Tag Archives: Insidious

Insidious: The Red Door Review

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Insidious has definitely fallen onto tough times over the years. I wish I could say it ended with a real bang but unfortunately this film was not even remotely good. It falls into pretty much all of the big horror traps you can think of. Annoying characters, a lackluster story, etc. There was really nothing about the movie that would really attract you to it and by the end it just feels like a waste. There isn’t even a really hype end stinger to leave the film off on a high note. They came close because I thought one character was about to turn evil but surprisingly this did not happen.

The film starts off with showing us how strained the relationship with Josh and his son Dalton is. Dalton is a super spoiled kid who is a jerk to everybody, but especially his father. The kid has really checked out and just wants to go to college to be away from his family. Josh ended up going through a divorce so he’s not doing great right now but is convinced by his ex to drive Dalton to school. The problem is that the hypnosis placed on both of them to forget their old memories has nearly come undone. The door to the Further is opening again and the demons are waiting by the gates. This could end up being fatal for the main characters.

One of the big problems this film has is that Dalton eats up the majority of the screentime and he never gets a whole lot better. He’s super annoying throughout the movie and seems like the kind of character who is easy to manipulate. His roommate ends up being a girl named Chris who teaches him all about going to the dark side and becoming a total delinquent. Unfortunately for her, she is now roped into this death battle against the demons since Dalton wants to try out his astral projection ability. I have to agree with Chris being upset about this because it does put her in a lot of trouble right out of the gate. Not a very pleasant thing for a friend to be doing right? Dalton doesn’t really put a whole lot of thought into her safety at all.

Until the ending you could also say there’s not much reason for Dalton to be messing with this ability. If anything, all of the signs point to this being a mistake like how he keeps drawing doors and even injures himself from drawing too hard. These are massive signs to stay away from the supernatural. At least in the end he gets to bond a bit with his father but it was a long road to get there and basically any scene over at the school was a rough one. Meanwhile Chris was at least taking things in stride a lot more but I still can’t give her many points because of what a bad influence she was. If you thought that sorority/frat parties sounded bad, this film won’t change your mind.

Josh’s story is a whole lot more interesting which is why it should have gotten more screentime. Basically the hypnosis did a lot of damage to his life like contributing to his divorce and in the years since then his mind has been really foggy. The hypnosis did a number on his brain after all and so he was really put in a tough spot here. Now I don’t think it’s earned when he is mad at his ex though because he did try to murder her while possessed. At that point I think you do basically lose any kind of argument for how things could have worked out. It was also apparently partially his idea to be mind wiped.

Ultimately Josh just needed to do a better job of resisting the demons and I know that is easier said than done. Still, at least he feels like a tougher character than Dalton and is just more fun. You won’t see him being pressured into doing anything too crazy. The plots take a long while to converge though which is unfortunate. Also one of the most jarring exposition scenes is when Chris randomly finds a video about people discussing astral projection. The odds of her finding these guys in particular is one thing but they act like this is a fascinating new concept. Everyone knows what Astral Projection is, I don’t see what was so shocking about this. Believing that it is real would be shocking, but not the concept itself.

As for the scares, it’s basically your average kind of jump scares. The film relies a bit too much on gross type horror like one character puking and a lot of the demons just looking really ugly. It’s more grotesque than scary and the iconic villain only has a cameo this time around. The human possession is also one of the less scary kinds of horror villains because you’d rather be seeing the demon try to fight them. This doesn’t seem like final film material, it could have been the threat for any of the films in this series.

The writing is okay I suppose but without any real likable characters that does limit the film’s potential right off the bat. Then the film can also feel a bit on the long side as a result. I gotta say, the movie could and should have been a whole lo better than it was. The way it turned out, it’s not a film I would be interested in re watching.

Overall, Insidious: The Red Door suffers from being a standard horror film. It doesn’t come close to matching the visuals of the original Insidious and it’s lacking anything all that memorable. It’s not the worst Insidious film but you will struggle to find any real positives about it. Horror films seem to be allergic to good characters most of the time but they would do the genre a whole world of good. Next time they should spend more time on the characters and less on the horror setup. We don’t need Dalton to draw the same things numerous times and calling his brother to confirm that something weird is going on. The scenes never go anywhere until the very end.

