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
[REVIEW] The People Vs. ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’
The Exorcism of Emily Rose is a unique take on exorcism films. The film follows Erin Brunner (Laura Linney), a high-profile defense lawyer. Brunner is fresh off a murder case where her client was cleared of all charges–only for that client to turn around and commit another set of murders. In the hopes of becoming a partner at her law firm, Brunner is talked into taking the defense for Father Richard Moore (Tom Wilkinson). Father Moore finds himself in the hot seat after a series of exorcisms resulted in the death of Emma Rose (Jennifer Carpenter). The twist? Erin Brunner is agnostic! OooOOoooOh.
The second film I wanted to cover, that’s “based on a true story”, is one that utterly fascinates me…and not for the right reasons. After Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, I felt let down. I am by no means a Henry Lee Lucas expert, but even with someone having the bare knowledge of the case, I couldn’t believe they dared to refer to it as having anything to do with the Confession Killer. Could The Exorcism of Emily Rose pull me out of this pit of despair? Can it get some basic information right? Ugh.
The Exorcism of Emily Rose is a unique take on exorcism films. The film follows Erin Brunner (Laura Linney), a high-profile defense lawyer. Brunner is fresh off a murder case where her client was cleared of all charges–only for that client to turn around and commit another set of murders. In the hopes of becoming a partner at her law firm, Brunner is talked into taking the defense for Father Richard Moore (Tom Wilkinson). Father Moore finds himself in the hot seat after a series of exorcisms resulted in the death of Emma Rose (Jennifer Carpenter). The twist? Erin Brunner is agnostic! OooOOoooOh.
This film brings us the dramatized events of Emily’s tragic final days through the setting of a courtroom drama. There’s something fun about this idea. It’s surprising this idea hasn’t been reused. Laura Linney and Tom Wilkinson are an excellent duo, they play off each other very well. If only the real-life lawyers were as likable as Erin Brunner (we’ll get there later). The real star of the show is Jennifer Carpenter. Tasked with doing justice to the real Emily Rose (Anneliese Michel), Carpenter handles her performance with class.
The story jumps back and forth between the courtroom and Emily’s experiences. There is great information for the film to base its script on, and it doesn’t do it interestingly. One of the most notorious pieces of evidence in this case is the leaked audio of the 67 exorcisms performed on Michel. The Catholic church did not release this audio until around 2011, but Carpenter does a great job of channeling the pain you can hear in the audio.
An interesting angle of the real Anneliese Michel story is how the lawyers were really trying to put the devil on trial. Unlike the film, Michel’s parents were also put on trial, as well as the two priests who initiated the exorcisms. Rather than the film’s dramatic guilty plea with time served as a sentence, the German justice department thought the parents had suffered enough and that the priests should just get fined. In reality, both the parents and the priests deserved to go to jail. The complete neglect of Anneliese’s ailments was thought nothing more than the dirty hands of the devil. Anneliese’s parents and the priests were the cause of her death. Their extreme beliefs in a bearded man in the sky trumped the reality of what was actually happening with their extremely sick daughter.
The film plays off Brunner as someone who needs to see the light. Brunner is put on this case to help rectify her previous case (the one where she got the murderer off without charges). God put her in Father Moore’s hands. So, by this logic, co-writer/director Scott Derrickson thinks that for one person to receive redemption, another must die. The Exorcism of Emily Rose is nothing more than religious propaganda. “What if god is real,” Erin Brunner asks the jury. Even if god is real, a young woman is dead! God isn’t on the chopping block, Father Moore is. This latter half of this film plays strictly to the Bible Belt.
Also, Erin Brunner is written as someone who can be redeemed and will be redeemed, a tragic character who has accepted greed over truth. Do you want to know who defended the Michels in real life? Lawyers who defended Nazis in the Nurenberg trials. Scott Derrickson can fuck right off.
Everything about this film feels like nothing more than Catholic-funded propaganda. Rather than owning up to their mistakes and accepting the punishment they deserved, the Michels and priests never had to answer for their true crimes. They left a young woman to die a truly horrible death and all got off with a slap on the wrist.
All of this went down around the same time as Vatican 2. The Catholics who were against Vatican 2 were hoping that they could find a way to prove that Anneliese was possessed because god wasn’t happy with the Vatican II overhaul. If they could prove god’s anger, they could use that as fuel to ensure Vatican II didn’t happen. Anneliese’s mother gaslit her into refusing the idea that her neurological issues could be the cause of all this. See, Anneliese wanted to be a teacher, but her mother forced her to believe that no one would hire her as a teacher if she had all of these issues. People won’t hire a crazy teacher.
