Sunday, 7 January 2024

VOD: Insidious The Red Door (dir: Patrick Wilson, 2023)

"Some things are just better left buried, you know?"

The fifth and allegedly final entry in this increasingly dull and nonsensical franchise moves the story forwards nine years to the grandmother's funeral and a now-late-teen Dalton off to college and Patrick Wilson (who also directs the film) divorced and his relationship with his son broken.  After an excruciatingly blandly-scripted first half-hour, things start to liven up with a spooky and claustrophobic MRI-scanner sequence but then reverts back to silly set pieces that fail to scare and a relentlessly laboured use of the door metaphor as the secrets of the family's past are slowly uncovered and the sealed-by-hypnosis trauma of the trips to The Further returns.  Sinclair Daniel livens up proceedings as Dalton's sparky room-mate Chris, but with the family-unit-in-jeopardy element reduced and only a couple of very brief appearances by the redoubtable Lin Shaye, this thin and tedious finale to the series has little of interest to offer.  
 

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