The third chapter in the Insidious franchise goes back to the start and finds a whole new family to petrify. It's tight and effective stuff
Having terrorised the Lambert family with a double whammy of demonic possession, there was nowhere else for James Wan and Leigh Whannell’s horror franchise to go but back to the start. Wan was busy with a little side show called Fast and Furious 7 so it was left to the multi-talented Whannell to write and direct this deft little prequel.
He does a smart and tight job of ratcheting up the slow-release tension before hitting us with some bruising horror hooks and like the first two Insidious instalments, the subtle use of music and creepy atmospherics is chillingly effective.
Whannell may have a whole new family to petrify in Insidious 3 but the movie belongs to kooky psychic Elise Rainer. She's played with real energy by Lin Shaye, an actress who’s come a long way from playing the genuinely terrifying Mrs Neugeboren in Dumb and Dumber and Cameron Diaz’s fright-show flatmate Magda in There’s Something About Mary.
Stefanie Scott plays Quinn Brenner, a teenage girl who calls out to her dead mother but instead attracts a murderous demon from The Further who sounds like he’s got a bigger asthma problem than Darth Vader.
Insidious 3 follows the same formula as the first two films and again, the best scares are to be had in the build-up; once battle commences between Elise and the demons, Whannell lets his movie become a touch too Ghost Whisperer for comfort.
The Insidious franchise is beginning to look like death warmed up. After this genesis story, it may be time for Whannell to take good old Jennifer Love Hewitt‘s advice and let it walk into the light and finally find inner peace.
Alan Corr
Watch TEN's interview with Leigh Whannell
