Insidious: Out of the Further Review: More Demons, Less Fun

A moving family saga gets bogged down by a lot of demons

Insidious keeps fear within the family. Over the years, the franchise from horror masters Leigh Whannell and James Wan has grown into one of Blumhouse’s staple series, tracing various, connected families haunted by demons from the Further, a parallel dimension filled with malevolent entities that only certain people can access. Insidious: Out of the Further is the first to introduce a new batch of characters with no link to the originals save for the shared mythology. Still, the story retains that familial angle, this time centered on mothers and daughters.

Writer-director Jacob Chase tackles this subject somewhat effectively, even if his first foray into the franchise gets bogged down by a far too sluggish pace that keeps Out of the Further from ever becoming the fun, jump-scare-filled ride we’ve come to associate with Insidious movies.

Insidious: Out of the Further begins with a self-sufficient little girl. She arrives home from school and sees her mom, asleep, head lying on the dining room table. The girl’s reaction suggests this is nothing new. She continues on with her day, completing her homework, preparing dinner, and putting herself to bed. When her mom reappears, she’s hovering outside of her room, like a shadow. As she approaches, Chase keeps the camera centered on the girl’s face, aligning us with her emotions. When we finally see her mother’s face, her eyes are lost and half-gone.

Years later, we meet the little girl as an adult. Gemma (Amelia Eve) is now a dentist with a daughter named Maya (Island Austin). She's committed to giving her kid the childhood she never had. The two live in the same house Gemma grew up in, with the garage stuffed with boxes containing her late mother’s belongings. The horror kicks in when a creepy trio of neighbors moves into the neighborhood. At the same time, Gemma starts to experience vivid nightmares, taking her back to the most traumatic night of her life. As she loses her grip on reality, not knowing if she's dreaming or awake in the real world, her behavior starts to resemble that of her mother. And her daughter begins to fear her.

This is Insidious, so when the supernatural needs an explanation, paranormal investigator Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye) shows up, as always, like Captain America returning to The Avengers. She acts as a unifying thread for the franchise and reveals to Gemma that the experiences she’s having are not dreams. Gemma is a traveler and has the ability to move in and out of the Further, making her a target for malignant forces living in that parallel universe.

Insidious: Out of the Further features numerous scary beats that are inventive and fun. Gemma is a dentist in a horror movie for a reason; Chase dives fully into dental horror and the squeamishness of having someone poke around in your mouth with metal tools. Dental drills and mouth blocks show up in the demons’ designs. There’s also a memorable sequence set within a pillow fort that starts out playful and grows into a labyrinthine escape, striking the right balance between jumpy and claustrophobic.

But for large parts of the film, it feels like Chase's script is going through the motions, following the Insidious formula to get to the good parts. The pacing isn’t helped by the dreaminess of the narrative, making it feel like we spend too much time in the Further when we could be getting to know and care about the characters more.

As the sixth film in the franchise, Chase applies a bigger is better logic (this is the director's first big studio movie, and he doesn't hold back.) More demons, more powers, higher stakes. One sequence features a cluster of demons, all out for Gemma. It’s bombastic and charged with action, but no matter how many monsters clutter the screen or how inventive their design is, it’s not as frightening as some of the franchise’s most memorable sequences, like a slow pan revealing a demon with a red face hunched closely behind the protagonist. By opting for a larger scale of horror, some intimacy is lost. It’s a shame, considering that the story of Gemma and Maya is powerful enough on its own.

Insidious: Out of the Further works best when it focuses on the generational tale of mothers and what they pass down to their daughters. As it stands, it’s hard to find that heart amid all the noise.

Insidious: Out of the Further premieres in theaters this Friday, August 21.