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At least Patrick Wilson still cares about “ Insidious.” A staple of the James Wan-iverse (he also stars in the “Conjuring” series), Wilson makes his directorial debut with “Insidious: The Red Door.” He also stars in the movie, reprising his role as protective dad Josh Lambert from “ Insidious ” and “Insidious: Chapter Two.” In classic “why the hell not?” deep-franchise style, he also performs a hard-rock number with the Swedish band Ghost over the end credits. (Did you know Patrick Wilson could sing? Neither did I.) 

“The Red Door” is the fifth, and supposedly final, “Insidious” movie. And, with the caveat that you can never trust a horror franchise to end when it says it will end, it does deliver a reasonably satisfying wrap-up to the story of the Lambert family. They’ve been absent from “Insidious” since 2013, when Blumhouse pivoted to focus on Lin Shaye ’s motherly psychic character Elise Rainier in a string of prequels. (Although she died in the second one, she appears here, because again—why not?) And much has happened while the series was away. 

Young Dalton Lambert ( Ty Simpkins ) has grown from a possessed little boy into a brooding 19-year-old art student beginning his first semester of college. His parents, Josh (Wilson) and Renai ( Rose Byrne ), have separated. And his grandmother Lorraine, who played a role in saving Dalton from the evil spirits of The Further, has died. Dalton doesn’t remember his trip into The Further, nor does Josh; the film opens with a scene of the two of them being instructed to forget an entire year of their lives by a hypnotist. 

This is accomplished remarkably quickly—if “The Red Door” was an anti-drug PSA, its tagline would be, “Hypnosis: Not even once.” Counting backward from 10 is all it takes to wipe huge chunks of the Lamberts’ minds clean, and those memories resurface just as easily when Dalton is asked to perform a meditation exercise in his painting class. “The Red Door” plays a little with the trope of artists creating possessed or otherwise supernatural works as seen in horror movies like “The Devil’s Candy.” But most of its runtime is spent exploring something less inspired. 

Here, Josh and Dalton’s gift for astral projection isn’t just a mysterious phenomenon. It’s that old saw of inherited trauma and mental illness that’s been wreaking havoc on horror movies since “ Hereditary .” This manifests in the form of revelations about the father Josh never knew, which overlap with Josh’s guilt and Dalton’s resentment about the divorce. It’s not the most labored use of the metaphor in recent years—that would be another of co-screenwriter Scott Teems ’ credits, the nonsensical “ Halloween Kills .” But it’s such a rote theme at this point that it sucks all of the interest from the family drama.

Callbacks to other “Insidious” films are half-hearted, and “The Red Door” seems to give up on trying to make all of the pieces fit after a while. What does work are a handful of scares in the film’s first half. As a director, Wilson proves himself familiar enough with the mechanics of a jump scare—clearly, he picked up a few things from working with Wan all those years—to give audiences what they want. An early scene where Josh hallucinates a ghastly old woman while trapped inside an MRI machine is especially well done and ties in with a subplot where Josh seeks treatment for persistent fatigue and brain fog. (Long COVID? Nope, The Further!)

However, once the college-centric main plot kicks in, the movie slowly declines toward an underwhelming finale. Visually, Wilson faithfully re-creates the misty look of the previous films. Tiny Tim ’s “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” warbles in a room full of broken dolls somewhere in the negative space of The Further. This is all fine—as are the jokes, the supporting characters, and the concessions to the film’s PG-13 rating by replacing explicit gore with fake vomit and pancake makeup. Wilson is pretty good as Josh, but that’s to be expected. He’s the one that’s still invested in the whole thing. 

Now playing in theaters. 

Katie Rife is a freelance writer and critic based in Chicago with a speciality in genre cinema. She worked as the News Editor of  The A.V. Club  from 2014-2019, and as Senior Editor of that site from 2019-2022. She currently writes about film for outlets like  Vulture, Rolling Stone, Indiewire, Polygon , and  RogerEbert.com.

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Film credits.

Insidious: The Red Door (2023)

Rated PG-13 for violence, terror, frightening images, strong language and suggestive references.

107 minutes

Ty Simpkins as Dalton Lambert

Patrick Wilson as Josh Lambert

Rose Byrne as Renai Lambert

Lin Shaye as Elise

Andrew Astor as Foster Lambert

Hiam Abbass

Sinclair Daniel

Peter Dager

Leigh Whannell as Specs

Angus Sampson as Tucker

• Patrick Wilson

Writer (based on characters created by)

• Leigh Whannell

Writer (story by)

• Scott Teems

Cinematographer

• Autumn Eakin
• Joseph Bishara

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‘Insidious: The Red Door’ Review: The Ghost of Jump Scares Past

Patrick Wilson makes his directorial debut with this fifth installment of the horror franchise haunted by a red-faced demon.

