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) and father Josh (Wilson) had their memories wiped nine years ago, so they would never again be tempted to astral-project into “The Further” and leave their bodies vulnerable to possession by dark forces. Now Dalton is an artist just starting at a college with worryingly dim lighting and unreliable power – uh oh. When he follows a charismatic teacher's instructions to go deep into his subconscious, he discovers memories of a strange door that threaten to destabilise his mental health. Across the country, Josh is experiencing his own nightmares, and will have to delve into his own past to confront this new threat.

While there are a few effective gross-out moments and creeping scares, they’re largely unoriginal.

Wilson picked a franchise he knows well for his directorial debut, and he and Simpkins have a convincingly thorny but loving dynamic, as he does with Rose Byrne as his now-ex-wife Renai. He also finds comic beats to leaven the scares, particularly in some amusingly lame frat party scenes. There he has an ally in Dalton's college friend Chris (Sinclair Daniel), who is a breath of fresh air even if she implausibly sticks around through some outrageously creepy behaviour.

The problem is the choppy storytelling. You’ll need to remember the first two films for any real explanation of the threat here, or how to beat it. Going into the finale, there’s only a woolly sense of what needs to be done and what exactly is tormenting our heroes, which can’t help but puncture the menace. The pace is very much a slow burn, until a sudden rush to the finish, and while there are a few effective gross-out moments and creeping scares, they’re largely unoriginal. Wilson’s debut is no disaster, but he’ll need to sharpen his talons if he wants to make his mark on the horror pantheon behind the camera as well as in front.

Movies | 07 06 2023

Movies | 06 06 2023

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‘Insidious: The Red Door’ Review: The Fifth Entry in the Series May Be the Least Insidious

Patrick Wilson leads the original cast, and also directs, in a sequel that turns into psycho therapy.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

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In the years since, the “Insidious” series has replayed those tricks, and others, to the point that none of them — not the faces, not Lin Shaye’s weirdly becalmed space-cadet parapsychologist — have much scary surprise left.

Josh, back home, and Dalton, at college, are estranged but linked by their demon sightings, confronting this or that mucky spirit from the Further. One of them is a doozy: At a frat party presided over by Nick the Dick (Peter Dager), the first fraternity president who looks like the winner of the “I Want to Be Timothée Chalamet” contest, Dalton enters a bathroom and sees a demon puking his guts out in the toilet — and a moment or two later, he’s a lot closer than that. Gross, but effective. A scene in which Josh, trying to find the source of his brain fog, undergoes an MRI, during which a demon slithers around his head, is brought off with first-rate timing.

All of this, however, feels standard in its goose-the-audience arbitrariness. And when we learn who the orangy demon is, the film enters an over-obvious zone of psycho therapy: My daddy did this to me! And that’s why I’m going to do it to you! Dalton, a gifted artist, has enrolled in a composition class (presided over by a guru of a professor played with hilarious pretentious airs by Hiam Abbass), and the painting he does there, which acquires more detail as the film goes on, is of a red door with a scowling figure poised in front of it, menacingly holding a hammer. He looks like Jack Nicholson in “The Shining,” and the comparison is not incidental. Here, once again, an ordinary father becomes a wannabe killer, attempting to destroy his family with a blunt weapon. But this, too, is not very scary. (I’d argue it wasn’t even all that scary in “The Shining.”)

A parallel-reality fear zone. Faces in the dark. The return of repressed family demons. These are the elements that “Insidious” elevated (and that Ari Aster sprung “Hereditary” from), but depending on their design and execution they can be spooky — or banal — as hell. For a first-time director, Patrick Wilson doesn’t do a bad job, but he’s working with tropes that have already been worked to death. It’s time to close this carnival of souls down.

Reviewed at Sony Screening Room, July 6, 2023. MPA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 107 MIN.

Production: A Sony Pictures Releasing release of a Screen Gems, Blumhouse Productions, Stage 6 production. Producers: Jason Blum, Oren Peli, James Wan, Leigh Whannell. Executive producers: Steven Schneider, Charles Layton, Ryan Turek, Brian Kavanaugh Jones.
Crew: Director: Patrick Wilson. Screenplay: Scott Teems. Camera: Autumn Eakin. Music: Joseph Bishara.
With: Patrick Wilson, Ty Simpkins, Rose Byrne, Sinclair Daniel, Hiam Abbass, Andrew Astor, Peter Dager, Lin Shaye.

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Insidious: The Red Door Review - A Potentially Satisfying Conclusion to a Horror Saga

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Here After Review: An Emotional Catholic Horror Drama That Fully Commits

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Insidious: The Red Door is the scariest movie of the summer. While that might not seem like much, considering there have not been as many high-profile horror films so far in summer 2023, it is still a scary good time at the movies for audiences looking for a break from action spectacle. The Insidious franchise is back and better than ever. It, alongside Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and No Hard Feelings , also shows that Sony Pictures is truly taking chances and risks on a wide variety of films for the summer movie season, and it is paying off for them.

The first Insidious was a surprise hit with critics and audiences when it premiered in 2011. The movie, along with the previously released Paranormal Activity franchise, redefined the modern haunting film and helped usher in a new era of supernatural atmospheric horror. It spawned a popular franchise that included one direct sequel and two prequel films. The fifth film in the series, Insidious: The Red Door , is essentially the real Insidious 3 ( Insidious: Chapter 3 itself was actually a prequel to the previous two films) as this film directly follows the events of the first two entries, taking place ten years after the events of Insidious Chapter 2 .

Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson) and Reani Lambert (Rose Byrne) have now separated, and their son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) has now grown and is getting ready to go to college. Due to both Dalton and Josh having had their memories of the previous films wiped from their mind, a gap has been growing between them.

Yet as Dalton begins college, the events of the first two films he has repressed start to come to the surface and begin to haunt both him and his father. The two must return to the dark dimension known as The Further and put an end to an evil that has been haunting their family for longer than even they knew.

