Given the recent dearth of decent horror films – particularly American-made horror films – the Insidious franchise has become a unique beast. With old-school ghost-ride energy, an unabashed sense of silliness and a 71-year-old leading lady heading the trilogy, Insidious manages to be oddly singular by playing it safe.
After writing the previous installments, Leigh Whannell has been promoted to the director’s chair, and he’s learned the craft well by watching partner James Wan. In this prequel to the previous two films, teenage Quinn (Stefanie Scott) becomes the target for a persistent but undeveloped demon, who takes the form of a breathless man grasping an antique ventilator. As ever in the Insidious world, traumatised psychic and franchise staple Elise (Lin Shaye) is drawn to help her. The demon of course paves the way for grabbing hands jumping from the darkness, terrifying supernatural faces screaming at the camera and things that go bump in the night.
What Whannell brings is an impressive ability to pace scares and build paranoia, planting demons in the background of shots so often that you’re constantly on guard for them – a clever way of evoking the fear of the characters. But Whannell’s not afraid to be ridiculous, either – amidst the spooky night-time attacks and psychological horror is deliberate comic relief. Some of the humour is explicit, and some arrives via the genre’s demand for characters to constantly make bad decisions, adding to the pantomime relationship between audience and film.
Though the ghostly motives and plot often remain nonsensically anaemic, Insidious 3 is a fun horror to see in a cinema with a giddy, jumpy and popcorn-spilling crowd.