By Jason Zinoman

“Insidious,” whose fifth installment opened Friday, is a second-tier horror franchise — it’s not even the best James Wan franchise starring Patrick Wilson, which would be “The Conjuring” — with a few elite jump scares, including one of the best in the genre. In the original in 2010, Lorraine Lambert (Barbara Hershey) is telling her son, Josh (Wilson), about a horrible dream when a red-faced demon suddenly appears behind his head. It’s a magnificent shock because of the askew blocking, the patient misdirection of the editing and Hershey’s committed performance.

In “Insidious: The Red Door,” a grim, workmanlike effort that collapses into woo-woo nonsense, Wilson makes his directorial debut, and demonstrates he grasps the importance of that jump scare, which is sketched in charcoal on paper next to his name in the opening credits. But that reference is also a reminder of what’s missing.

The movie begins nine years after the second “Insidious” at the funeral of Lorraine, and its first scare, a nicely oblique if relatively simple one, once again takes place above her son’s head. Josh’s memory has been scrubbed in the previous film but nags at him, and Wilson doesn’t move the camera from his own face inside a car as he goes through an array of emotions while texting his son Dalton (Ty Simpkins). This prickly relationship is at the center of the movie, as dad drives his son to college. They share the family curse, a habit of being visited by evil figures from another realm called the Further (think the Upside Down from “Stranger Things” ).

As has become cliché, trauma takes center stage, with characters mouthing lines like, “We need to remember even the things that hurt” — which is at least better than pretentious small talk like “Death floods the mind with memory.”

The leaden screenplay would be easier to overlook if there were more spooky sequences. Wilson stages one nicely claustrophobic scene inside an M.R.I. machine, but his peekaboo shocks can be a little telegraphed. And while his placid, android handsomeness can hint at the uncanny, making him a magnetic horror actor, there are fewer standout performances than in previous installments of the series, which has been notable for turns by Rose Byrne and Lin Shaye (both of whom show up again, too briefly). “The Red Door” loses energy when it focuses on Simpkins’s Dalton, a blandly brooding artist type who cries while painting, and the grim doings in the Further, whose aesthetic evokes a homemade haunted house in the family garage.

“Insidious” is essentially a ghost story, so ending it presents a typical challenge. Unlike with vampires and serial killers, it’s not clear how the apparition threatens to end the chase. The abrupt resolution of this chapter is a letdown, but not as much of one as the return of the red-faced demon, who pops up, unobscured, center frame. The result is not a jump scare so much as a bunny hop.

Insidious: The Red Door Rated PG-13 for explicit violins and implicit violence. Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes. In theaters.

Jason Zinoman is a critic at large for The Times. As the paper’s first comedy critic, he has written the On Comedy column since 2011. More about Jason Zinoman

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Insidious: The Red Door

The Lamberts must go deeper into The Further than ever before to put their demons to rest once and for all. The Lamberts must go deeper into The Further than ever before to put their demons to rest once and for all. The Lamberts must go deeper into The Further than ever before to put their demons to rest once and for all.

• Patrick Wilson
• Leigh Whannell
• Scott Teems
• Ty Simpkins
• 448 User reviews
• 131 Critic reviews
• 45 Metascore
• 2 nominations

• Dalton Lambert

• Josh Lambert

• Renai Lambert

• Chris Winslow

• Professor Armagan

• Foster Lambert

• Kali Lambert

• Nick the Dick

• Alec Anderson

• Lipstick Demon

• Smash Face …

• Supervisor Robbins

• Elise Rainier

• Sorority Girl #1
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• Trivia Patrick Wilson 's directorial debut.
• Goofs When Daltons dorm loses power, his fan is still running on the dresser.
• Crazy credits At the conclusion of the credits, we see a flickering light, illuminating the now blackened door.
• Connections Featured in Half in the Bag: 2023 Catch-up (Part 1) (2023)
• Soundtracks Roll with the Changes Written by Kevin Cronin Performed by REO Speedwagon Courtesy of Mojo Music & Media

User reviews 448

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• Aug 3, 2023
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• July 7, 2023 (United States)
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• Insidious 5
• Morristown, New Jersey, USA
• Blumhouse Productions
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• $16,000,000 (estimated)
• $82,156,962
• $33,013,036
• Jul 9, 2023
• $189,086,877

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• Runtime 1 hour 47 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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Insidious: The Red Door Review

A steady stride into the further.