A Haunting Where the Drama Is Front and Center

Underneath all the paranormal elements and supernatural haunts, this is a relatable human story about the riff that forms between parent and child as one grows up. The supernatural elements are all seasoning for a story that is all too real for many, as a parent and child find themselves going through as time goes on. Josh and Dalton have grown apart due to the divorce and the multiple repressions fogging up Josh's mind to where he has become distant from everyone. The horror elements are rooted in tangible anxieties the audience can relate to.

It also adds the subtext of repressed trauma, forming a major riff between individuals. While the previous Insidious movies argued that it was best to put these terrible memories in the past and forget them, Insidious: The Red Door builds off that to acknowledge the toxic nature of the thought process.

In the ten years that have passed since the release of Insidious: Chapter 2 , a wider discussion about mental health has begun to take form. This long-awaited sequel justifies its existence by being in conversation with the original films. Instead of repressing terrible memories, it is better to acknowledge them and move forward.

Related: Insidious: Every Type of Demon in the Movies, Explained

Time has been the ultimate benefit of this movie. It also now arrives as the audience who likely saw the first two Insidious movies (which likely was rather young since they were rated PG-13) now are old enough to be close to Dalton's age in the film. While a completely different format, the movie has the same impact as Toy Story 3 or Monsters University in that it is a movie that used the gap in time to its advantage to not only make audiences nostalgic but also tap into the age of the audience who likely grew up with the original entries.

While the previous Insidious prequels might have diluted the brand a bit, the first two films by James Wan were a masterclass in horror. Made all the more impressive by their PG-13 rating, they managed to be terrifying without any of the normal hallmarks of a slasher or a gory torture porn venture. Honestly, if one hasn't gone back and rewatched the first two entries, it can be almost easy to forget just how good they are as terrifying movies but also really effective dramas. It left some pretty big shoes to fill, and luckily Patrick Wilson is more than up for the task .

Patrick Wilson Steps Up to Lead a Great Crew

Wilson himself has worked closely with Wan not just on the previous Insidious movies but also on The Conjuring franchise. He has also worked with some of the most creative filmmakers, from Joel Schumacher on The Phantom of the Opera , Zack Snyder on Watchmen , and Todd Field on Little Children . He has learned from the best and steps into the director's chair easily.

While the movie might overuse the jump scare trick one too many times, it is hard to argue how effective they are and that Wilson knows how to build tension. Even when it is clear what is about to happen, it doesn't make the final scare any less terrifying. Wilson has proven himself as exciting a director as he is an actor (and also a singer as he sings the song over the end credits proving he is a multitalented performer). It will be curious to see what he decides to follow this up with.

Wilson does a great job behind and in front of the camera, as do many of those involved. Ty Simpkins has truly grown up. For audiences who likely remember him as a kid from the first two Insidious movies or even in both Iron Man 3 and Jurassic World , seeing him as a young adult certainly will be shocking and a difficult adjustment.

In what is essentially his first full-time leading role, he easily sheds all expectations anyone might have held from his days as a kid actor. He carries a true sense of pain in his eyes that truly sells the sad, scared, and traumatized person at the center of this story.

Related: Why Insidious Is Scarier Than The Conjuring

The real star of the film is newcomer Sinclair Daniels, who plays Dalton's college roommate and eventually companion on this journey into a heart of darkness. From her first moment on screen, she commands the screen and easily steals the show. As chilling as the atmosphere in the film is and how terrifying it can be, the first thing likely on everyone's mind is who this person is and what else she can be seen in. Hopefully, Insidious: The Red Door is the beginning of a long and exciting career for her.

Insidious: The Red Door does have one major issue, and that is centered around the character of Reani Lambert, played by Rose Bryne . A vital part of the first two films, she is greatly sidelined in this movie. While she is not completely rewritten out of the film like Megan Fox in Transformers: Dark of the Moon or recast like Maria Bello replacing Rachel Weisz in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor , Bryne's lack of screen time is still frustrating.

She factors early on in the beginning and does not return until the end of the movie. While the intention is to clearly focus on the father-son dynamic, it does feel like the mother's role in the story is greatly short-changed, particularly when one considers how important she was in the first two. Her presence is brief, and that is rather frustrating.

A Worthy Conclusion to the Insidious Story

Insidious: The Red Door not only puts the franchise back on track, but it serves as an effective conclusion to the main Lambert trilogy of films while also tying nicely into the two prequel films to make a solid horror saga. It brings a story that started in 2011 to a satisfying conclusion. It might not be as scary as the original , but it gets pretty close.

As with any horror franchise, there will certainly be more (a spin-off film titled Thread: An Insidious Tale is already in development), but if the franchise wanted to end here, it would undoubtedly be a high note to go out on. Insidious: The Red Door will satisfy long-time fans of the franchise and should also scare any newcomers that have decided to join in for a scare.

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‘Insidious: The Red Door’ Review: This Stalled Horror Franchise Comes to a Creaky End

David ehrlich.

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One reason you should be able to jump in easily enough: the film starts with young Dalton (Ty Simpkins) and his dad Josh ( Patrick Wilson ) being hypnotized to forget everything that happened in “Insidious” and “Insidious: Chapter 2,” which effectively puts them on the same page as most of the people in the audience. For another thing, Scott Teems’ script — somehow even thinner than the line separating our world from the monster-filled hellscape that Dalton and Josh access through astral projection, or that it uses to access them — thoroughly flattens the series’ not-so-complicated backstory about “the Further” and Josh’s own childhood. It becomes a flimsy pretense to mass produce the genre’s most overfamiliar tropes about inherited trauma on an assembly line of ultra-telegraphed jump-scares.

So while it’s pure speculation to suggest that Wilson saw the character-driven conflict behind “The Red Door” as a chance to combine his training with his tastes, it’s like I always say: You can take the boy out of Carnegie Mellon’s Drama program, but you can’t take Carnegie Mellon’s Drama program out of the boy. Indeed, the first act of Wilson’s directorial debut feels more like a hard-nosed grief drama — or at least an Ari Aster movie — than it does the fifth installment of a horror franchise about red-faced demons playing peek-a-boo with Rose Byrne.

