Insidious: Out of the Further, 2026.
Written and Directed by Jacob Chase.
Starring Amelia Eve, Island Austin, Lin Shaye, Sam Spruell, Brandon Perea, Maisie Richardson-Sellers, Joseph Lopez, Laura Gordon, Charli Penton, Taylor Bogrand, Ben Keller, and Katerina Daskalakis.
SYNOPSIS:
Gemma, a young mother raising her daughter in the house she grew up in, discovers she can travel into The Further, where she possesses an ability to bring what lives there back to the real world.
While the Insidious series has mostly moved on from the Lambert family, writer/director Jacob Chase’s Insidious: Out of the Further feels like the first entry to embrace a new direction in terms of everything from characters to demons, to introducing elements of dentistry body horror, and getting nutty with the rules of the supernatural plane. Yes, this is perhaps the most fun installment in the series, but that engagement also makes it the scariest (full disclosure, I have never found the Darth Maul reject look-alike demon most associated with the franchise intimidating or spooky).
This time, the story is centered on Gemma (Amelia Eve), a dentist and mother to young Maya (Island Austin), a sweet dog lover also curious about some disheveled, awkward elderly folks in the neighborhood strolling around during the daytime (one of whom carries around an oxygen tank that comes to be used for more than its intended purpose). As a jump-scare-fueled prologue shows us, Gemma’s relationship with her mother (Laura Gordon) became fractured by the end of her life and was the polar opposite of the loving connection she has with her daughter; as Gemma puts it, her mother – temperamental, often paranoid, and hostile in the late stages of her life – turned evil.
Gemma still resides in that childhood home, although she packed up every photograph and trace of mom and buried them away in a hoard of cardboard boxes, much like her actual memories. The house itself is too convenient to give up, though (and besides, she inherited it). However, it isn’t long until her nightmares suddenly begin pulling her into the Further (for those unfamiliar with the series and considering checking this out since it is a mostly standalone story, it is an astral projection plane between the living and the dead), resulting in clever terror staging and execution, weaponizing everything from dental work to claustrophobia. A certain scene in Gemma’s dentistry office, working on one of those aforementioned older individuals, chipping away icky substances off the teeth and more, offers some unexpected gross-out gagging before transitioning into something both more traditionally chilling and also flipping the script on her.
Initially skeptical of what Gemma experiences, her police officer boyfriend, Nick (Brandon Perea), begins to buy into her claims about the fancy and, with his own eyes, sees her drag objects from the Further into the real world. During one of these sequences haunted in the Further, she also comes across the now-deceased Elise (a returning Lin Shaye, and pleasantly so, since it wouldn’t feel right without her in one of these movies), who hands over instructions for contacting her in the material world despite being dead.
Apparently, Elise – now working with an orphaned woman named Claire (Maisie Richardson-Sellers) to communicate with the living and give the hunted advice on how to protect themselves – wards off malicious demons from inside the Further, and occasionally comes across as a ridiculous superhero, which is said in a complimentary sense. And while I’m aware there is an entire movie in the series dedicated to the character, a case could also be made that watching this for 90 minutes would be a hoot. There is also a significant flaw here in that their relationship and adventures are short-changed and nowhere near fleshed out. However, it does potentially set up the focus for a seventh installment. Expanding on that, the characterization here in general is slim, with the trade-off being that the pacing moves with momentum from one scary set piece to the next.
As mentioned up front, Insidious: Out of the Further is such a satisfying surprise (even on a narrative and thematic level), though, since it is aware that all of this has gotten beyond stale and is determined to reinvent the rules of this series while making imaginative use of new abilities and “unnatural travelers”. This installment also has a downright freaky villain in the Further’s cult leader Cyrus (Sam Spruell, appropriately grotesque, covered in makeup and sporting an immensely creepy smile), hellbent on bringing everything from that realm into the real world.
That is to say that while the expected jump scares (even those are inspired at times, such as one coming from the reflection of a small dental mirror) and familiar series ideas are here, it is far from dull, especially for a sixth film. Insidious: Out of the Further becomes full-blown bonkers, blending reality and the Further with a sense of danger and urgency, and earning its family dynamic emotional beats.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