Overall 2/10

Insidious: The Last Key Review

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The main insidious thing about this film is the sharp drop in writing quality. One thing the series was always good for was some pretty solid writing and lines as the heroes dealt with the crazy villains everywhere. This one almost felt like a B movie with the writing and not in a good/funny way. Just in an annoying eye roll way and ultimately it misses the boat really quickly. It’s telling that the spookiest scene is at the very end which ties into the first film.

The movie starts off by giving us a look into Elise’s childhood. She grew up in an abusive home where she was especially picked on by her father for being able to see supernatural creatures. Unfortunately Elise could not help herself in continuing to mention them and getting beaten as a result. Eventually she ran out but did not take her brother Christian with her so he still resents her to this day. In the “present” (Still before film 1) she gets a call from someone who lives in the house she grew up in. He’s being haunted and needs some supernatural help. Elise calls in her teammates Specs and Tucker since it’s always safest to move as a group Elise decides not to call in her teammates Specs and Tucker because she needs to handle this on her own since it’s so personal. They ignore her so the 3 head in to the house. Can Elise solve this spirit case or will the fact that she has no offensive abilities at the ready come back to haunt her?

Elise is confident and talks a good game at times but the extent of her plan seems to just be to try and talk the ghosts down. She doesn’t do much else and so honestly you get the feeling that she got lucky a whole lot of times. She may as well be a rookie instead for all the good she does here. Her memories of childhood keep spooking her throughout the movie so it’s not like the villain has to do much. When Keyface (At least that’s what he is called on Wikipedia) shows up he’s able to beat her with extreme ease. She may as well have just been some random person.

So I can’t say I liked Elise very much in this film. She just felt completely out of her depth and wasn’t making logical moves the whole time. Then her partners Specs and Tucker are the worst. Pretty much every scene with them is just poor attempts to flirt with two teenagers who are just trying to mind their own business. It gets worse when a traumatic event happens to one of them and they continue to flirt with the other. They have no tact and no class. The humor is incredibly off putting and really poorly handled. I haven’t seen a comic relief character this bad since possibly Transformers 2 which has to really take the cake there. I’m probably forgetting some films but the point is…they were brutal. And unfortunately they appear a lot.

I guess maybe the writers thought the film was too scary so you needed the comedic duo to lighten things up every few minutes? The problem being that this film isn’t even all that scary. Again, the first and even second Insidious films are way scarier than this one. This one also has too many other fighters running around the playing field. For example we actually get a real life villain where the film temporarily becomes more of a thriller as the heroes have to take him out. Then we go back to the supernatural stuff.

When we finally go into the other side where the spirits reign then things start to get back into their normal place. That’s really a lot more like it but it’s pretty late in the game by then. It’s also not like that’s going to suddenly fix the writing. Spending more time on the scares and showing off the villain would have been a really good idea since the non supernatural stuff drag the film down.

Lets look at the non supernatural stuff for a minute here. We have a guy who was murdering a bunch of women and stuffing them in an abandoned tunnel. Very grim dark for no real reason. Elise’s abusive father also turned out to be a murderer on the side and did something similar with a poor lady who was in there. You can question why she didn’t make a run for it when the door was unlocked and the kids were around but the point is really that the film was desperate to make things as dark as possible here. Adding all of these women who were getting murdered in the past doesn’t add anything to the film as we already knew the other characters were pretty bad. It’s more shock value than anything else.

We always see these evil ghosts running around and haunting someone so it’d be nice as a change of pace to see some of these victims show up and start claiming their revenge. They certainly should have regrets so why wouldn’t they become powerful spirits too right? Why do only the evil ones get to have a lot of power in the afterlife? It should be a little more balanced by that point. Ultimately Keyface ends up being a little underwhelming as a result because he gets so little screen time. It just feels like he barley gets to appear. His ability to turn off your voice is a little scary I’ll admit but it comes at the expense of his effectiveness.