Simpkins plays Dalton as a non-character so vacant it’s hard to tell if he’s haunted or lobotomized, but there’s real pathos behind Josh’s failure to communicate with his son, and the patience Wilson displays with these scenes reflects a deeper interest in what’s really terrifying these people. Sinclair Daniel brings so much pep to her part as Dalton’s roommate that a comedy seems liable to break out any minute, and if not for the mud-brown cinematography that makes every scene look somewhat diseased (for some reason a staple of low-budget studio horror these days), you might almost forget that you’re watching a Blumhouse joint.

The swirling violins and sudden bangs don’t start until Dalton attends a dopey art class taught by Hiam Abbass, who encourages her students to draw from their subconscious. From that point on, neither of the Lambert men can make it five minutes without astral projecting, as the shared experience brings them closer together even as those pesky demons threaten to tear them apart forever. From the moment Josh is in danger, “The Red Door” is overwhelmed by the feeling that it’s Wilson who’s just trying to get out of this thing alive.

That puts a lot of pressure — way too much — on the horror those phantoms might be able to produce, and though Wilson clearly paid attention to what his directors were doing on the previous “Insidious” movies, the rookie helmer lacks the chops to save this installment with jolts alone. Louder than it is scary, “The Red Door” fumbles its way from one predictable jump to the next, with the setpieces ranging from moderately clever (the MRI sequence plays) to enervatingly flat (a home invasion sequence that apes “It Follows” to negligible effect). By the time Wilson reaches the home stretch he’s running so low on fresh ideas that the movie’s climax offers all the thrill of watching people run around the haunted house at a local carnival.

The generically (and decidedly PG-13) rent–a-scare horror elements interfere with what “The Red Door” really wants to do, which is to help Josh put an end to the pain cycle that he’s at risk of passing down to his kid. Spread thin between that father-son drama and the jolts intended to galvanize it, Wilson’s creaky debut underdelivers on both. Art is the door to the mind, Dalton’s teacher insists, but this one never opens wide enough to let anything memorable in — or out.

Movie Review: ‘Insidious: The Red Door’ fails to scare up a winning formula for franchise’s finale

This image released by Sony Pictures shows Patrick Wilson in Screen Gems’ “Insidious: The Red Door.” (Sony Pictures via AP)

This image released by Sony Pictures shows Ty Simpkins in Screen Gems’ “Insidious: The Red Door.” (Sony Pictures via AP)

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The “Insidious” franchise folds back on itself for the fifth installment, returning to its roots with the movie equivalent of getting the (traumatized) band back together.

Patrick Wilson, Ty Simpkins, Rose Byrne and Andrew Astor reunite for “Insidious: The Red Door,” and whether or not you’ll want to push this door open may depend on how much of a completist you are. For many, leaving it shut may be just fine.

The new movie takes place nine years after the events of 2013’s “Insidious: Chapter 2,” and the heroic Lambert family is not doing well. Dad (Wilson) and mom (Byrne) are divorced and their college-aged son, Dalton (Ty Simpkins), pretty much hates dad. “You really don’t know me!” he wails.

The push-pull of fathers and sons is a prominent theme here, but the roots of this particular father-son unhappiness may have to do with the fact that they have suppressed memories of wrestling with demons in a twilight realm called The Further.

The Further — a sort of Upside Down, but long before “Stranger Things” — is described as “a world far beyond our own, yet it’s all around us, a place without time as we know it, a dark realm filled with the tortured souls of the dead, a place not meant for the living.” So like Hollywood?

Dad and son share a special gift — the ability to astral project, or leave their bodies and drift into other worlds. But the cost is high — the son was in a coma for a year and a demon possessed dad, who then tried to slaughter the family. Memories of that were supposed to be wiped away.

Dad and son in the new installment gradually unlock The Further and return to navigate it, but the movie gradually falls apart into incoherence and the use of jumpscares of shocking images, like creepy dolls in a birdcage, a demon vomiting or circus contortionists emerging from sofas.

It’s a pity because Wilson not only acts, he also makes a strong directorial debut and even sings over the end credits, joining the very appropriate Swedish rock band Ghost for “Stay.” It wouldn’t surprise us if Wilson was actually the projectionist at your local cineplex, too.

The screenplay by franchise newcomer Scott Teems feels more like fan fiction, with its loving nods to items associated with the franchise — the camper light, a scary version of “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” and a box of old photos of dad. Mostly the story just meanders.

In reality, Byrne and Astor have very little screen time and it is Wilson and Simpkins who are the stars, as dad tries to come to grips with why he feels “foggy” and Dalton’s memories are triggered by a swashbuckling art teacher who challenges her class with this motto: “You must let go of your past.”

There are some nifty new touches, most notably a fright-fest in an MRI machine, an already very intimate procedure in a tight place. Chunks of “Insidious: Chapter 2” — the final scene and a crucial fight — are reused liberally, and actor Sinclair Daniel adds comic relief and some sanity as the son’s college friend but her story is abandoned unsatisfactorily at the end. Too many bows are attached to the movie’s final moments as well, reunions not earned or coherent.

If the “Insidious” franchise is your jam, by all means go and see the original Fab Four of the Lambert family battle hollow-eyed demons for perhaps the last time. But for everyone else, why not let the past stay in the past?

“Insidious: The Red Door,” a Sony Pictures release that hits theaters Friday, is rated PG-13 for “violence, terror, frightening images, strong language and suggestive references.” Running time: 107 minutes. Two stars out of four.

MPAA Definition of PG-13: Parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

Online: https://www.insidious.movie

Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

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Insidious: The Red Door review: a serviceable scare fest

Ty Simpkins stands in a red doorway in Insidious: The Red Door.

“Insidious: The Red Door is an occasionally scary but frustratingly inert slice of horror entertainment.”

