Reviews
WELCOME BACK TO THE FURTHER: A Spoiler-Free Review of ‘Insidious: The Red Door’

To fully contextualize my feelings on Insidious: The Red Door, I kind of have to explain my feelings on all the previous films. You get multiple reviews for the price of one here, reader. Congrats!
Insidious struck just the right balance of enjoyable, atmospheric ghost film with a grounded family drama, and despite some silly editing, you can understand why it did gangbusters at the box office. It became the blueprint for ghost/demon films for a while, and for good reason. Insidious Chapter 2 brought some fresh Blumhouse cash which enhanced the cinematography, mainly in the set design and audio, but it also expanded on the lore of the world and made for an even better film than the first. Insidious 3 was…bad but admittedly redeemed in some respects by the worldbuilding done in Insidious: The Last Key, which is enjoyable and gives us all what we wanted: even more Lin Shaye as Elise Rainier.
So, Insidious: The Red Door being the final mainline installment for the foreseeable future is appropriate, as it reflects the track record of all the films thus far: it’s got its problems, but it’s still undeniably great, and supplements all its shortcomings with a flood of expertly executed scares as you’ve come to expect from the franchise.
Insidious: The Red Door follows the events of Insidious: Chapter 2 directly (well, as direct as a nine-year gap can be). With the Lambert family trying to forget the demons and spirits of the Further, eldest son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) moves away for his first year of college. Despite their best efforts, he and his father, Josh (Patrick Wilson), begin to experience the return of supernatural activity. As the clock runs down, the two must deal with their hypnotically repressed memories and end the madness that has plagued them for almost a decade.
Behind the camera, we get the directorial debut of Patrick Wilson, who in coordination with cinematographer Autumn Eakin makes a very aesthetically pleasing film. The natural and supernatural realms they show us knock it out of the park thanks to this production and some bespoke set design. This is the best the Further has looked in all of the movies, and the return to a very familiar location from previous entries was so perfectly executed that I started smiling in the theatre when I saw it. The return of a fan-favorite villain also gives us a redesign that feels like the truest version of them and makes them the scariest they’ve ever been. There’s an undeniable element of nostalgia in how this film emulates its predecessor’s style. That nostalgia comes from a true understanding of what makes these movies effective.
The greatest strength of the Insidious movies technically has always been its use of shadow and playing with empty space in the frame to build tension. Moving the camera around slowly, and just when you think you’ve pinned down a pattern, it gets a bombastic jumpscare over you while trying to anticipate where it’s coming from. They codified this for all the other horror movies of the 2010s, so of course, the scares are still exceptional in this one. Add onto this Joseph Bisharra’s unmistakable score, which gives you the middle point where dissonant strings meet creaking naturalistic noise, and it scratches your brain just right. These factors work together harmoniously, and you get some all-around grade-A cinematography.
Beyond technical strengths… there’s a little trouble in paradise. I will get all my complaints about the writing out of the way quickly to talk about everything I like in the film’s story. The dialogue is distractingly lackluster early on (see the laughably aggro art professor and the most fratboy fratboy of all time). The film tries its hand at humor quite a bit more than the originals did with Tucker and Specs, to its detriment. While a couple of the jokes hit, the rest fall flat early on, even if they’re delivered by good actors. While the film’s second and third acts are well-done and exceptional, the first act is pretty bad in the face of some of the well-done scares.
The rest of the film I love because it’s none of that. It’s a dramatic and weirdly profound story of a father and son that melds perfectly with the series’ trademark horror. It impacted me even more than the story of the first film. Those who have rewatched the series recently know Josh as a character who never got to develop beyond being the beleaguered skeptic father in the first movie, then being sidelined in the second as he spends the entire runtime possessed by Parker Crane, aka the Woman in Black.
Insidious: The Red Door takes time to explore the implications of those movies and how Josh spent them. Instead of disturbing some wonderful homelife they earned through their previous struggle, this film puts us back in the tumult of a family haunted by their past. The weight of the first two films is felt in a major way, and it’s appreciated that picking back up after two mostly unrelated films in the series and so many years hasn’t hampered that feeling. Time, and absence, have made the story of the Lambert family grow fonder.
Much of the emotional weight this time is carried by Josh, and Wilson plays the character with the same level of depth Rose Byrne afforded Renai in the first and second movies; that is to say, he’s impressive and feels incredibly genuine. The other actor who gets the lion’s share of screen time is Simpkins, playing a now grown-up Dalton (do you feel old yet?). He doesn’t get to interact much with Foster like I had hoped, or his mother Renai, who is back home for most of the film. But, if they did get to interact, it would defeat the purpose of making the audience experience the isolation Dalton’s been through and continues to go through. He does have his roommate Chris, who is played by the very charismatic Sinclair Daniel, and the two have some decent onscreen chemistry. All the movie’s players are enjoyable, but the film absolutely glows in the interactions we get between Josh and Dalton, culminating in a very touching moment between the two and the best climax of the series.