Because he has to turn your voice off first, it takes forever to actually murder anyone. He easily should have destroyed Elise and then the other girl who he caught since he had plenty of time before being interrupted. Yet he wasn’t able to finish the job. This lets us have some emotional moments at the end of course but it really comes at the expense of this villain’s credability.

Overall, This was definitely a very weak Insidious film. The visuals are still fun and there are maybe a small handful of spooky moments but ultimately it really lost the point of this series early on. Insidious is about dealing with demonic threats from the other side and learning how to subdue them. Having a whole long tangent about abusive fathers and actual serial murders is completely jarring and out of touch with the supernatural. It’s like making a Paranormal Activity film where the heroes are spooked at night but during the day are taking on Jack the Ripper. Stick to the supernatural stuff and you could really have an intense movie. You can add some of that stuff for a quick origin but it should never be such a major part of the movie. Also you need to drop the comedy duo, their scenes were just completely cringe and not even remotely entertaining. They realllllly hurt the movie every time they appear.

Overall 2/10

Insidious: Chapter 3 Review

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It’s time to step into the final part of the Insidious Trilogy. This prequel helps fill in the gaps from the first two and leads into the first one. It’s a pretty solid horror film and still sets a nice bar for others to follow. It’s a shame that most horror films still manage to mess it up and stumble down the finish line. As long as this series continues, there is hope for the genre though.

So, Quinn visits an old psychic’s house because she wants to talk to her mom. The psychic is named Elise and the old lady warns Quinn not to do this. Elise breaks down and decides a few minutes couldn’t hurt though. Unfortunately she was wrong and instead of the mother, a demon answers. Quinn is now being haunted by it. Unless the spirit is defeated quickly, it would appear that Quinn’s days are numbered.

Quinn is essentially the main character but you can also say that she shares the role with Elise. She seems like a nice enough person even if her plan to talk to her dead Mother is probably not a good idea. We do have the phrase “rest in peace” for a reason after all. Quinn does her best to help around the house as well while also making time for her singing career. Naturally once the spirit is after her this all gets a little tricky. I didn’t really have any qualms with her.

Her Dad Sean is also all right. He probably gives Quinn too many responsibilities which stresses her out, but I don’t feel like he was being malicious about it. He’s also being overwhelmed at the moment and trying to cope with raising two kids on his own. He certainly could do a better job of it and listen to Quinn more though. He has more faults than Quinn but at the end of the day he is a lot better than he could have been. I am glad that the film let him find out that the demon was real very quickly instead of just doubting Quinn the whole time since that gets old fast.

Elise has been a big character during all of the Insidious movies. Naturally this one was no exception but as it took place before the others she isn’t as powerful initially as you may expect. She is plagued by doubts and a lot of hesitation but gradually gets back to being on top of things. Re learning that being alive gives you a good advantage over the dead was definitely something that makes a lot of sense. While the fight scenes weren’t heavily stylized like an action film or anything, it was cool to see her throw some of the demons around.

You rarely see the humans do much of anything against the spirits so it is always satisfying. She uses trapdoors to her advantage and resists the choke hold that the demons have at their disposal. At this point Elise quickly became the strongest human in the series and basically feels untouchable. At least until the ending of course. As with most horror films this one has a twist ending. Let’s just say that one of the future villains decides to pay his respects and remind her of the pecking order. It was definitely a little unfortunate for Elise since she had just gone through a whole character arc of getting her confidence back along with a boost in strength but it was all negated in an instant. It’s good hype for the villain of course, but you can definitely see how it’s tragic for her.

The villains from the past films also completely overshadow the main one the instant that they appear. I really couldn’t take this villain too seriously because of his underwhelming design. He just doesn’t look like he can put up any kind of fight and the weak design prevents him from being scary as well. You just can’t imagine this guy taking anyone down in a fight, especially since he can barely breath without his mask. The guy just doesn’t stand a chance against any of the real opponents in his path. While I don’t like the old lady villain, it was interesting to see him make a cameo. He definitely got some hype since it didn’t really seem like Elise could take him down even in her prime here. She is definitely lucky that they didn’t have to fight. The Red Mask villain also looked pretty good in his appearance and it’s safe to say that she wouldn’t have been able to beat him either. It’s definitely impressive how formidable the series has made its villains.

