Director: Jacob Chase
Stars: Brandon Perea, Amelia Eve, Maisie Richardson-Sellers
Of all the increasingly irrelevant horror franchises running on the fumes of past glories, Insidious is the latest to receive an unexpected stay of execution. While the series has been suffering diminishing creative returns since its second entry, the glowering, miserable Insidious: The Red Door inexplicably pulled in new highs at the box office. Even though that chapter seemed intent on finally closing the (red) door on things, in Hollywood, money talks.
Out of the Further is the first to be made without series creator Leigh Whannell’s explicit involvement either on screen as nerdy ghost hunter Specs or a material part of the creative development. And, being a sixth entry in a series that’s offered up two consecutive duds, expectations were set accordingly. But incoming helmsman Jacob Chase has managed to subvert such skepticism. With the Lambert family closed off, the property has been left free for him to play around with quite liberally, and so he has. Out of the Further feels like someone picking up a faded Etch-a-Sketch and giving it a loving shake before starting again with the most basic component parts.
So meet Naomi Watts lookalike Gemma (Amelia Eve), a dental hygienist and single mum to young Maya (Island Austin), making a go of things in the family home where her mother went mad and killed herself in the bathroom 20 years earlier. Haunted (psychologically, at first) by this devastating trauma, Gemma has remained resilient. Her determination to change the family fortunes in the bones of such tragedy has yielded some symptomatic results, however. For one, she’s become quite the hoarder. Nothing gets thrown away for good. But, increasingly, her dreams are taking her to disturbing places, featuring a trio of elderly creeps (Joseph Lopez; June Clemons; Robina Beard) whom she also sees regularly tottering about the neighbourhood. As the lines between realities start to blur, Gemma grows more desperate, calling on earthbound assistance from cop boyfriend Nick (Brandon Perea) and discovering more ethereal help from long deceased series mainstay and octogenarian hero Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye).
So far so Insidious, more or less, but it’s the gusto that Chase brings to proceedings that marks this one out as fresh. Ironic, really, when said gusto so often manifests on the freakier, grosser, fouler end of the spectrum. Particularly in it’s first third, Out of the Further goes hard with its set pieces, coming for the audience with a sense of fun that’s been conspicuously missing from the last two films. Two such sequences stand out. Acolyte Lester’s (Lopez) visit to Gemma’s hygienist chair is a gross-out spectacle long before the whole ‘second mouth’ bit spoiled by the trailers. Meanwhile, her misadventures in the extended tunnels of Maya’s cushion fort in the family living room – also teased by promotional materials – work gangbusters when left to play out in full, even giving young Kane Parsons a run for his money. It’s good to see Insidious embracing some of the newer trends without resorting to parody and the claustrophobic liminality of these tunnels are as palpable as their rough hewn fabric walls.
Tucker and Specs will always be missed, but Chase also makes a welcome new addition to the series roster by bringing in Maisie Richardson-Sellers as tattooist-cum-medium Clare. While there’s a slight tension in scenes of an older white woman physically controlling a younger Black woman’s body, Richardson-Sellers’ welcome energy is another element that feels like a concerted effort to reinvigorate the franchise. Chase looks backward to Insidious‘ whacky approach to props for inspiration, making Out of the Further the goofiest since the original. Clare’s accoutrements include a strait-jacket just in case, and a novel approach to exposition utilising grapefruit.
The overarching sense of enthusiasm is extended to The Further itself; the demon world of the afterlife that the series has used sparingly until now. Chase goes at it like a kid rushing into a soft-play area, testing out it’s limits and exploring the possibilities, sometimes in ways we’ve never seen before. This lends Out of the Further a slightly zanier tone, making it feel closer, in fact, to an Elm Street sequel. This teeters on the brink of confusing come the hyperactive and condensed third act. With dual realities at play and multiple locations, the chopping and changing can get a little chaotic. I appreciate the compulsion to bring this in tight, but some breathing room in the edit might’ve helped here.
Like the best of multiplex popcorn horror, however, Out of the Further feels like a ride. Eve, Perea and young Austin make our new heroes eminently likeable. The mother/daughter duo elicit our sympathies with ease, even if their emotional arcs are relatively boilerplate, while poor hapless Nick proves its still possible to like a movie cop, especially one who’ll dumbly taser the elderly. Excessive force so laughable that the real-world connotations fall away. There’s a sense of glee from Chase that transfers through the screen to the audience, which patches over some of the film’s weaker elements (a somewhat generic Marilyn Manson looking antagonist; the overfamiliar trauma redemption aspect).
Before attending a screening I noted, with some weariness, that Kumail Nanjiani is already set to star in a further (pun intended) spin-off currently in production entitled Thread: An Insidious Tale. Clearly, given the box office, there’s no stopping this train anytime soon. But, given the high-octane enjoyment factor this time out, enthusiasm has been improbably renewed. I’m a sucker who’ll be seated, no doubt. Spare a thought for the orthodontia industry, however; an entire generation of would-be practitioners are about to be alienated.
The Lost Highway Hotel 