Review: 'Insidious: The Red Door' resorts to cliched tropes of horror with minimal scares while being dull

Insidious: The Red Door

Three Conjurings and five Insidious-es later, horror genre continues to be relevant, selling and popular but it seems there is now a lack of attempt and innovation when it comes to presenting 'scary movies.' The reason films like the first Conjuring or the first Insidious or any such worked is because it either showcased horror so well that even the cliched tropes are forgiven or there was just an attempt to be different and hence be fresh and impactful. Nevertheless, here we are and I had the chance to watch the fifth instalment of Insidious - Insidious: The Red Door beforehand, and here is what I thought about it-

Lack of Innovation and Cliched Tropes

As hinted above already, Insidious: The Red Door is yet another reminder of how there seems to be a certain amount of lethargy attached to how the makers and the team plan and execute scare scenes. One obviously doesn't expect something that is entirely out of the blue but to be resorting to age-old jump scare situations with a sense of repetition just doesn't cut it. The build-up sequences of looking at a man and then realising he is not there, goriness when a puking man pukes on your protagonist, and loud musical reminders in the form of background score are banal ways to show horror that Insidious: The Red Door doesn't seem to get over from.

The Storyline & Nostalgia Clicks

Here, we have a debutant director in the form of Patrick Wilson, who is not only the leading man of this film but pretty much the face of horror films in general. To his credit, Wilson manages to fully invest you when it comes to the story in question. Unlike the third and fourth instalment, Insidious: The Red Door is actually a directly sequel to the first two films and hence, this bodes well for Wilson as he gets to play with the nostalgia factor in abundance. To be watching the characters of Dalton (Ty Simpkins), Renai (Rose Byrne) and Foster (Andrew Astor) return after all these years instantly has you connected because we have seen, loved and been scared by their journey. 

And hence, Wilson, apart from being a towering actor himself again as Josh, manages to make sure that the emotional connect and investment in these characters and their struggling relationships with each other is explored and done well, even if it takes a while to sink in. Also, kudos to the introduction of a new character in the form of Chris, played fantastically by Sinclair Daniel. Her spark, sass,and pizzaz coupled with change of emotions when she is involved in some wondrous situations is just about perfect. Undoubtedly, she is the reason to hold on to watching the film more often than not.

Run Its Course

The moment, a franchise decides to leave its core story and then, somehow come back to it after a couple of duds - should be enough to give the makers a check on how it has possibly run its course. I mean, obviously, it is still making the money almost enough to even have more instalments coming in but the quality in the Insidious franchise has alarmingly witnessed a drop for a while. It seemed like a good idea to backtrack and revisit the original favorites from the first two Insidious films but that is just about it and even their return cannot quite save a dooming horror saga.

The Verdict

Patrick Wilson's directorial abilities offer a mixed bag, where his sense of filmmaking is obviously impressive when it comes to working on human relationships and the changing equations but inspite of being a horror aficionado and the go-to leading man for an array of these films; doesn't entirely manage to forge out a worthy, novel and fresh take at the genre with this beloved franchise. We don't surely know if Insidious: The Red Door is the last instalment in this series but from the looks of it, it surely should be.

Rating - ** (2/5)