As always, the effects for the spirit dimension are really solid. The rules that are established for the place are thought over pretty well. If I have any gripes, it’s that all of the normal ghosts seem pretty powerless while only the evil ones stay strong. Why can’t we have a hero who died and then decided to be a heroic ghost? That’d be a neat twist and even if the films suddenly became action thrillers instead, I could roll with that. As it stands, the idea of demons camping the spawn points of the humans for the rituals is a cool idea too though. Elise stayed away from it for years, but the instant she went back the villains were still ready. That’s definitely a lot of determination there.

There aren’t a bunch of jump scares or anything, but we get a reasonable amount. The only real weakness for the film would probably be some of the supporting characters. The random guy who waited until Quinn broke her leg to unleash his pun felt like filler. Quinn’s best friend also didn’t have much of a role. Giving these characters quick cameos instead of drawn out scenes is the best bet I suppose, but they didn’t really need to appear. All of the human scenes just don’t feel eventful next to the hype supernatural stuff.

The two comic relief supernatural experts are always interesting to have around. In a sense it’s impressive how they can suddenly make the whole atmosphere light and happy when it was super serious just a moment ago. It’s hard to feel scared when they’re around. After all, the guys may be incompetent, but at least they can still serve as shields if the demons come along. Moreover, it’s just hard to imagine the comic relief characters being destroyed so it lightens the atmosphere.

Overall, Insidious 3 was better than I thought it would be. I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised since the series was always more memorable than other horror films and rarely went for the low hanging fruit. Give the film some extra credit for having a dog appear in various scenes, but nothing happens to him. Now that’s quality. This is a horror film that I would actually recommend and you know how rare that is so it says a lot about the film.

Overall 6/10

Insidious Chapter 2 Review

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Looks like it’s time for the sequel! Sequels have a pretty bad rep at times and especially when it comes to Horror films. I’ll admit that I do have a little fun chuckling at the posters for them though. The films constantly want you to be scared, but it’s just not happening. If you’re scared of an old guy who runs around a lot….then I may as well say Game Over now because things will get tricky!

In the last film, it ended with Josh being possessed by the main villain and the main heroine is worried. She certainly has good reason to be since none of them are safe anymore. The film slowly starts to go the Shining route until we see the Spirit World where Josh decides to try and get his freedom back. It’s a bold move, but he’s got to try something since the ghosts really embarrassed him this whole time.

Let’s get right to the facts for why this film was so terrible. First off, the villain from the first film wasn’t that cool, but at least she was fairly threatening. She actually won in the end when you think about it as she got to possess the father. Here, the film decides to give her an origin and it’s as bad you can imagine. Turns out that the old widow is actually a guy who liked to destroy people in his spare time. This is why we don’t need character development for villains. It’s usually just around for pure shock value and ends up being pretty terrible. It destroyed any chance that the villain could have had of being good.

Moreover, the film actually copied the Shining’s famous scene where the crazy guy tries to break through the door. It wasn’t really a good scene the first time, nor was it here. The demon being stronger than the dad still doesn’t make any sense either as the film constantly tries to say that the living have more power than the dead. It’s like the writers forgot what they were saying midway through the film.

There’s a subplot where the ghostbusters decide to go to an old hospital where they see the victims and learn that Josh is being possessed. It’s a plot that goes on and on and on with no end in sight. Certainly a large part of the film that will leave you a little bored, although that’s not so different from the rest of the film. These characters fight against Josh at one point towards the end of the film, but they don’t look so good and are defeated right away. So much for that right?

As per usual, one of the kids is able to see things and has power in the spirit world. This was the case in the first film as well so it’s nothing new, but it feels like every horror film has to cram in a kid with super powers. I still can’t say that I’m a fan of the kids, but I’m not a fan of any member of the cast to be honest. Even the wise old lady isn’t that good. She talks tough, but was defeated with relative ease in the last film and get shocked a lot.

The stinger at the end of the film is nowhere near as good as the one in the first film. According to good ole Wikipedia, it does hint that the red faced demon from the first film may have made a comeback. That would make the cliffhanger a lot better, but without actually seeing the monster, it comes across as shallow. There are a ton of jump scares here, but as I always say, once you’ve seen Five Nights at Freddy’s, you become immune to those. Nothing can stop the dramatic teddy bear jumping towards you after all!