Patrick Wilson's capable direction
Several standout horror set pieces
A cast of one-note characters
A disjointed, overly cyclical structure
A toothless third act

Insidious: The Red Door won’t knock your socks off, but it will make you jump in your seat a few times. The fifth installment in the Insidious franchise and a direct sequel to 2013’s Insidious: Chapter 2 , the new film benefits from its own heightened level of accessibility. As clunky as it may be, the film’s opening scene ensures that its viewers don’t need to be too familiar with its franchise’s previous installments in order to follow along with its story. In an age when it feels like nearly every blockbuster movie comes with its own set of homework assignments, that’s an unexpected blessing.

As refreshingly direct as it is with its intentions, though, Insidious: The Red Door suffers greatly from a lackluster script by Scott Teems, which struggles to bring any dimensionality to the film’s story and characters. Visually, the direction from franchise lead Patrick Wilson, who makes his directorial debut here, is pedestrian but capable. The actor-director demonstrates a fundamental understanding of how to use basic tools like blocking and focus to devastatingly scary effect. His simple style, nonetheless, marks an inevitable step down for a franchise that was initially helmed by The Conjuring filmmaker James Wan.

Insidious: The Red Door begins where its 2013 predecessor left off, with father-son duo Josh (Wilson) and Dalton Lambert (Ty Simpkins) agreeing to have their traumatic memories of the spirit realm known as “The Further,” as well as the undead spirits that lurk within it, suppressed. When the film catches back up with Josh and Dalton (an older, broodier Simpkins) nine years later, it’s revealed that the blank spots in their memories have created an emotional rift between the two. However, when Dalton inadvertently paints a door to The Further, he makes both himself and his father vulnerable again to the demons of their past.

Thanks to its leads’ geographical separation from each other, Insidious: The Red Door spends most of its first and second acts alternately terrorizing Josh and Dalton with horrifying visions and supernatural attacks. Some of these sequences are more effective than others, but not even The Red Door ’s scariest moments are able to distract from the fact that its structure is extremely one-note and repetitive. While the film’s exploration of Dalton’s lingering childhood trauma is occasionally compelling as well, his enforced distance from Wilson’s Josh prevents their relationship from ever deepening or growing in its complexity.

The flatness of The Red Door ’s story isn’t helped by its uninteresting supporting characters, which include Professor Armagan ( Succession ‘s Hiam Abbass), Dalton’s commanding but totally unexplored art teacher, and Chris Winslow (Sinclair Daniel), Dalton’s college roommate. Given how unbelievably she acts throughout The Red Door , the latter character might as well be a Manic Horror Dream Girl, while Rose Byrne understandably sleepwalks through the few underwritten minutes she gets to reprise her role as Renai, Josh’s former wife and confidant.

Its lifeless plot and characterizations aside, Insidious: The Red Door is, at times, as terrifying as any other mainstream horror film that’s been released this year. Many of its second-act set pieces are rendered inconsequential by the film’s cyclical structure, but that doesn’t mean some of them aren’t unnerving. A sequence involving Simpkins’ Dalton and the perpetually vomiting ghost of a dead college kid features the film’s best use of sound design, as well as a fun inverse on the monster-under-the-bed trope that feels, whether intentionally or not, reminiscent of the scariest scene from Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s far superior Pulse .

Another memorable sequence traps Wilson’s Josh in an MRI machine and utilizes his character’s limited visual perspective to significantly ramp up the tension before delivering Insidious: The Red Door ’s best and most bone-rattling jump scare. Together, these scenes establish Wilson’s technical capabilities as a director and even suggest that he may be able to produce a great horror film one day — so long as he’s given a better script than the one he was supposed to work with here. The Red Door makes it clear that Wilson knows how to visually construct a horror sequence, but his efforts are frequently hampered by the film’s disjointed, often illogical screenplay.

Like so many horror movies before it, Insidious: The Red Door becomes significantly less scary the more that it reveals about its plot and monsters. The film’s third act, which tries unsuccessfully to evoke the mood of an Argento-inspired Giallo horror movie, is dragged down significantly by an unearned sentimental streak and a profound lack of legitimately scary moments. All of these mistakes lead The Red Door toward a climax that not only falls short of the visceral terror it wants to achieve but also ends on an unsuitably saccharine note.

Overall, the film is best enjoyed as a lightweight addition to the same jump scare-centric brand of horror that some of Wilson’s previous collaborators — namely, James Wan — have perfected and popularized. It isn’t as effective as any of the films it tries to emulate, but it does have a handful of genuinely terrifying moments. Much like the painting that causes its characters so much trouble, Insidious: The Red Door is a disappointingly paper-thin construction, but one that does have the capacity to be striking, depending on which angle you look at it from.

Insidious: The Red Door is now playing in theaters.

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The alarm has been tripped. The backdoor is wide open. And who or whatever’s impersonating the security-system operator on the other end of the phone line has just croaked three words that no horror movie character would ever want to hear: “Look behind you.” The command puts Rose (Sosie Bacon), the increasingly petrified heroine of Smile, between a rock and a hard place. She has to look, even if every fiber of her being would rather not. And so does the audience. We’re locked into her campfire crucible, forced to follow the hesitant backward tilt of her gaze, and the anticipatory creep of a camera that’s slow to reveal what that disembodied voice has invited her (and us) to discover.

Smile is full of moments like this. It’s a nasty, diabolically calibrated multiplex scream machine — the kind of movie that sends ripples of nervous laughter through packed theaters, the kind that marionettes the whole crowd into a synchronized dance routine of frazzled nerves and spilled popcorn. Turn up your nose, if you must, at the lowly cheap sting of a jump scare. Smile gives that maligned device a workout for the ages. It rattles with aplomb.