While many movies as of late have made it popular to drop a true tangible villain in favor of a horror that hits closer to home, the inscrutable evil of generational trauma, this movie surprised me the most in how well it handled it. Not to say the threats from the Further aren’t still there, and still scary; just that the emotional damage this film shows us is a whole other challenge in and of itself. And if none of that interests you, we’ve also got some gnarly spirits from that astral dimension beyond. One of them gave me a nasty scare that made my jaw drop in the theatre. If you gag easily, wait for this one to be out on VOD. But if you’ve got the guts for it, you should go to the theatre immediately.
Here’s hoping the upcoming spin-off, Thread: An Insidious Tale, lives up to the hype just as well.
BOTTOMLINE: After a fat 10-year gap, does Insidious: The Red Door give a satisfying conclusion to the open-door ending of Chapter 2? More than any fan would anticipate. A sloggy first act and some poorly placed humor should not drive you away from what is a lovingly crafted finale for the Lamberts that is shockingly heartfelt despite being able to scare the hell out of you. This is now my second favorite film in the entire series, so believe me when I say you should take one more journey into the Further and watch it this weekend.
Reviews
[Tribeca Film Festival 2025] ‘Queens of the Dead’: A Fresh—and Fierce—Take on Classic Zombie Films

Queens of the Dead starts, as so many wild stories do, with a sketchy app-initiated hookup.
Drag artist Z Queen (played by Julie J) makes a pitstop at her church on the way home from a night out. She drops some cash into the donation box, says a few words of prayer…and gets a notification from the Grindr-esque hookup app Skins saying that someone in the building swiped right on her profile. Intrigued, she goes to look for the mystery suitor, but instead of a casual encounter, she finds a zombie priest who promptly attacks her.
Brooklyn Drag Show Meets Zombie Apocalypse
In a Brooklyn warehouse, DJ and party organizer Dre (Katy O’Brian) is preparing for that night’s Easter-themed drag show, contending with drama between the performers, a backed-up toilet requiring the plumbing expertise of her brother-in-law Barry (Quincy Dunn-Baker)—who is spectacularly ignorant about queer culture—, and her spacey but well-intentioned intern Kelsey (Jack Haven). When one of the headlining drag queens, Yasmine (Dominique Jackson), flakes in order to do a paid appearance at a vodka launch, her former friend Sam (Jaquel Spivey) shows up to resurrect his drag persona, Samoncé. Sam, now a nurse working with Dre’s wife Lizzy (Riki Lindhome) at a local hospital, hasn’t performed in a while; the last time he was supposed to, at a major party that Dre organized, he got cold feet, forcing her to refund everyone’s tickets, amounting to $9,000. Sam is there now, though, ready to help Dre and perform with his drag mother Ginsey (Nina West).
But then, another problem arises: the zombie apocalypse hits New York. Now, as a horde of slow-moving but ravenous undead descend upon the warehouse, the group must put aside their personal conflicts and work together to survive.
Tina Romero’s Hilarious Horror-Comedy Debut
In her directorial debut, Tina Romero serves up a delightful zombie horror-comedy that’s hilarious and heartfelt. Her film, co-written by Erin Judge and brought to life by an outstanding ensemble cast (rounded out with Shaunette Renée Wilson, Cheyenne Jackson, Samora la Perdida, and Becca Blackwell), is filled with quippy one-liners, energetic zombie scenes, and well-developed characters with believable relationships with each other. Costumes designed by David Tabbert and hair and makeup led by Mitchell Beck and Christina Grant, respectively, steal the spotlight. And yes, there are a few references to the OG zombie picture helmed by Romero’s father in the forms of an Impala named “Barbara”, a character quoting, “They’re coming for you, Barbara”, and the line, “This is not a George Romero movie.” Tom Savini even has a cameo appearance.
Most notable about Queens of the Dead is that it was clearly made specifically for queer audiences (in the best way!). In addition to the cast being populated by iconic queer and trans actors, there are drag culture references, cishet men getting tripped up by third-person singular pronouns, a butch power dyke wielding a power drill, and some raunchy humor: in one scene, an influencer’s presumably straight (or “straight”) boyfriend unwittingly simulates fellatio on a penis-shaped cake pop; in another, Kelsey—injured by a poorly-aimed axe meant for a zombie—tells her worried fiancée Pops (the aforementioned power dyke, played by Margaret Cho) that she wasn’t bitten, but instead has an “axe wound”, leading to one of the queens telling her not to brag about it. The sound bite of Kelsey saying, “I got an axe wound”, is sampled and remixed into an upbeat, danceable tune that plays during the closing credits.
Queens of the Dead Addresses Real Queer and Trans Issues
Interwoven with the comedy and zombie-fighting scenes are plot points that explore real issues that impact queer and trans communities, such as pervasive drug use in drag scenes and healthcare trauma among trans people. The character Nico (played by Tomas Matos) is a drug dealing (and using) dancer and aspiring drag queen who feels ostracized and disrespected as an artist by Ginsey and Sam. Meanwhile, Lizzy’s patient at the hospital—and companion as they outrun zombies—is a young trans woman named Jane (played by Eve Lindley) who has been getting her HRT from dealers rather than licensed doctors. It’s important to note that Romero and Judge don’t showcase these issues through a moralistic lens; they’re presented in a matter-of-fact and deeply compassionate way.