As Blumhouse’s first wholly original franchise, there’s always a sense of homecoming when we get a new Insidious movie – and after two prequel chapters that diverted attention to Lin Shaye’s medium Elise, this feeling permeates Insidious: The Red Door. Patrick Wilson returns to the series, as both an actor and a first-time director, and refocuses the action on the Lambert family, whose journeys into the atmospheric netherworld of The Further have left their strength as a unit broken. Coming full circle back to the Lamberts and pushing those characters to reckon with the effect the first two films had on them provides The Red Door with fertile ground to stage a headier – if less terrifying – take on those bedrock Blumhouse movies.

The Red Door picks up nine years after the Lambert haunting with a slightly-altered version of Chapter 2’s ending: father and son astral projectors Josh (Patrick Wilson) and Dalton (Ty Simpkins) elect to have their memories of the first two movies – and of their abilities – wiped in an effort to prevent the hungry entities of The Further. But the blissful ignorance of that fade-to-white happy ending was short-lived: Though Josh and Dalton can’t remember any specifics, the psychological scarring of the Lipstick-Face Demon’s attacks fractured their family, with Josh in particular unable to express himself in the midst of a worsening brain fog. Dalton is similarly haunted, but a passion for art – a cute nod to his drawings from the first film – seems to have kept him on the rails. A death in the family and Dalton’s simultaneous departure for college puts great strain on the Lamberts, and this time of transition represents a chance for the entities of The Further to attempt to cross over into the living world once again.

In his directorial debut, Patrick Wilson strikes a franchise-best balance between family melodrama and how Insidious’ supernatural elements illustrate it. The Further has always been a charmingly lo-fi horror locale, but The Red Door feels like the first time it (and the entities which call it home) has been used effectively as microcosm for the character arcs being pushed along. Dalton’s art teacher (Hiam Abbass) encourages him to “sink further” into his subconscious as he works on his big project: a painting of a red door he’s seeing in his nightmares. As these trance-like sessions bring secrets about his connection to the spirit world bubbling to the surface, both Dalton’s relationship with Josh and the appetite of the restless spirits become more severe. This shared “sins of the father” storyline and journey towards reconciliation is a simple, but solid thematic base to root the evil entities’ hunger in, and is lent weight by Wilson and Simpkins’ earnest performances. As Dalton, Simpkins in particular has to walk a fine line between the predictable angst of an 18-year-old and the genuine suspicion with which he has to treat Wilson’s Josh.

By and large, Simpkins strikes this balance very well, and maintains a measure of vulnerability for a character who easily could’ve fallen into the “broody art kid” archetype. Josh is on a somewhat parallel track to Dalton in putting his demons to bed. Haunted by Further entities as a child himself, Josh always struggled to engage with the spectral attacks on his family, but his tendency to push through things without talking about them has fully caught up with him here. Compared to the boisterous family man of the first two movies, Wilson plays Josh as a harried husk in The Red Door, and shines in the moments where the character’s barely holding it together. The increased focus on depth for Josh and Dalton reduces Renai (Rose Byrne) and Foster (Andrew Astor) to sounding boards for the lead characters’ struggles, usually through over-the-phone exposition dumps that routinely drag down the pace.

As director, Wilson’s horror chops are at their most fruitful during The Red Door’s luxurious long takes, and he’s able to sustain significant stretches of dread around that strength. For as famous as the Insidious films are for their jump scares, they’re usually at their best and most creative in the buildup to the fright, forcing us to stop trusting the corners of our eyes. The writing is on the wall for Josh as soon as he agrees to go into an MRI machine (great time for a pee break, claustrophobes) but Wilson uses smart edits and escalating panic in his performance to turn that screw for as long as is sustainable before paying it off with the inevitable punchline. Wilson pushes this sensibility during daylight scares too, with one early appearance of a spirit playing out in a single take that goes on for what feels like a full minute, re-establishing that creeping, creepy tone that has always been a calling card for the series. Being involved with the franchise since the beginning – and a frequent collaborator of James Wan’s to boot – it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that Wilson is so attuned to the hallmarks of the Insidious movies, but his ability to execute on them so confidently gives The Red Door an identity consistent with what Wan did in Insidious and Insidious: Chapter 2, all while better illuminating the drama.

Of course, these marathon, dread-filled rides to the top of the roller coaster often pay off with cacophonous outbursts of demonic rage or ghostly malcontent, punctuated by discordant string hits, and the potency of those moments is one area where The Red Door suffers from the law of diminishing returns. There’s a glut of jump scares throughout the movie, and not always as the result of minutes of carefully layered tension and misdirection. There’s an ugly scratch across my notepad that will attest to the raw power these moments can have out of the blue, but scant few of The Red Door’s attempts at frightening you feel like they’re iterating or innovating in a substantial way.