Pearl is a candy-coated piece of rotten fruit. The film, which is director Ti West’s prequel to this year's X, trades in the desaturated look and 1970s seediness of its parent film for a lurid, Douglas Sirk-inspired aesthetic that seems, at first, to exist incongruently with its story of intense violence and horror. But much like its titular protagonist, whose youthful beauty and Southern lilt masks the monster within, there’s a poison lurking beneath Pearl’s vibrant colors and seemingly untarnished Depression-era America setting.

Set around 60 years before X, West’s new prequel does away with the por nstars, abandoned farms, and eerie old folks that made its predecessor’s horror influences clear and replaces them with poor farmers, charming film projectionists, and young women with big dreams. Despite those differences, Pearl still feels like a natural follow-up to X. The latter film, with its use of split screens and well-placed needle drops, offered a surprisingly dark rumination on the horror of old age. Pearl, meanwhile, explores the loss of innocence and, in specific, the often terrifying truths that remain after one’s dreams have been unceremoniously ripped away from them.

Horror movies, even the very good ones, have a way of turning their audiences into backseat survivors: “Get out of the house already!” we scream at characters too stubborn or stupid to acknowledge the warning signs around them. It can be part of the communal fun of the genre, pleading aloud for the people on screen to get in touch with their self-preservation instincts.

Viewers will likely have some choice words (or maybe just groans) for the slow-to-flee characters of Speak No Evil. Here, the imperiled — a Danish family enduring a nightmare weekend in the Dutch boonies — actually do make the decision to get the hell out of dodge. Alas, they only go a couple of miles down the road before putting the car in reverse, their escape aborted upon the discovery that a beloved toy has been left behind. What’s more exasperating than someone refusing to get out of the house? How about watching them get out of the house, change their mind, and step right back into it?

‘Insidious: The Red Door’ Manages to Find Some New Life in an Aging Horror Franchise

Directed for the first time by star Patrick Wilson, this serves as something of a legacy sequel, digging into the movies’ history.

While it feels a little odd to be calling a horror franchise that kicked off in 2010 ‘venerable’ perhaps the most terrifying element is remembering that that was 13 years ago. ‘ Insidious ’, with its tale of the creepy nether realm known as “The Further” is back to haunt the living after four previous entries.

This time around, Patrick Wilson –– who has played patriarch Josh Lambert since the original –– also steps behind the camera, working from a script by Scott Teems (‘ Halloween Kills ’), who collaborated on the story with original ‘Insidious’ writer Leigh Whannell . The new film is called ' Insidious: The Red Door ' and it opens in theaters on July 7th.

Insidious: The Red Door

What’s the story of ‘Insidious: The Red Door’?

Picking up ten years after the events of the second film, the Lamberts are a fractured family in mourning. Patrick Wilson returns as Josh Lambert, a father struggling with the loss of his mother, Lorraine, and keen to mend the relationship with his oldest son, Dalton (a returning Ty Simpkins ).

He agrees to drive the talented artist to his Ivy League university, hoping the road trip and settling him in will help them reconnect. Things, as you might suspect, don’t go to plan.

At the same time, a psychological trigger revives a past Dalton didn’t even realize he’d forgotten (or, more accurately, had used hypnotized to suppress), and it gradually begins to sneak its dark fingers into his reality, opening a gateway to the nightmarish realm we know so well from past movies in the series.

The gateway is a red door that haunts his Dalton’s art and his dreams, a portal in The Further that Josh and Dalton must unite to close for the sake of their family, past and present…

Who else is in ‘Insidious: The Red Door’?

The cast for the movie also includes Rose Byrne returning as matriarch Renai Lambert, Andrew Astor as son Foster Lambert, and Lin Shaye once more playing parapsychologist Dr. Elise Rainier (alongside a quick cameo from Whannell and Angus Sampson as her regular tech sidekicks Specs and Tucker).

Outside the veteran cast, we have Sinclair Daniel as Dalton’s college friend Chris and Hiam Abbass as cranky art teacher Professor Armagan.

Are there issues in the Further?

The main problems with the movie stem from the familiar beats that begin to kick in as Dalton and his father truly investigate the chunk of memories that has been obscured in their minds. While the writers and crew stage a few inventive variations on dead entities stalking and messing with the living, there are only so many ways this can play out and once we dive back into The Further, things become ridiculously over-stylized and honestly less creepy, not more.

Plus, if you were shouting at the screen that a potential fix for all the problems is staring the characters in the face once Dalton makes one particular move in the story, you’ll likely be disappointed how long it takes them to figure it out.

And while she is in the movie, Rose Byrne gets very little to do until the very end, but at least makes the most of Renai’s limited screen time.

Likewise, Abbass’ Armagan does what she can with the small amount of scenes, one in particular, an abrasive first class with her new students, is a standout. Wilson and Teems might also have found a more effective way to bring those who have somehow chosen to make this the first ‘Insidious’ movie they see up to speed than halting the plot for an exposition dump (even if it is delivered by three familiar, entertaining characters).

A more effective re-visit of a scary story than the more recent ‘ Halloween ’ movies, ‘The Red Door’ serves as a solid final chapter for this story. Though of course, it goes without saying (and we won’t spoil anything) that there are hints for the future after the end credits.

‘Insidious: The Red Door’ receives 7.5 out of 10 stars.

Other Movies Similar to ‘Insidious: The Red Door':

' Insidious ' (2011)
‘ Insidious: Chapter 2 ' (2013)
' The Conjuring ' (2013)
‘ Insidious: Chapter 3 ' (2015)
' The Conjuring 2 ' (2016)
‘ Insidious: The Last Key ' (2018)
' Annabelle Comes Home ' (2019)
' The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It ' (2021)

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'Insidious: The Red Door' is produced by Blumhouse Productions, Stage 6 Films, Screen Gems. The movie is scheduled to release in theaters on July 7th, 2023.

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‘Insidious: The Red Door’ Review – A Sentimental Swan Song for the Lambert Family

As its title suggests, Insidious: The Red Door , the fifth entry in the franchise, returns to the Lambert family to close the door on their ongoing saga with The Further. Set a decade after the events of Insidious: Chapter Two , star Patrick Wilson pulls double duty for this sequel, making his feature debut with a sentimental entry more interested in exploring buried secrets and family trauma than the paranormal. Less a sequel and more a continuation of Chapter Two , The Red Door gives a tender send-off to the Lamberts.