Failed by those around her, Anneliese was posthumously deprived of any justice. If there is a god, I can only hope the Michels and the two priests do not meet him. Instead of breaking down all of these fascinating aspects of the case of Anneliese Michel, Scott Derrickson crafted a shell of a film. His lack of care for the source material is beyond disrespectful to Anneliese’s pain in her short time on earth. Scott Derrickson’s classless and [seemingly] Catholic-funded sophomore feature film is nothing more than a film that has a few solid scares that rely on you taking him at his word. For a film that starts with the title card “based on a true story,” there is not a lick of truth in this nearly two-hour film.
We continue to start our year by looking at short films that either ran their festival circuit in 2024 or will soon be running the festival circuit. Western horror is a subgenre that’s often overlooked, usually because it offensively centers around Native Americans attacking groups of white people who have taken over their land. Bone Tomahawk and The Burrowers are unfortunate examples of painting Natives in a negative light for the plight of the whites. Who knew all it would take for a well-done Western horror is an Italian director at the helm?
Dreadstone: The Beginning follows Jeb (Grid Margraf), a tired and weathered man who is left in charge of his non-verbal autistic daughter Adeline (Alexandra Boulas). Jeb finds himself in possession of a purple-glowing gem that may be more nefarious than meets the eye. The two traverse across harsh lands in search of the source of the gem. But things turn south when they find out what they were looking for may have answers to questions they never intended on asking.
Written by Avery Peck and Riccardo Suriano, and directed by Riccardo Suriano, Dreadstone: The Beginning is a fascinating start to a tale as old as time. Peck’s cinematography beautifully brings their words to life and effortlessly blends cosmic horror with the overwhelming fruitless nature of greed and the human condition. Cosmic and Western horror aren’t typically put together, but they work incredibly well with the ideas behind Dreadstone and its themes. Jeb’s gem is a practical MacGuffin and is a great stand-in for the concept of greed; this opulent-looking rock in a no-tech world. It’s a simple object that’s incredibly effective.
The frontier setting of Dreadstone works to create an isolating setting. This large setting singularly frames these two characters and makes them feel like the only people in the world. It isn’t until the film’s final shot that we realize they are definitely not the only people around. Dreadstone: The Beginning is a drastic change from Suriano’s previous film, Along Came Ruby. Besides the obvious time difference between these two films, Ruby sets itself as a Last of Us-like post-apocalyptic film, whereas Dreadstone: The Beginning sets itself to possibly be a pre-apocalyptic film. These two films also differ in tone, but both films prove that Suriano is confident with his overall voice and vision.
Alexandra Boulas stars in both Along Came Ruby and Dreadstone: The Beginning. Boulas excels in both films but gives a more reserved and confident performance in Dreadstone. With the exception of a few moments, Boulas’ performance is silent…but commanding. Watching Ruby shows that Boulas can easily deliver lines, while Dreadstone proves there’s more to her acting than line delivery. Fingers crossed we see her in more films in the near future, I think she has a promising career ahead of her.
Dreadstone: The Beginning is a unique take on Western horror that forgoes the [racist] Native Americans against white people trope that the subgenre is fraught with. A touch of cosmic horror, a hint of coming-of-age, and a heaping spoonful of good ole greed make Dreadstone: The Beginning a short film that will stick with you long after the credits roll. I’ll tell you what…this made me look forward to Dreadstone: The Aftermath!
The Final Destination Franchise, Ranked
What Do Current American Political Values Have In Common With the ‘Saw’ Franchise?
[REVIEW] The People Vs. ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’
Happy Birthday, Horror Press!
[REVIEW] ‘Dreadstone: The Beginning’ Is a Gold Rush of Terror
The Conjuring Movies, Ranked
[REVIEW] ‘Eat the Night’ A Movie for the Drama Geeks
[REVIEW] Henry: A (Badly Painted) Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
A Horror Movie Streaming Guide for Those Looking for More Ed Gein in Their Life
The Best Horror You Can Stream on Shudder in January 2025
‘The People Under the Stairs’ Review: A Brilliantly Bizarre Undercover Horror Classic
Glen and Glenda: Don Mancini’s Reverence for Queerness in ‘Seed of Chucky’ (2004)
Slappy Was the Blueprint: How the Dummy from Goosebumps Became A Horror Icon
‘Truth or Dare’: Who Did it Best?
Was This Film the Blueprint for Malignant? No, It’s Even Better Than That: A SPOILER-FREE Review of ‘Cherry Falls’
Is ‘Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker’ Too Problematic for 2022?
This Is What Makes Sue Ann from ‘Ma’ a Terrifying Yet Loveable Horror Villain
Mia from ‘Evil Dead’ – A New Kind of Final Girl
HORROR 101: Five Nights at Freddy’s and The Story of William Afton Explained