What’s the best recent horror sequel?

While Wilson has no problem mining the Lambert family drama for interpersonal conflict, The Red Door’s college setting feels comparatively nondescript. Though we get spooky moments in expected arenas – a classroom, a dorm room, a frat house – little of the activity feels specifically tied to Dalton’s college experience, and so doesn’t connect as cleanly as the family-themed horror does. With images of alcohol-poisoned ghost kids crawling after Dalton – maybe ones who had upbringings as affecting as his – The Red Door hints at more complex avenues it could've explored using its college trappings, a more frank look at how Dalton relates to these kids who’ve died in tragedy. It seems that thread would’ve required one less Lambert to really home in on.

A new setting does mean a new opportunity to explain old information, and Dalton’s roommate Chris (Sinclair Daniel) serves as a refreshingly down-to-earth foil in that role. How quickly Chris is willing to accept Dalton’s astral powers and the resultant paranormal activity calls to mind Insidious' bumbling ghost hunters Specs and Tucker. With Dalton now the relative expert on the subject, Chris’ matter-of-fact reactions and willingness to roll with punches for her new friend provide The Red Door with a reliable levity when needed.

Even if it starts to rely too heavily on surface-level startles, Insidious: The Red Door is a satisfying conclusion to the Lambert family’s long nightmare journey into The Further. First-time director Patrick Wilson grounds The Red Door’s drama in simple stakes – a son trying to forgive his father – and the film is at its best when focusing its horror on playing out that dynamic. Though the supporting cast and college setting could’ve used more attention, The Red Door wears its heart on its sleeve and generates enough dread in the quiet moments to sustain it through the less-effective jump scares.

More Reviews by Tom Jorgensen

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Insidious: The Red Door Reviews

It still feels like a satisfying conclusion to a series of films that have continuously terrified us for over a decade. That alone is worth remembering.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Mar 6, 2024

Similar to Wan’s The Conjuring universe, Insidious has long overstayed its welcome, reaching the point where its spark has quelled and there’s nothing interesting buried within these characters anymore. We have reached the end of the Further.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Nov 17, 2023

The set-up was great, but the Insidious series has lost a lot of its luster.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Nov 11, 2023

Lamentably, this unusual study of family trauma and memory loss gradually loses its shine and capacity to scare. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Oct 5, 2023

The fact The Red Door works best as a family drama rather than a terrifying scare-fest -- to the extent that when the finale takes another trip into the Further is almost feels tacked on -- tells you it’s time to close the door on the franchise.

Full Review | Aug 24, 2023

This latest anemic attempt at a creepy film is tripped up by a fragmented story and lackluster efforts to pass off things that jump out of the dark to an amped up musical track as being scary.

Full Review | Original Score: D | Aug 9, 2023

Earlier franchise chapters featured a few smirkworthy scares and some stylish filmmaking flourishes, but The Red Door is merely an inert, boring drag.

Full Review | Aug 8, 2023

Wilson shows he can conjure (tee hee) some worthwhile bumps in the night as a filmmaker, and it will be interesting to see what he tackles next.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 4, 2023

Wilson makes his directorial debut with this film that is nice enough in an anaemic way.

Full Review | Aug 3, 2023

Insidious: The Red Door doesn't quite reach the heights of its predecessors. It tantalizes us with a few effective scares, but its pacing and character development fall short.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Aug 2, 2023

Patrick Wilson lands some cool shots and Hiam Abass is a welcome reprieve to predictable storylines and tropes. There is a tangible gap in what might have been achieved if the red door opened through expectations.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 1, 2023

Akin to Child's Play 3, Insidious: The Red Door sees grown-up protagonists facing old fears. Despite some flat moments, it's an interesting final chapter.

Patrick Wilson shows some promise for directing and delivers some genuinely well-crafted scares. Unfortunately, the story that spends most of its runtime uncovering events the audience already knows just shows the franchise shouln't have gone further.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.75/5 | Jul 27, 2023

A disappointing entry that, sadly, spends more time recapping the previous films instead of carving its own path.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Jul 24, 2023

Insidious: The Red Door plays it safe and takes it a bit too slow, but it's good performances and nostalgic scares make it worth the viewing.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 24, 2023

This isn't a meaningful exploration of trauma's lingering impact, the current genre go-to, as much as it wants to be.