Flashback scenes from Chapter Two catch unfamiliar audiences up to speed; after young Dalton ( Ty Simpkins ) helps dad Josh (Patrick Wilson) escape the Further and return home, the family decides to suppress their memories. The idea, of course, is to prevent future astral projecting into the Further, closing the door on pervading entities hoping to cross into the real world. Harboring secrets of this magnitude hasn’t been kind to the Lambert family, but a death reopens old wounds as Dalton heads off to college. Old secrets refuse to stay buried, and the door to the Further busts wide open. Father and son must reckon with their past if they have any hope for a future.

Patrick Wilson in Screen Gems INSIDIOUS: THE RED DOOR, Photo credit: Nicole Rivelli

Written by Scott Teems and based on a story by Leigh Whannell , The Red Door evolves the Lambert family in an organic, affecting way. Its central thesis hinges on the erosion of family bonds when memories of this scale get suppressed. What happens when some family members, like Renai Lambert ( Rose Byrne ), must carry the burden of such secrets? Wilson ensures that repurposed footage from Chapter Two presents a clear picture of Josh’s possession and subsequent attempts to kill his family so The Red Door can mine that trauma through the estranged bond between Josh and Dalton. Both separately find themselves on a paranormal journey of self-discovery.

The Red Door is at its most interesting when following Dalton’s explorations of college life as his reawakening connection to the Further pervades. Now a young adult, Dalton’s typical exploration with self-identity out from under his dad’s shadow comes, and college navigation brings terrifying visions vision it. Some stem from his forgotten past, while others bring current nightmares from the Further. Dalton’s newly forged friendship with roommate Chris ( Sinclair Daniel ) breathes life into this more somber feature most of all. Daniel’s lively, more assertive personality brings levity when necessary and helps flesh out Dalton beyond his reserved, aloof artist persona. Conversely, Josh’s past offers little more than a few scares and drawn out questions.

Patrick Wilson in Screen Gems Insidious: The Red Door, Photo credit: Boris Martin

Director Patrick Wilson’s emphasis on family, specifically Josh and Dalton, means the denizens of the Further don’t factor as strongly into the story. Or rather, don’t expect any expansion of lore here. Familiar faces do get brought into the fold, but this is firmly the Lamberts’ story. Wilson does make this franchise entry his own in tone, style, and scares. On the latter, how Wilson toys with sound and tension-building lend unpredictable quality to the scares that render them effectual. But the reliance on Chapter Two footage and a lack of development on the mythology leaves the horror aspect of this story on the underwhelming side.

That it’s so intrinsically tied to Insidious: Chapter Two , complete with Chapter Two footage flashbacks, makes it more inaccessible to franchise newcomers than previous entries. Those hoping to learn more about the Lipstick Demon ( Joseph Bishara ) and the darkest corners of the Further may come away disappointed. The Red Door isn’t interested in the mythology but instead in examining how its ghosts fractured the family and whether their enduring love can make them whole again. Wilson reminds audiences why they fell for the Lambert family in the first place with a sentimental sequel that tenderly bids them farewell. While it doesn’t give a sense of finality to the Further or its ghostly inhabitants, it does offer poignant closure to the protagonists that started it all.

Insidious: The Red Door releases in theaters on July 7, 2023.

Horror journalist, RT Top Critic, and Critics Choice Association member. Co-Host of the Bloody Disgusting Podcast. Has appeared on PBS series' Monstrum, served on the SXSW Midnighter shorts jury, and moderated horror panels for WonderCon and SeriesFest.

‘The Forest Hills’ Trailer – Shelley Duvall’s Final Movie Releases This Halloween Season

Scott Goldberg ‘s The Forest Hills will bring together Edward Furlong ( Terminator 2 ), Dee Wallace ( The Howling ), and Shelley Duvall ( The Shining ), with the film notably marking the late Shelley Duvall’s final movie appearance – and first in two decades. Entertainment Weekly has unleashed the film’s official trailer this morning, and you’ll find it down below.

Additionally, we’ve learned this morning that The Forest Hills will be releasing in select theaters beginning October 4 ( check listings ), with the Blu-ray up for pre-order right now .

Jamie Marsh ( The Forsaken, Killer App, X-Files, Best Laid Plans ) recently joined the cast of the upcoming werewolf movie, re-teaming with his Brainscan co-star Edward Furlong.

Chiko Mendez, Felissa Rose, Linda Flores, Marianne Hagan , and Stacey Nelkin also star.

The Forest Hills follows Rico (Chiko Mendez), a man who is tormented by nightmarish visions after enduring head trauma while hiking in the Catskills.

Edward Furlong plays the role of Billy, a man who influences Rico to believe that he can become a werewolf. And we hear Furlong transforms into a werewolf in the movie.

Director/Producer/Writer Scott Goldberg tells Bloody Disgusting, “For the transformation process throughout the film, we are doing all practical special effects. There is absolutely no CGI for the transformation sequences because we grew up watching films in the early 80s that had to create the horror through practical special effects.”

Produced by Dreznick-Goldberg Productions, Digital Thunderdome, and Scott Hansen.

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Insidious: the red door.

Common Sense Says
Parents Say 4 Reviews
Kids Say 7 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Fifth in ghost franchise underwhelms; violence, language.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 14+?

Jump scares. Moments of peril and panic. Possessed characters stalk and threaten

A use of "f--k," plus a few uses of "s--t," "t-tties," "goddamn," "ass," "bitch,

Brief fake kissing, meant as a distraction. Sex-related dialogue/innuendo ("slap

Drinking at a frat party. Ghost of someone said to have died at a previous party

Any Positive Content?

