A young mother must confront demons haunting both her dreams and her waking life in Insidious: Out of the Further, the sixth installment in the long-running horror franchise opening in Prague and cinemas worldwide this weekend. This well-directed sequel from writer-director Jacob Chase (2020’s Come Play) boasts some outstanding scares early on, but settles into scenes of rote exposition that drain the horror and deaden the pace during a tedious second half.
In a banner year for original horror films that includes hits like Obsession and Backrooms, this late entry in the Insidious series tries to prove that old franchises still have something to offer. For a while, it works: An effective cold open leads into a claustrophobic scene set within a pillow fort and a squirm-inducing sequence of dental hygiene that stands out as the film’s bravura showstopper and rates right alongside the year’s best horror set pieces.
The opening is genuinely striking. In a 1999 prologue, young Gemma witnesses the brutal death of her demon-haunted mother, setting up the trauma that will follow her into adulthood. Twenty years later, Gemma (Amelia Eve) is raising her own young daughter, Maya (Island Austin), while working as a dental hygienist and trying to escape the legacy of her mother’s death.
But as strange old people begin appearing around the neighborhood (including one played by Joseph Lopez, who had a similar role in this year’s Passenger), Gemma’s nightmares intensify and Maya starts experiencing supernatural phenomena of her own. The implication is that Gemma has inherited more than her mother’s trauma and is now passing it on to her own daughter.
That gives Out of the Further a potentially interesting theme about inherited trauma, with Gemma’s daughter now threatened by the same cycle that destroyed her own mother. It’s essentially a supernatural version of trauma passed from one generation to the next, and the mother-daughter relationship gives Eve and Austin some solid material to work with, and recalls the themes of the Smile films more than previous Insidious entries.
But the real strength here is Chase’s handling of horror. The pillow-fort sequence is wonderfully claustrophobic, transforming the innocent childhood hideaway into a bizarre maze of narrow corridors. The concept recalls Backrooms, though with an important distinction: We know this is a dream, while the liminal spaces in Backrooms derive their terror from their apparent physical reality.
Then there’s the dental sequence. Gemma’s day job becomes the setup for one of the film’s most memorable encounters, when an elderly patient with grotesque, rotting teeth begins behaving very strangely. The scene combines body horror, supernatural terror, and an extremely effective sound design into something genuinely squirm-inducing.
Unfortunately, Insidious: Out of the Further effectively talks itself out of being scary once the deceased Elise (franchise star Lin Shaye) shows up in Gemma’s nightmares to lend a helping hand—and explain, in excruciating detail, exactly what is going on here and exactly how they can stop it.
When Elise arrives to help Gemma, the movie essentially stops to explain its own mythology. Through medium Clare (Maisie Richardson-Sellers), she lays out the elaborate mechanics of Gemma’s abilities, the plans of dead cult leader Cyrus Lam (Sam Spruell) and the threat posed by his living acolytes.
The problem isn’t merely that the mythology is convoluted. It’s that the explanation removes the mystery that made the earlier sequences effective. Once we understand exactly what the demons want, how Gemma’s abilities work and what everyone needs to do to stop them, the film becomes a series of characters moving pieces around according to rules that aren’t particularly interesting.
The second half consequently drags. Most frustrating is Gemma’s policeman boyfriend Nick (Brandon Perea), who is remarkably reluctant to involve his colleagues even after discovering multiple dead bodies in the real world. The plot becomes increasingly dependent on supernatural solutions to problems that might reasonably invite conventional ones.
The result would seem silly if it weren’t so dull. That’s a shame because Chase demonstrates considerable skill behind the camera. The dream sequences are inventive, the sound design is excellent and the creature makeup is frequently terrific. There are also enough striking images to suggest that the Insidious franchise still has some life left in it.
The first half of Insidious: Out of the Further promises a much better movie than the one that eventually arrives. The opening scares are genuinely effective, the inherited-trauma angle gives the story some emotional grounding, and Eve makes for a sympathetic protagonist. Then Elise starts explaining everything, and the movie effectively becomes a paranormal procedural.
By the time the demons are battling it out in the Further, the film has traded its nightmares for franchise mythology, and there’s nothing particularly frightening about watching characters execute a supernatural plan you’ve already had explained to you. Insidious: Out of the Further proves that this franchise can still deliver a terrific scare, but also proves that the scariest thing in a horror movie can be the exposition.