Full Review | Jul 22, 2023

The fifth Insidious movie starts strong, with fresh character touches and chilling, eerily quiet moments, but it eventually suffers from a sequel's usual diminishing returns.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 21, 2023

While not as good as some of the film in the Insidious franchise this does more than enough to suggest that Patrick Wilson has what it takes to be a decent genre director.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 21, 2023

I loved the father/son chemistry from Patrick Wilson & Ty Simpkins in this chapter in the Insidious franchise, though it could've been scarier overall.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 20, 2023

Takes the laziest of all routes, suggesting that what happened a decade ago shall happen again now in more or less exactly the same way.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Jul 20, 2023

'Insidious: The Red Door' Review: What Patrick Wilson's Directorial Debut Lacks in Scares It Makes up for in Character

Also starring Ty Simpkins and Rose Byrne, this new chapter in the horror franchise is the one that feels most human.

It might sound weird to read a review where the critic talks about how the first Insidious film was one of the first true horror movies they ever sat down and watched, yet that's exactly how this review is going to start.

The Insidious franchise has always felt like the perfect gateway for burgeoning horror fans. Even with their PG-13 ratings, the first two films, and even the third film, can get pretty damn scary with their clever uses of tension, jump scares, and worldbuilding. The first two installments delivered some solid scares while also telling a surprisingly compelling story about a family being haunted by demonic forces. The third film decided to go the prequel route and even found some success in doing so by putting the spotlight on Lin Shaye 's Elise Rainer. However, much of the franchise's reputation was hindered by a near-disastrous fourth entry with The Last Key .

Insidious: The Red Door opts to move the story of the first two films forward, with franchise vets Patrick Wilson , Rose Byrne , and Ty Simpkins all reprising their roles, plus Wilson taking over the directorial reins in his feature directorial debut. The film opens nine years after the events of Insidious: Chapter 2 with Josh and Dalton Lambert (Wilson & Simpkins) having no memory of the horrific events that transpired nearly a decade ago. Josh has since divorced Renai (Byrne) and has a tumultuous relationship with Dalton who's getting ready to go off to college. Following a death in the family, Renai suggests that Josh drop Dalton off at school to which the father and son reluctantly agree. After a heated argument, both Josh and Dalton's memories of their haunted pasts begin to terrorize them, causing each to seek out the truth.

RELATED: Why Patrick Wilson Made His Directorial Debut with 'Insidious' Rather Than 'The Conjuring'

'Insidious: The Red Door' Feels Different From Previous Installments

One aspect that jumps out immediately about Insidious: The Red Doo r is just how different a director Patrick Wilson is compared to Wan, Leigh Whannell , and Adam Robitel . The aesthetic feels different, and even the mood does as well. The first two installments had a lingering sense of dread looming over them and, while you do feel that at times with The Red Door , the film also manages to use some of its runtime to delve into family drama as well as Dalton bonding with his new college friend Chris ( Sinclair Daniel ). Some of it works, and fans will likely find themselves rooting for Renai and Josh to get back together and put their tragic past behind them, while some of it just felt unnecessary and tacked on, including Dalton and Chris going to war with the douchey frat guy Nick ( Peter Dager ). That's not to say that a film like this can't have some moments of levity and laughter, but some moments feel like they're ripped out of a mid-2000s college comedy rather than a horror movie. As a result, they just feel jarring.

That being said, Wilson does show quite a bit of promise as a filmmaker from the way he can deliver some effective scares while also creating moments that will be sure to have audience members clenching their armrests. Even with the unnecessary subplots that are thrown in, The Red Door flows at a pretty brisk pace, with the film almost working better as an epilogue rather than some world-shattering finale that will forever change the way you look at the franchise.

The screenplay itself, written by rising genre scribe Scott Teems , at times doesn't know how to truly balance all the story elements together. There are attempts at creating fan service moments that allude to previous installments, but it also never seems fully interested in exploring the world of The Further in a new light. It's Wilson's direction that ultimately helps the film stand out a bit more, proving that he has a firm grasp on what works about the franchise while also telling a story that feels personal.

'Insidious: The Red Door' Isn't Too Scary and That's OK

Insidious: The Red Door also dials it a bit back on the jump scares. While there are still a handful of moments that will shake the auditorium, there's nothing as notable as that infamous Lipstick-Face Demon scare in the 2011 film. However, the new installment manages to find other ways to get under the audience's skin, including one sequence that occurs within the first ten minutes involving Josh sitting in his car, texting Dalton, unaware of what's going on behind him. The audience won't feel as uncomfortable as they might have with previous entries, but fans of the films will be able to still be able to find a way to care because they've become attached to these characters. Even with a supposed grand finale that ends with more of a whimper than a bang, The Red Door still oddly feels like a satisfying conclusion to this story, and a lot of that might be because of the Lambert family.

