Insidious: The Red Door (2023)

Score: 4 / 5

How do you like your franchise-enders? Or, in our present hamster-wheel of entertainment, partial endings? Some prefer a balls-out spectacle-fest (think Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension), while others want some kind of nostalgic, legacy-oriented climax, usually with some doors left open for spin-offs or fanfiction. Neither is "right," but there can be a place for both; when a horror film opts for character development and artistic integrity instead of big budget effects and fan service, I'm always happier. Nobody really expects this to be the final Insidious film, but it certainly ends the story of the Lamberts, and in that it is a wonderfully rich and emotional finale.

The same actors return to their roles as the Lambert family, including an underused Rose Byrne as Renai and Andrew Astor as Foster. Ty Simpkins has grown a lot, and his Dalton has become a brooding art student ready to start his first term at college. Patrick Wilson, here pulling double duty as director in his debut as such, carries the heart of this story as Josh, the father who is at the end of his rope. He and Renai have separated, his mother Lorraine (Barbara Hershey, tragically not in this film) recently died, and his relationship with Dalton is especially tenuous. To try and bridge the gap between them, Josh packs Dalton into his car to take him to school, though that ends bitterly.

We're reminded at the beginning of this film that Josh and Dalton, after their near-death experiences in Chapter 2, were hypnotized into forgetting how to astral project and enter The Further, in the hopes of protecting themselves from future hauntings. With this device, we're treated to a conundrum: the amnesia allows for return opportunities, which this film clearly capitalizes upon, but it also means we're always multiple steps ahead of the characters. We know full well why things go bump in the night and what Dalton and Josh should and most definitely shouldn't do, but they're working through flashbacks and hazy memories and doing arguably stupid things in the meantime. It makes for frustrating viewing, as we want more ingenuity and excitement (and answers) but we're bogged down waiting for these struggling men to catch up.

As such, when Dalton's art professor (Hiam Abbass in a fun but wasted role) effectively puts Dalton into a state of suggestibility and he paints the titular red door, all hell soon breaks loose. It's an interesting (if familiar) concept to have one's art open a portal, and I really admire this film for leaning into that, in no small way advocating for art therapy to purge the spirit of old demons. Once this happens, though, and the movie's plot gets going, the screenplay doesn't quite know what it's up to. The promising setup unravels into a strange series of events, bouncing back and forth between Dalton at school and Josh at home, forcing us into thinking of them as in a competition for who can remember their past first. It's just not as creative, narratively, as the other installments, particularly the first two.

I'm endlessly glad this film brought back the Lamberts (at least some of them, and to some extent) and ends their story on a really lovely note (the climax, I should note, had me rather angry due to SPOILER ALERT a sacrifice that isn't really a sacrifice, but the happy ending made up for it and my little weeping heart was glad). I'm less glad this film did not feature much from Lin Shaye's psychic guide Elise Rainier or her sidekicks Specs and Tucker (Leigh Whannell and Angus Sampson), but chronologically Elise has been dead almost a decade at this point in the story, and this film really doesn't need those characters. We've had two other movies about them, and this time it's about the Lamberts dealing with grief and loss and regret, personal family matters, not about them venturing into other dimensions to find each other, which is where the paranormal team would come in to assist.

Wilson's direction is emotionally smart and creepily effective; his talents as an artist are always evolving and growing, and I respect the hell out of that. He's clearly learned a lot from James Wan and Leigh Whannell over the years, because the jump scares (it's an Insidious movie, of course there are jump scares!) are cleverly crafted and deviously deployed, particularly in the first half of the film. The best part is that many of the scares directly tie in with the plot or with certain character moments, so they rarely feel extraneous or exploitative. Wilson adds a few touches to recall other installments of the franchise, including Tiny Tim's chilling "Tiptoe Through the Tulips," and it's all pretty satisfying to see things come to a close.

On the other hand, as a fan since the 2010 original, I found myself annoyed that this film, advertised as the end of the series, didn't at least offer some answers or clarification or connective tissue between the various mysteries of its own mythbuilding. Maybe it's not necessary, as at least in my understanding, the red doors in the Further seem to be locations (apparently tied to regions in the real world) where demons reside, as opposed to the blue-green foggy Further in general where malcontented ghosts reenact their traumas. That seems somewhat obvious to me, though the films haven't made that clear and I suppose any other interpretation could topple mine. Mystery has its place in paranormal horror, but every once in a while, I'd like films with such specific concepts to elucidate a bit, especially if the concept is going to become a full-blown series. And The Red Door, for all its successes, doesn't actually share anything about the damn red door, which makes for a somewhat confusing final title.

But we get Wilson singing a hard rock new song with Swedish band Ghost, which is pretty cool, and a post-credits stinger that certainly makes me hope the producers will come up with a good reason to enter the Further again soon.