Why Queens of the Dead Slays
Although there could have been a bit more gore, overall, Queens of the Dead is a thoroughly entertaining zombie flick that also manages to be deeply comforting for queer viewers. The central cast is funny without being relegated to the butt of the joke; the lesbian characters aren’t sexualized for the titillation of straight male audiences; the creativity and DIY prowess for which drag queens are famous is highlighted in the fresh context of zombie-fighting weaponry and armor. The characters are messy, complicated, and bitchy. They’re also smart, resilient, and loving. They, like the film as a whole, slay in every sense of the word.
Reviews
[REVIEW] ‘The Fly 2’: Less Surrealism, More Slime

You’ll never change my mind on this: handing over the reins of a horror movie franchise to a special effects artist is always the right choice. Case in point, The Fly 2.
The Case for Special Effects Artists as Horror Directors
Lighting the monsters, blocking them, choreographing their motions and how they pass through the sets they’re inhabiting, and even understanding character motivations and emotions and how to portray them. They have skills that transfer over to head-on directing and dealing with actors quite nicely that we often overlook.
Today we aren’t talking about Screaming Mad George’s foray into gooey sci-fi with The Guyver, or Alec Gillis’s viral crowdfunded Harbinger Down, although I do hope to cover both of those sooner than later.
Spotlight on The Fly 2: An Unconventional Sequel
We’ll be touching on the unsung and unsuspectingly great sequel to David Cronenberg’s classic, The Fly 2. Picking up where the previous film left off, Veronica’s nightmare has come true: her child by Seth Brundle, the genius scientist turned insect abomination by his own ambitions, has come to term.
Bartok Industries, the company Seth worked for, has taken the child Martin Brundle into their stead to study his rapid growth and abnormal intelligence. Suffering from the same symptoms as his father, Martin attempts to get the telepods working again in a desperate ploy to repair his damaged DNA. Things, as expected, go horribly wrong.
While this might seem like a straightforward sequel, its quirks make it anything but normal. The Fly 2 eschews much of its previous film’s more surreal and philosophical qualities, exploring the nature of humanity, and leans into the campy science fiction aspects to match its body horror.
Tonal Shifts and Quirky Energy
That doesn’t make it a less worthy sequel, but it does make it unexpectedly off kilter. Tonally, it’s a screwball, starting with some wildly nasty pregnancy horror as we see Martin’s birth in a larval form. Then, for roughly the first 30 minutes, it bounces between children’s adventure film energy, to a college romance, back to horror occasionally before settling into its sci-fi horror nest.
The sharp contrast between the especially dark moments like Martin interacting with a failed telepod experiment and him dancing with his girlfriend give The Fly 2 a very odd energy that in some aspects I’d describe as off the wall, which at the very least makes it more memorable.
Standout Performances Amid Script Challenges
Issues with the script itself become exacerbated by a lack of strong voices; with no Jeff Goldblum and a regrettably absent Geena Davis, the only really notably great performance is Lee Richardson who plays the mustache-twirlingly devilish Anton Bartok with all the corporate nastiness of Ned Beatty in Network.
Credit is due to a returning John Getz, whose portrayal of a now physically and emotionally scarred Stathis Borans is a fun challenge he embraces.
While the film does spin its wheels with an honestly completely uncompelling romance for a good chunk of its runtime (think Dan and Megan from Re-Animator with no Herbert to play off of; dreadfully unimportant in the grand scheme of things and not enough humor to derive a good time from), this is alleviated by the rest of the film focusing on the slimy degeneration of our main character, as Martin’s mutations are good and truly off the rails.
Stellar Makeup and Creature Design by Chris Walas
Director Chris Walas and the rest of Amalgamated Dynamics work here is every bit as fantastic as the first film, bringing us plenty of foul fluid and far-gone flesh to make you nauseous. Martin’s slow transformation I would argue is even better than Seth’s, even if the scenes of Martin lamenting and later accepting his change lacks a lot of the dark humor that came with Goldblum’s ambitions to become the first insect politician.
The technical skill on display with this makeup plays best on screen in the film’s climax, featuring the brand-new creature in the Martinfly; it has a greater range of motion than the original Brundlefly, and the sprawling industrial facility the finale takes place in takes advantage of that.
The Climactic Chaos of the Martinfly
Slamming through windows, spewing acid vomit, and swiping with chitinous claws should sell you on the twenty-some minutes of mayhem Martinfly causes.
The Fly 2 isn’t a masterpiece, but this is where my pedantic nature shows; as I said in the opening, it is a masterfully crafted film. It’s a truly admirable attempt at a sequel trying to follow up on one of the greatest horror films of all time, made by one of the most talented special effects artists in American film history. Cronenberg’s fingerprint may not be on it, but it shows a good deal of respect for the original creation it is working off of without turning into a complete retread.
And for that, it deserves much more attention and love than it gets.