The film is also bogged down by a plethora of flashbacks. Granted, they are used to tie into the rest of the film as time travel is involved which is neat. It’s the only part of the film that I’ll give any credit as it was pretty unique and unexpected. That being said, it just can’t make up for everything else, even if the timeline for everything was finally merged by the end. Josh also looked quite bad at the end. During his rage moment with everything on the line, he was still crushed rather quickly by one of the ghosts. So much for surpassing the odds and beating the villain in the end right?

Take away the terrible plot twist about the villain and the classic Josh being possessed subplot…and you could have a real winner at your side. That being said, the film didn’t do that and it was just tough to watch as you may expect from a horror film. It’s certainly not nearly as violent as you may expect from this film so that’s an okay start I suppose. If you want to be scared though, it’s not going to happen here.

Overall, Insidious 2 is another stinker I’m afraid. If you’ve seen one horror film, then you’ve seen them all. This starts to become more and more evident as these reviews go on. It’s not quite as bad as some others and I have one horror film coming up which is worse, but films like this one definitely give sequels a bad name. Let’s just hope that the third film is better. If Insidious sticks to the Spirit World aspect and gives us some more fight scenes, then I can work with that. We just don’t want more of the filler/lol worthy origin stories that wreck established characters. Deciding to erase Josh’s memory of his gift was another bad decision by the old lady who was supposed to be an expert in this kind of thing. So much for that eh? If you’re looking for a real horror film, go watch Scooby Doo, any of the animated films will do. Now that has the perfect blend of horror and laughs! (Intentional laughs as opposed to the unintentional ones)

Overall 1/10

Insidious Review

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Time for another horror review. It’s been a while since I saw a film like this one, but you’ll definitely still be ready for what’s about to come. It was about as good as I expected, maybe a little better. That being said, there’s only so much that you can do with this kind of plot. It’s not my style, but if you’re looking for a nice horror film, this one beats the average flick in that genre.

A family moves into a house where their son falls off a ladder and enters a coma. A few months later, they start to see demons and they fear that the house is haunted. The main couple actually decides to move to another house, which is pretty impressive since that choice is rarely made. Unfortunately, it appears that the demons have followed them. Will they be able to fend them off and save their son? The poster gives us a not very subtle hint about what’s really going on.

Well, we get tons of jump scenes and a lot of fake outs as well to try and get that perfect balance that we’ve always wanted. The atmosphere is definitely creepy and the film does a good job of setting the tone early. It probably tried a little too hard to be scary at the beginning, but the director/writers know that you have to scare the audience early on or they’ll move on to the next film. The first half is pretty average and the main characters are powerless to stop these creatures, but that’s when a few new characters show up to help.

Bring in the Ghost Busters and an old lady who happens to be their leader. They deal with supernatural forces all the time and they know how to not only detect these guys, but they can see them as well. As you can expect, they aren’t actually good at fighting these guys. They merely detect them and try to reason with the demons. You may be underwhelmed during the mask scene as the old lady tries to convince the kid to come home, but then the demons take him away again. All she can do is watch so that’s not a great help to him.

That’s when the film’s biggest twist occurs, we’ve actually got enough budget in the film to visit the astral plane. It’s safe to say that this places the film on a higher level than most horror films. Many films would have been satisfied to have just let the kid make it back and we never actually see the astral plane. Not here! The main character wanders into the astral plane to find his son and he actually gets to duel with one of the demons. He does pretty well once he realizes that he’s stronger than the demon, but he doesn’t look too good against the main villain. The main villain isn’t strong enough to drag the kid away once he is running, but he’s still tough enough to throw around an adult for a while. It’s just how these things roll. In the astral world, will power is really what counts.

Josh is the main lead and he’s not a great main character. He stays at school pretty late to grade tests a lot of times when he should be home to help against the demons. Give all of the students As and Bs if you have too, but fighting demons is a lot more important. It’s good that he does ultimately journey to the Astral World to save Dalton, but then he decides to stay back so he could have a few words with one of the ghosts who’s been following him since he was a kid. Bad move Josh…bad move.