Simpkins and Wilson take on the leading roles this time around with the latter turning another solid turn as the now divorced Josh. Simpkins is decent enough as well, but his character never really feels like a captivating protagonist. Instead, he's just kind of there. Byrne has very little to do compared to what she's been given in the past, only showing up in the first and third acts, but is still a more than welcome presence on screen. Hiam Abbass feels wasted in her role as Dalton's strict art professor, ultimately feeling like a side note once the credits start to roll.

Insidious: The Red Door might not be the scariest installment in the franchise, but it feels a lot more human than the others before it. The character moments end up feeling more effective than some of the film's big set-pieces and, while that may bug some genre purists, those who have stuck around since the first film released over 10 years ago will be pleased.

Insidious: The Red Door is now playing in theaters.

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Insidious 5: The Red Door – Movie Review (3/5)

Posted by Karina "ScreamQueen" Adelgaard | Jul 6, 2023 | 5 minutes

INSIDIOUS 5: THE RED DOOR is a direct sequel to the first two movies. In many ways, it’s a deeper story that deals with many realistic and real issues. However, don’t worry, paranormal horror is still at the forefront. Read our full Insidious 5 movie review here!

INSIDIOUS: THE RED DOOR (or just Insidious 5 ) is finally here. Although it is the fifth movie in the franchise, it is effectively a direct continuation of the first two movies. In that sense, it’s more like a trilogy being wrapped up here.

Once again, we follow the Lambert family with mom, dad, and their three kids. Obviously, the children have grown quite a bit older. If you remember the first two movies, it’s not difficult to imagine how the violent experiences could affect the family in the following years. This makes for a deeper and more heart-wrenching story that’s also damn creepy!

Continue reading our Insidious 5: The Red Door movie review below. The movie is out in US theaters on July 7, 2023.

Back to the original story

With this fifth Insidious movie, we are, as already stated, going back to the Lambert family from the first two movies. After a few detours with the third and fourth movies, it’s all the way back to the original story. The Lambert family was the focal point of Insidious (2010) and Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013).

The narrative continues nine years after the events of Insidious 2 , so it’s close to being real-time chronology in that sense. This also means that it is a very good idea to re-watch the first two movies before watching this one.

Is it strictly necessary to watch the first two movies again? No, it actually isn’t, as flashbacks from the two movies are shown throughout to make sure we’re all caught up.

However, if you haven’t ever watched the first two movies, you’re missing basic information about the family dynamic. This will definitely take away from understanding everything that happens in  Insidious: The Red Door . There is a lot of heartbreak in seeing the little boy as a grown young man, struggling with things he just cannot remember.

Especially when the evil from “The Further” obviously still remembers him!

The cast is reunited – now with Ty Simpkins in the lead role

And yes, the filmmakers managed to get the cast back together again for this follow-up story. All the actors from the first films are in this movie in  some  way. And no, that’s not a spoiler, just classic James Wan.

After all, he managed to get both the Jigsaw figure from Saw in the first Insidious movie and the Annabelle doll featured at the bottom of the ocean in Aquaman (2018).

Ty Simpkins stars as Dalton Lambert, while Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne are his parents, Josh and Renai. Also, his younger brother, Foster, continues to be played by Andrew Astor, who also gets a bit more to work with here. Little sister, Kali, was a baby in the first two films and is just in one scene now.

This really is the story of Dalton and his father and the impact the terrible events of the first two movies had on the family. At the end of Insidious 2 (you’ll see it again as the Insidious: The Red Door opening scene), we see how Josh and Dalton Lambert choose to be hypnotized to forget everything that had happened to them.

ARE YOU INTO MOVIES WITH A HYPNOSIS PLOT? Maybe you’ll find the Netflix movie Hypnotic interesting >

However, Renai and Foster, who also experienced everything, are now left having to pretend that nothing strange has happened. Renai in particular has to bear a huge burden as the hypnosis affects Josh more than expected. It may sound like “boring” drama but gives a tinge of very relevant PTSD that offers important depth to the story.

In addition, it gives Insidious: The Red Door an extra layer of psychological horror that works amazingly with the otherwise classic paranormal tale. And don’t worry, there are also still grim creatures and brutal jump-scares along the way.

I personally ended up sitting very much back and deep in my seat at least once along the way.

Watch Insidious: The Red Door in theaters!