The lesson seems to be that "forgetting doesn't work; we need to remember, even

The five members of the Lambert family are White, and the focus is on two men. A

Characters are good and likable, but they're also largely troubled people who ar

Violence & Scariness

Jump scares. Moments of peril and panic. Possessed characters stalk and threaten other characters. Woman is choked by ghost, passes out, revived by CPR. Woman thrown against wall. Woman thrown to ground. Ghost jumps through window, chases character through house. Ghost shoves character into a closet, knocks down clothes rod. Characters grabbed by arms, throats. Creepy figures lurk in background. Demonic figures. Blood (handprints, smears, etc.) and/or oozing liquids. Ghost vomits on character's face. A character from the previous movies dies, and others attend the funeral, where death is discussed. Reference to a character dying by suicide. Creepy drawings and artwork.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

A use of "f--k," plus a few uses of "s--t," "t-tties," "goddamn," "ass," "bitch," "hell," "d--k," "damn," "peckerwood," "freakin'," "butt," "crapper." Exclamatory use of "oh God."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Brief fake kissing, meant as a distraction. Sex-related dialogue/innuendo ("slap your salami," "crusty sheets," "we were gonna do it," "I left my brassiere in Nick's room," etc.). A character grabs and drops a box of condoms. Possible nude drawing hangs on wall of art class, seen briefly.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Drinking at a frat party. Ghost of someone said to have died at a previous party is seen vomiting in toilet.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

The lesson seems to be that "forgetting doesn't work; we need to remember, even the things that hurt." Admitting and accepting their pain eventually leads characters to what could be a reconciliation for the family.

Diverse Representations

The five members of the Lambert family are White, and the focus is on two men. At Dalton's school, his best friend, Chris (Sinclair Daniel), is Black, and his instructor, Professor Armagan, is played by Palestinian actor Hiam Abbass. Both women are strong and have agency. Black actor E. Roger Mitchell appears as a doctor; many other people of color appear in small roles or in background. Closing credits claim that the movie was made by a diverse cast and crew. A sequence at a frat party includes a White male student giving a speech that borders on hate; it's not received well.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Positive Role Models

Characters are good and likable, but they're also largely troubled people who are struggling to get by and are victimized by evil forces.

Parents need to know that Insidious: The Red Door -- the fifth movie in the Insidious horror franchise -- is the direct sequel to Insidious: Chapter 2 , exploring the hypnotism and memory suppression conducted on Josh ( Patrick Wilson ) and his now teen son Dalton (Ty Simpkins). Violence includes jump scares, ghost attacks, moments of peril and panic, stalking, threatening, a woman being choked by a ghost, women thrown to the floor or against a wall, arms and throats grabbed, creepy figures, blood, vomit, other oozing liquids, and more. There are also a few instances of sex-related dialogue or innuendo, and a character is shown grabbing a box of condoms. Language includes a use of "f--k," plus a few uses of "s--t," "t-tties," "goddamn," "ass," "bitch," "hell," "d--k," and other words. Teens drink at a frat party, and the ghost of a teen who drank too much vomits into a toilet. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

The cast of Insidious: The Red Door standing in front of a red door

Parent and Kid Reviews

Parents say (4)
Kids say (7)

Based on 4 parent reviews

Such a great addition to the franchise.

What's the story.

In INSIDIOUS: THE RED DOOR, it's been nine years since the events of Insidious: Chapter 2 , in which young Dalton (Ty Simpkins) and his father, Josh ( Patrick Wilson ), had hypnosis to suppress the memories of their horrific experiences. Dalton has become a sullen teen who's about to head off to art school. And Josh has felt "foggy" ever since the hypnotism, his marriage to Renai ( Rose Byrne ) falling apart and his relationship with Dalton deteriorating. In school, Dalton's art professor ( Hiam Abbass ) encourages him to dig deep for inspiration, and some of the old terrifying entities begin to make themselves known again. With the help of his new college friend Chris (Sinclair Daniel), Dalton discovers that he can "astral project" and starts looking for answers. But, unfortunately, he goes a bit too far, and both father and son wind up inside The Further once more.

Is It Any Good?

The fifth Insidious movie starts strong, with fresh character touches and chilling, eerily quiet moments, but it eventually suffers from a sequel's usual diminishing returns. Making his debut as director, star Wilson brings Insidious: The Red Door back to the Lambert family, whom we last saw in Insidious: Chapter 2 . ( Insidious: Chapter 3 and Insidious: The Last Key were both prequels.) As an actor, Wilson seems interested in the movie's characters and their relationships, which are strained both by their horrific pasts and their suppressed memories. He also has a few nifty ideas for creeping scares, such as one in which he sits in the cab of his truck, or when he plays a "memory game" in his living room, or -- most nail-bitingly -- gets stuck inside an MRI machine. And the addition of Dalton's friend Chris is a delightful burst of silly energy.

But as Dalton and Josh spend more time apart and the plot gets rolling, it starts to feel overly familiar -- and more than a little tired. Even The Further seems far less terrifying than it once did. Wilson's directing career could be promising, but Insidious: The Red Door is a sign that maybe this franchise should close up.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Insidious: The Red Door 's violence . How did it make you feel? Was it exciting? Shocking? What did the movie show or not show to achieve this effect? Why is that important?

How scary is the movie? What's the appeal of horror movies ?

Do you agree with Dalton when he says that "forgetting doesn't work; we need to remember, even the things that hurt." Why, or why not?

What's the nature of the father-son relationship in this movie? How does it compare to your real-life relationships?

How does this film compare to the four previous movies in the Insidious series?

Movie Details

In theaters : July 7, 2023
On DVD or streaming : August 1, 2023
Cast : Ty Simpkins , Patrick Wilson , Sinclair Daniel
Director : Patrick Wilson
Inclusion Information : Female actors, Black actors
Studios : Screen Gems , Stage 6 Films
Genre : Horror
Topics : Monsters, Ghosts, and Vampires
Run time : 107 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : violence, terror, frightening images, strong language and suggestive references
Last updated : December 6, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

What to watch next.

