Insidious: The Red Door

The Red Door is the fifth film in the Insidious movie franchise and the third that deals with the Lambert family.  Father, Josh (Patrick Wilson) and son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) possess the ability to astral project, leave their physical form and travel to another realm called “The Further”, but this attracts the spirits of the dead and other evil entities and leaves them open for possession. After the trauma that the family went through in the first two installments with Josh and Dalton both battling evil entities in “The Further”, the pair is hypnotized to forget everything that happened to them during that time period.  Nine years later, Josh is now divorced from wife Renai (Rose Byrne) and Josh has a strained relationship with Dalton and his younger brother Foster (Andrew Astor). Dalton, now in college as an art major, is egged on by his professor to dig deep into his subconscious to a hidden memory for his art project.  This awakens the memories of the Red Door, the entry way into “The Further”.  Soon after, both Josh and Dalton begin to see things.  Josh, is attacked by an entity he finds out is his father, who also had the same ability.  Can Josh and Dalton battle their inner demons and save their family and friends without falling prey to the red-faced demon? Watch and find out!

I enjoy the Insidious franchise of movies and find them creepy and atmospheric without it being over the top gory.  The Red Door includes a combination of “jump” scares with situational horror that is both entertaining and terrifying. The music is well composed and adds to the scene’s ambiance appropriately. The overall production value is good with the special effects highlighting the horror without overpowering the story telling.  Patrick Wilson makes his directorial debut as well as returning as Josh and does well in both roles.  The story flows well and has a nice rhythm and the dialogue all seems genuine and natural.  The actors all do a good job portraying their roles.  Josh lives in a fog and doesn’t understand what is wrong with him, a side effect of hypnosis.  Dalton seems like your average brooding teen, but part of this is also his inability to remember what actually happened to him. Line Shaye, Angus Sampson and Leigh Whannell all make cameos, reprising their roles they have played in the previous films.

The film is well put together, and I liked that a lot of the film has to do with the ramifications of what the family went through and their unconventional solution of hiding those memories from Josh and Dalton instead of letting them deal with the trauma.  There are a lot of great moments with a good creep factor, but I felt there was something missing from the story that would have made it a lot better and I am not even sure what it was.  It might be that there wasn’t enough time to fully examine all the different plots and sub-plots going on at the same time.  Although Josh and his father’s storyline seems to have concluded, it felt a bit rushed, and the story of the ghostly student Dalton saw never really gets resolved.  Overall, the film is enjoyable, entertaining and scary, but just missing something that would have made it great. I know there is a new movie planned which is in pre-production, and I am hoping this one does not involve the Lambert family, maybe it is time they were left to live their lives in peace. And perhaps, so does the audience as each sequel has had diminishing returns.