Renai is the other main character and she’s a decent heroine. She tries to get through this dangerous situation, but the demons are just too powerful so it is a losing battle. She tries to get help from many sources and she manages to last at the house while the demons are basically keeping her up all night with their random sounds. She definitely gives it her all, but knowing that it is all futile can be pretty sad.

The supporting characters are typically here to either look bad or add to the plot. We naturally have the pastor who comes to help, but is pretty ineffective and he leaves right away. Then we have the Ghost Busters who are treated as a joke until their leader appears. I really liked the Ghost Busters and a whole film about them fighting the demons would have been pretty good. Their leader is pretty knowledgable, but not quite as likable. She’s a little too old to be fighting demons and it seems like she hasn’t trained a successor. Once she is gone, humanity will be gone.

Again, I definitely give the film props for its special effects on the Astral Plane. It was pretty fun seeing Josh go in there and it’s a very trippy world. Things change in the blink of an eye and it would make for a pretty fun virtual ride in some amusement parks. I imagine that it would give many people heart attacks though so they would probably need to make the jump scenes a little less scary. There is a passing moment where we learn that one of the previous families was murdered by one of their own during this trippy moment and I wasn’t too surprised. Horror films love this twist so I guess they wanted to include it somehow.

So, where did the film go wrong? Well, one passing moment that was pretty wince worthy was when the demon decided to act demonic and stuck out his tongue. We know that the demons are evil, but let’s see that in a classy way and not in a cheap way. I’d rather that they just took out guns or something classic like that. The main reason why the film definitely gets a low score (Barring the fact that it is a horror film and watching the main characters get toyed around with for an hour and 40+ minutes is just not my cup of tea) is that the kid is basically defenseless against these guys, but he’s forced to stay in the astral world for months. They do mention that time flows differently over there, but that’s still a pretty sad fate for him. The demons seem to have attacked him off screen and we know what happens in the ending.

To an extent, I could extend that complaint to all of the main characters. I never like to see non combatants get injured by the villains because they didn’t sign up for this. It’s like watching a cop go up against an immensely powerful super villain. He’s a brave cop, but we don’t need to see him get beaten up for a while. That’s what it feels like when you see the humans trying to stand up to the demons. It’s more fun if one of the heroes can actually fight with supernatural powers or something like that. Then we’ve got a film. As it stands, this still takes down other films like Amityville and Haunted in Connecticut. Those make this one look like a masterpiece!

On the bright side, the villains actually have real designs and we get to see them pretty clearly on more than one occasion. No cop outs where they are just spirit forms or something like that. Now those are the kinds of plot twists that can be pretty annoying to see. They actually went to the trouble of getting some pretty scary costumes so the film went all out there. It makes up for the lack of a soundtrack I suppose since I wasn’t expecting any real music here anyway.

Now, this wouldn’t be a horror film without a twist ending right? There were really only two scenarios that I could think of as the ending drew near and let’s just say that the film probably made the right choice if we want the heroes to be doomed. It’s safe to say that these guys shouldn’t be in the sequel since there wouldn’t be a good reason for their survival. If you were expecting a happy ending then I will have to recommend taking another look at the genre for this film or maybe even the title. I appreciate the fact that the film keeps up with the horror standard of having a twist ending even if it does make the characters look bad and increases the body count. It’s expected, although I can’t say that it really helps the film. Who wants to see an old lady get attacked by one of the villains? Definitely not a fun scene.

Overall, Insidious is a horror film that tries to really scare the viewers. That is the job of such a film after all and it tries pretty hard. It probably has more jump scenes than almost any other horror film that I’ve seen. There’s probably almost one a minute during some parts of the film. There isn’t any animal violence and it’s classier than a lot of its counterparts, but it’s still not my kind of film. There’s no hope for the heroes and idea of the kid being stuck in the astral world for over 3 months is pretty terrible. If you are ready for your next horror film then this is probably the way to go, but if you really want a film that gets your heart racing, check out Yugioh 3D Bonds Beyond Time and get ready to duel!

Overall 3/10