Insidious: Out of the Further

I admire this aged franchise for chugging along quietly in the background while elevated horror, meta horror comedy, and Gen Z horror take center stage. They must rake in the dough since we keep getting new chapters.

At this point the central conceit has been exhausted, so it stands to reason they've pivoted to new ideas and villains. Insidious: Out of the Further takes a big swing at a high concept, courtesy of writer-director Jacob Chase: the ability for a person to reach into The Further and pull a demon out into our world. If it sounds familiar, it's because A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) first had Nancy pulling Freddy from the dream world into our reality.

The medium Elise (Lin Shaye) returns to this entry, and she comes up with the fanciest names for new things. Here we are introduced to Couriers, Travelers, and Acolytes. The world keeps expanding, which makes sense since Elise (killed in the first film) keeps working in the afterlife and learning more about The Further. Sorry, no heaven for you, sweet lady, and apparently no help from the big guy upstairs.

The whole business with The Further actually needs to be the focus of a future installment, because I want to know how a human who dies gets to be a demon with superpowers in the afterlife while others (ahem, Elise) only get a lantern. Our demon of the week is Cyrus, a ruthless cult leader who promises the denizens of the dead a way into our world to... to do what exactly, I'm not sure. Maybe kill everyone and then what? When you're an afterlife demon, long-term plans don't really matter.

But they've met their match with Gemma (Amelia Eve) and her super special bloodline, which has the special ability to travel to both worlds and pluck people like fruit from a tree and plop them in the other. Lin Shaye again brings the horror royalty cachet but again is given nothing much to do. And Maisie Richardson-Sellers is riveting as a psychic tattoo artist, also not given much to do. The challenge with Chase's screenplay is that it's packed with big ideas, exposition, time settings, characters, and probably the most convoluted rescue plan in history, one that required grapefruits to fully explain it. Is it ambitious or just ridiculous? I haven't decided. I also enjoyed the homage (intended or not) to Poltergeist (1982), where an entire house gets sucked into the other side.

Out of the Further was definitely one of the better entries in the franchise, but if this series is to thrive, future installments must keep innovating in new and unexpected ways. If they stay on this path, fans will want an even bigger swing next time. But please no Insidious: In Space.