Actor Patrick Wilson has taken the lead on the horror movie this time as director. Insidious: The Red Door is his debut as a director, but you definitely won’t notice that he’s new to directing. In fact, I would very much like Patrick Wilson to continue as a horror director, because he clearly has a very good feel for it.

The story comes from Leigh Whannell, who is essentially the creator of the Insidious franchise and its characters, while James Wan was the director of the first two from the start. Leigh Whannell then wrote and directed Insidious 3 .

Leigh Whannell was of course also an actor in several of the films – just as Patrick Wilson has been from the start. The script for Insidious 5 itself comes from Scott Teems, who also wrote Halloween Kills , so he is well-versed in writing new movies in established franchises.

MORE FROM LEIGH WHANNELL Leigh Whannell has also directed The Invisible Man  >

To cover all movies in the franchise, I should mention that the fourth film in the franchise was Insidious: The Last Key directed by Adam Robitel . Still with Leigh Whannell writing it. Both James Wan and Leigh Whannell are (of course!) still on board as producers for this fifth installment.

In every way, this movie is a worthy end to a trilogy. Yes, even though it’s actually the fifth film in the franchise. Now we can look forward to the new Insidious spin-off that has been announced. Until then, make sure you go watch this fifth  Insidious  movie in your preferred movie theater.

Insidious: The Red Door is out in US movie theaters from July 7, 2023.

In Theaters: July 7, 2023 (US) Director: Patrick Wilson Writer: Scott Teems Cast: Patrick Wilson, Ty Simpkins, Rose Byrne, Sinclair Daniel, Peter Dager, Hiam Abbass

In  Insidious 5: The Red Door , the horror franchise’s original cast returns for the final chapter of the Lambert family’s terrifying saga. To put their demons to rest once and for all, Josh (Patrick Wilson) and a college-aged Dalton (Ty Simpkins) must go deeper into The Further than ever before, facing their family’s dark past and a host of new and more horrifying terrors that lurk behind the red door.

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About The Author

Karina "ScreamQueen" Adelgaard

I write reviews and recaps on Heaven of Horror. And yes, it does happen that I find myself screaming, when watching a good horror movie. I love psychological horror, survival horror and kick-ass women. Also, I have a huge soft spot for a good horror-comedy. Oh yeah, and I absolutely HATE when animals are harmed in movies, so I will immediately think less of any movie, where animals are harmed for entertainment (even if the animals are just really good actors). Fortunately, horror doesn't use this nearly as much as comedy. And people assume horror lovers are the messed up ones. Go figure!

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‘insidious: the red door’ review: patrick wilson directs a desultory entry in the hit franchise.

Wilson helms and stars in this fifth installment, a sequel to 2013's 'Insidious: Chapter 2.'

By Frank Scheck

Frank Scheck

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Robert de niro, bobby cannavale butt heads while caring for autistic child in 'ezra' trailer, kieran culkin tells his wife he wants more kids while accepting best actor emmy: "you said maybe if i win", insidious: the red door.

But things are not okay for the emotionally adrift Josh, who’s mourning the loss of his marriage, and his teenage son Dalton (Ty Simpkins, reprising his role from the first two films), with whom he has a strained relationship. In an effort to patch things up, Josh — who along with Dalton has had his horrific memories of his past experiences repressed by a handy dose of hypnotherapy — offers to drive his son to college, where he’s beginning his freshman year.

It doesn’t go well, with the sullen teenager resistant to his father’s attempts at camaraderie, which include encouraging him to attend a frat party. Things improve marginally, for both Dalton and the film, with the arrival of Chris (Sinclair Daniel), a wittily lively young woman who’s been mistakenly assigned to be his roommate. She becomes Dalton’s friend and confidant, which is no easy task because he doesn’t exactly have a sparkling personality.

Scott Teems’ screenplay, based on a story by him and series co-creator Leigh Whannell (who returns for a cameo as the geeky Specs), attempts to infuse the spooky proceedings with drama revolving around Josh’s lingering guilt and revelations about the father he never knew, who’s now apparently haunting him. But none of it has much impact, despite Wilson’s best efforts to provide character-driven texture.

Series fans will enjoy the reappearances of many characters from the other films, including Lin Shaye ’s psychic (she died in a previous installment, but death is no impediment to cameos in films like this), although it’s unfortunate that the always-welcome Byrne is relegated to a minor role. Even Wilson receives less screen time than Simpkins, who is forced to carry the film despite the burden of his character being a real bummer. Fortunately, there’s Daniel, who provides some much-needed comic juice to the otherwise desultory goings-on, and Hiam Abbass ( Succession ), projecting her usual authority as Dalton’s art professor.