Insidious: Chapter 2

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COMMENTS

Insidious: The Red Door movie review (2023)
Callbacks to other "Insidious" films are half-hearted, and "The Red Door" seems to give up on trying to make all of the pieces fit after a while. What does work are a handful of scares in the film's first half. As a director, Wilson proves himself familiar enough with the mechanics of a jump scare—clearly, he picked up a few things ...
Insidious: The Red Door
In Insidious: The Red Door, the horror franchise's original cast returns for the final chapter of the Lambert family's terrifying saga. To put their demons to rest once and for all, Josh (Patrick ...
'Insidious: The Red Door' Review: The Ghost of Jump Scares Past
Patrick Wilson makes his directorial debut with this fifth installment of the horror franchise haunted by a red-faced demon.
Insidious: The Red Door
Insidious: The Red Door doesn't quite reach the heights of its predecessors. It tantalizes us with a few effective scares, but its pacing and character development fall short.
Insidious: The Red Door Review
Insidious: The Red Door is a satisfying conclusion to the Lambert family's long nightmare journey into The Further, even if it starts to rely too heavily on jump scares by the end.
'Insidious: The Red Door' Review: Patrick Wilson Makes ...
Insidious: The Red Door, starring Patrick Wilson, Ty Simpkins, & Rose Byrne, takes the horror franchise in a new direction. Read on for our review.
Review: 'Insidious: The Red Door
The fifth installment of a horror franchise that kicked off in 2010, the movie marks the directorial debut of its original star, Patrick Wilson.
'Insidious: The Red Door' Review: Patrick Wilson Directs Limp Sequel
Patrick Wilson directs and stars in 'Insidious: The Red Door,' the fifth installment of the franchise and a sequel to 2013's 'Insidious: Chapter 2.
Insidious: The Red Door (2023)
Insidious: The Red Door: Directed by Patrick Wilson. With Ty Simpkins, Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Sinclair Daniel. The Lamberts must go deeper into The Further than ever before to put their demons to rest once and for all.
Insidious: The Red Door
Insidious: The Red Door - Metacritic. 2023. PG-13. Big Picture 2 Films. 1 h 47 m. Summary To put their demons to rest once and for all, Josh (Patrick Wilson) and a college-aged Dalton (Ty Simpkins) must go deeper into The Further than ever before, facing their family's dark past and a host of new and more horrifying terrors that lurk behind ...
Insidious: The Red Door Review: A Mostly Successful Trip Back ...
The latest is "Insidious: The Red Door," and while it probably won't be the final "Insidious" movie — there's still money to be made! — it is a film that attempts to close the book on the poor ...
Insidious: The Red Door
Insidious: The Red Door Review. Years after the events of the first two Insidious films, Dalton (Ty Simpkins) is driven to college by now-divorced dad Josh (Patrick Wilson). But in the wake of a ...
'Insidious: The Red Door' Review: The Fifth Entry in the Series May Be
'Insidious: The Red Door' Review: The Fifth Entry in the Series May Be the Least Insidious Patrick Wilson leads the original cast, and also directs, in a sequel that turns into psycho therapy.
Insidious: The Red Door Review
The Insidious franchise is back and better than ever with the latest release, Insidious: The Red Door.
Insidious: The Red Door Review: A Creaky End for this ...
'Insidious: The Red Door' Review: This Stalled Horror Franchise Comes to a Creaky End Patrick Wilson's directorial debut is a generic jump-scare machine that fights against his strengths.
Movie Review: 'Insidious: The Red Door' fails to scare up a winning
The "Insidious" franchise folds back on itself for the fifth installment, returning to its roots with the movie equivalent of getting the band back together.
Insidious: The Red Door (2023) Movie Reviews
In Insidious: The Red Door, the horror franchise's original cast returns for the final chapter of the Lambert family's terrifying saga. To put their demons to rest once and for all, Josh (Patrick Wilson) and a college-aged Dalton (Ty Simpkins) must go deeper into The Further than ever before, facing their family's dark past and a host of new and more horrifying terrors that lurk behind ...
Insidious: The Red Door review: a serviceable scare fest
Insidious: The Red Door is an occasionally scary but repetitive slice of horror entertainment. The Patrick Wilson-directed film is now playing in theaters.
Movie Review: 'Insidious: The Red Door'
Buy 'Insidious' Movies On Amazon. 'Insidious: The Red Door' is produced by Blumhouse Productions, Stage 6 Films, Screen Gems. The movie is scheduled to release in theaters on July 7th, 2023. This ...
Insidious: The Red Door Review
As its title suggests, Insidious: The Red Door, the fifth entry in the franchise, returns to the Lambert family to close the door on their ongoing saga with The Further. Set a decade after the ...
Insidious: The Red Door Movie Review
The fifth Insidious movie starts strong, with fresh character touches and chilling, eerily quiet moments, but it eventually suffers from a sequel's usual diminishing returns. Making his debut as director, star Wilson brings Insidious: The Red Door back to the Lambert family, whom we last saw in Insidious: Chapter 2.
Insidious: The Red Door
Insidious: The Red Door is a 2023 American supernatural horror film directed by Patrick Wilson (in his directorial debut) from a screenplay by Scott Teems based on a story by Leigh Whannell and Teems. Produced by Blumhouse and Screen Gems in association with Stage 6, it is a direct sequel to Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013), and the fifth installment in the Insidious franchise. Original director ...
Insidious: The Red Door
Insidious has its final chapter.....again. Here's my review of the newest, newer-er final chapter INSIDIOUS: THE RED DOOR!#InsidiousTheRedDoor
Here's How to Watch the Insidious Movies in Order
Finally, at the end of the journey is Insidious: The Red Door. The last film chronologically and by release date, The Red Door, takes place 10 years after the first film, and it's revealed that ...

Insidious: The Red Door

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‘Insidious: The Red Door’ Review: The Ghost of Jump Scares Past

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