Insidious: The Red Door

Insidious: The Red Door
Starring Ty Simpkins, Patrick Wilson, Sinclair Daniel, Rose Byrne
Directed by Patrick Wilson

The "Insidious" franchise is an odd one to me, because even though I've seen (now) all five of them, only the first one sticks out in my memory. I somehow created a mental block when it comes to the second through fourth films, remembering very little as to what happened in them. Going back into my reviews I was surprised I gave them such high marks (with the exception of "The Last Key"), and reading through my reviews it was like someone else entirely wrote them. After talking with some friends, they too told me that they don't remember them either. Maybe it's a spell crafted by the Further to misdirect us, or maybe it's because they weren't that great of films (the original is still heralded as one of modern horror's most well-done films, with a jump scare that is practically unrivaled), but nothing of that caliber happened in the subsequent sequels - including "The Red Door," which will probably go into the Further of my memory bank and reside in its dark corner never to be talked of again.

Ten years after their bought with the Further and the demons that dwelt inside desiring to live in the real world, Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson) is haunted by lack of memories of the event after he and his young son Dalton underwent hypnosis to forget what happened. After the death of his mother, memories struggle to the surface, and the rift that's been created between Josh and his son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) has only intensified as Dalton departs for college. His marriage to Renai (Rose Byne) is dissolved, and he worries that he could have some brain trauma since he can't remember what happened for a year, as well as struggling with memory loss in the present.

Meanwhile, Dalton makes a friend with his roommate Chris (Sinclair Daniel) and he takes a painting class where he's told to go deep into his subconscious to paint something from within, and this re-opens the door that was shut ten years prior, re-igniting his ability to astro project into the Further where the demon that haunted him and his family has been waiting to inhabit him. Josh also suffers from visions of a mysterious man which leads him to confront Renai about the repressed memories, sending him back into the Further to find Dalton and save him before his body is completely inhabited by the demon.


The Good:
The heart of the "Insidious" movies lies with the Lambert family, as the first two films focused on their trials as they dealt with the demons from the Further. The third and fourth films were prequels centering around Lin Shaye's Elise Rainier, and were the weaker of the outings (as to my recollection). Not only does "The Red Door" re-focus back on the Lambert family, but they brought back all the original actors from the first two films, even including Andrew Astor as the younger brother no one remembers.

Ty Simpkins is one of modern cinema's most invisible actors, someone who's been in several movies but people still scratch their heads thinking, "I know I've seen him in something before." He's been a part of huge blockbuster franchises as well as small Oscar-winning films; from "Jurassic World" to "Iron Man 3" (where he played the young boy who helped Tony deal with his PTSD, and who made a cameo appearance in "Avengers: Endgame" where everyone wondered who he was) to 2022's superb Brendan Fraser-led "The Whale." He's a better actor than he's given credit for, and here he gets to really take center stage for the first time. You sense Dalton's own PTSD come to the foreground after he delves back into memories long lost, and he gives a great dramatic performance as he struggles with his waning relationship with his father. He also gets some comedic moments with his roommate Chris, which I'll talk about more in the next paragraph.

Sinclair Daniel's Chris has become one of my favorite side characters in any 2023 movie thus far, due to her hilarious personality and her natural chemistry with Simpkins. They attend a frat party to make fun of it, and it's there where Dalton really channels the Further for the first time as an adult, so they decide to go back and find out what really happened, leading to a humorous exchange when they enter a frat guy's room and ponder whether or not the sheets are cleaner than the floor. There's talks of "Insidious" spinoffs, and it'd be a travesty not to have a spinoff where Dalton and Chris travel to the Further of college to solve unsolved mysteries or something.


The Bad:
Patrick Wilson was raised in the James Wan school of directing, and his directorial debut really makes you feel like you're watching a student of Wan giving his senior project film. Jump scares abound in the most obvious places, the color palette matches Wan's other work, and everything has a sense of copycat to it. It's nothing against Wilson as a first-time director, but hopefully he branches out and finds his own voice for future endeavors.

The film has a story that needed to be told, and that's the rift between Dalton and his father that's not really developed. They only communicate on their drive to college, and spend the rest of the film apart with no contact. Only at the end do they reconnect when Josh enters the Further to save Dalton in a cut-and-paste style of the older films, and there's a disjointed connection there.

The story as well is often disjointed, crafting ideas and then tossing them aside for something else, like they wanted to make another feature-length "Insidious" movie but only had ideas for smaller ones, and they tried to Frankenstein them together into some sort of final product. Time drags on where nothing really happens apart from the generic jump scare, and the slow burn story culminates in about ten minutes of actual terror at the end, and that's putting it nicely.


The Verdict:
Ten years after "Insidious: Chapter 2," we get to see the Lambert family once again battle the demons in the Further with "The Red Door," but much like the wishes of the characters, this door was one that should never had been opened.


The Score: B-