Patrick Wilson fans familiar with his terrific musical theater turns in such Broadway shows as The Full Monty and Oklahoma! will want to stick around for the end credits, featuring his vocals on a heavy metal song with the Swedish rock band Ghost.

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Insidious: The Red Door review – shoddy horror sequel

Patrick Wilson makes his directorial debut with a labored legacy sequel that should hopefully close the door on the long-running franchise

N ow in its fifth installment across more than a decade with The Red Door, the Insidious franchise boasts an impressive longevity, albeit in a way more damning than damned. The big horror series prolong their popularity on the strength of a monster (Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers and the rest of the Halloween costume perennials) or a narrative device (the self-inflicted torture of Saw, the Rube Goldberg inevitability of fate in Final Destination), but the Insidious pictures have yielded four windfalls over $100m despite a lack of any distinctive features. The unifying premise for hit factory Blumhouse’s reliable yet reliably uninteresting moneymaker dares viewers to wonder “what if there was a creepy thing that jumped out at you, then disappeared?” The closest it gets to a recurring mascot is a Darth Maul-looking phantom alternately referred to by fans as The Man With Fire in His Face, Lipstick-Face Demon, The Red-Faced Demon, or Sixtass, and in any case, he’s pretty light on charisma.

The first few chapters benefited hugely from the steady directorial hands of James Wan and Leigh Whannell, genre guys with strong fundamentals who knew how to use the camera to coax every iota of tension from material unremarkable on paper. This time around, the star Patrick Wilson takes the reins and reveals just how little has held the property together up to this point. Without innovative blocking and framing, each scene follows a rote repetition as clichés of studio-horror storytelling cue up the oldest scares in the book. Some lumpy mumbling about repression and cycles of generational trauma, a figure appears out of focus in the background, a moment of silence to foster a false sense of security, and then the cinematic equivalent of grabbing someone’s shoulders and screaming “BOO!” in their ear. If these cheap tricks garner a reaction at all, it’s to their suddenness and loudness, a knee-jerk agitation nowhere near as affecting as true, unleaded terror.

To his credit and ultimate detriment, the actor-turned-cineaste Wilson set out to make something more pointed from a setup that hasn’t been about much of anything in the past, only to get bogged down in wormy metaphor. Shortly after the conclusion of the second film – the convoluted chronology of sequels and prequels doesn’t gum up the works too badly, at least – the Lambert family has agreed to submit to therapeutic hypnosis so that they might forget the harrowing events they’ve just survived. Ten years later, and Josh (Wilson) has split from Renai (a scant Rose Byrne), while their son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) has grown into a sullen, resentful teenager rolling his eyes through visits with Dad. As a last-ditch attempt to bond, Josh takes it upon himself to drive Dalton to campus for college move-in weekend, and the past decade of dormant dysfunction starts to rear its ugly, Darth Maul head.

The customary gobbledygook about astral projection now buttresses stale subtext concerning the danger of pushing down painful memories, and the struggle to disrupt patterns of inherited injury. This facile psychologizing ties together the most done-to-death notions in contemporary horror, and they’re only worsened by their articulation in half-baked metaphysics and dumbed-down symbolism. When Wilson wants to telegraph that peril is imminent, for example, he color-grades the entire frame to a bright, sanguine red. In his defense, he’s working with the shoddiest script in the Insidious canon, courtesy of the Firestarter and Halloween Kills scribe Scott Teems. The college setting quickly becomes counterintuitive, separating Dalton and Josh in their own threads of plot that leave the action halting and disjointed. (The concept also saddles Dalton with a sidekick who speaks in faux-clever dialogue so irritating that her ongoing survival comes to feel like a missed opportunity.) The writing expends more effort on teasing out the logistics of seeing dead people than making the phenomenon frightening or emotionally resonant. The shambling corpses may as well be bags of meat rather than reanimated people.

Wilson incorporates minor brushstrokes that evince a respect for genre history from a guy who claims Poltergeist as one of his favorite movies, from the ominous font choices to the received Polanski-isms. But even as a lifelong student of the arts with a clear affection for his work, he brings no hint of an individual sensibility to his reintroduction as film-maker, the exception being an over-fondness for pushy facial closeups that’s long been the dead giveaway of an actor taking to the other side of the camera. As he attempts to massage a message into a flimsy container, he shows that he has little to say for himself. A first film from someone with a lifetime of experience on sets and stages should be packed with ideas itching to free themselves; Wilson comes at this like the star of a TV show who’s watched them make it for long enough that he figures he could do it himself.

Insidious: The Red Door is now out in US and UK cinemas

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