Directed By Patrick Wilson

Starring – Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Ty Simpkins

The Plot – The franchise’s original cast returns for the final chapter of the Lambert family’s terrifying saga. To put their demons to rest once and for all, Josh (Wilson) and a college-aged Dalton (Simpkins) must go deeper into The Further than ever before, facing their family’s dark past and a host of new and more horrifying terrors that lurk behind the red door.

Rated PG-13 for violence, terror, frightening images, strong adult language and suggestive references

(30) INSIDIOUS: THE RED DOOR – Official Trailer (HD) – YouTube

POSITIVES

Thirteen years of real time and nine years of story time may have passed since the Lambert family went deep into the Further, but their return to the forefront of this franchise here not only submits legitimacy to the integrity of the rumored fifth and final chapter, but also affords them the ability to bring these characters to life once more, within a family dynamic where the stakes feel like they couldn’t be higher. Because we’ve previously spent two other films with this tortured family, it’s all the more easier to invest in their well-being, with some emotional heavy lifting between them that hands in a couple of meaningful performances along the way. In particular, Patrick Wilson still conveys fright and displacement better than nearly anyone in Hollywood, with bold emotional responses and transformative frailty that often bring the frightened child from within him to life, which makes it all the easier to articulate the extent of this life-long haunting. Ty Simpkins’ taking of the lead reigns also effectively lends itself to some appeasing characteristics in demeanor that prove his growth as a character not only in age, but also in emotional dexterity. To be fair, Simpkins isn’t given the best material to work with, but that doesn’t stop him from harvesting the internal disconnect that he shares in the frail dynamic with his father, and while the first few scenes get him off to a rocky start with avoiding the nasally whining child stereotype, his evolution in arc gives way to a full-fledged maturity that helps anchor sentimentality to the air of the stakes inside of the film’s climax. Getting back to Wilson, his first efforts as a commanding force in the director’s chair also bring with them a refreshing energy to the proceedings that candidly keeps “The Red Door” from feeling like a James Wan disciple lacking his own internal inspiration. Because of such, Wilson at times feels like an independent filmmaker looking to cast his own cerebral movements of the camera to the engagement, and while not everything about his direction fires smoothly, I can say that his exaggerated articulation to the elements of sight and sound weighed heavily on the returns of the frights, with a couple of solid jump scares generating everything from claustrophobia to chaos in his audacious exploits. On those technical achievements, the amplification of sound mixing gives an overwhelming vulnerability to scenes of surrounding silence, and the usage of color coordination between respective worlds paints a vibrantly visible tool for audiences, so that they can capably follow along, all the while luminating the visuals with an entrancing allure of neon that prove monumental for even the most subtle of touches.

NEGATIVES

Unfortunately, much about “The Red Door” is a disjointed mess, especially in the screenplay here from Scott Teems, whose work on my least favorite installment of the newest Halloween franchise (Halloween Kills), materializes some similarly frustrating aspects in structure that continuously tested my waivering investment to this story. The first is in the decision to separate the family for roughly 80% of this movie, which not only hinders Wilson and Byrne to supporting roles, where they feel less important than Simpkins’ arc, but also supplanting a majority of the experience to Simpkins’ experiences with college life, which desecrate any semblance of atmospheric thickness that we’re used to with James Wan’s predecessors. Because of such, the film overtly goes out of its way to conjure comedy in ways it never remotely earns, either in the addition of an alarming new character that feels like she was plucked from a 90’s coming of age comedy, or the horrendous dialogue that it conjures in scenes that are meant to be heavily impactful, but instead come across as forcefully abrupt in the way it evolves human emotions unnaturally. Beyond this, the franchise has assembled another occasion where it doesn’t even remotely come close to exploring the world-building of the Further, where with the addition of some strange logical inconsistencies, produces more post-film questions than I truly wanted or expected. This brings convenience among contradictions to a franchise high, and considering we’re in the fifth movie in a franchise with just as many disappointments as successes, this lack of focus left it feeling unfulfilling in undertaking this journey once more. Speaking of focus, the film features the longest flash back summarization in the history of horror movies, that I’ve ever seen. As to where Friday the 13th sequels typically feature a summary of the previous film over the first five minutes, the entirety of the movie here is essentially flashbacks to a previous event or exposition, which in turn undercuts its potential dramatically towards feeling like a film of its own, instead of a greatest hits compilation of previous, better efforts. As for the frights, I previously commended the way that Wilson inscribes a claustrophobia factor and artistic merit to the many sequences, but the frights themselves are entirely jump scares, with them not even materializing until around the half hour mark of the movie, and with little to no essence of the atmospheric thickness that Wan has made a career off of. Wilson’s biggest weakness as a horror director is that he doesn’t know how to play each of these deliveries up, and because he depends so heavily on the same consistent formula repeatedly, it’s easy to pick out after about three or four of them how the rest of them will promptly play out. This is only surpassed by the film’s lack of direction for Byrne and her other two on-screen children, who only appear in the beginning and end of this movie. Byrne particularly is most disappointing in this respect because at one time she was the lead role in this franchise, but her void of exploration here provides food for thought towards the idea that this script wasn’t properly fleshed out towards giving every character a reason to come back, and in the end feels a glorified cameo that wasn’t even remotely worthy of her time. Finally, while the ending itself does attain closure to these characters and their respective conflict, the resolution is about as believable as that of a franchise that has finally given up on producing a climax worthy of the extent of its spiritual journey. If you can get by the fact that the resolution itself is a cop-out of its own rules, you will then be met with frustrations about where it leaves them with regards to their newfound knowledge with the Further, and considering at face value this is currently the final film in this franchise, it doesn’t feel any more emotionally satisfying or stimulating than the original film teasing a sequel in its closing moments.

OVERALL
“Insidious: The Red Door” is a disjointed and inconsistent goodbye to a solid horror franchise that definitely deserved better. While Patrick Wilson’s first sit in the director’s chair is met with stimulating style that inscribes a fresh appeal to the film’s unique visual flare, the haunting of a weak script full of underwhelming frights, tonal inconsistency, and even lack of effort for key members of the ensemble, is most defining, with the open door of potential violently slamming itself shut for another unnecessary cash grab.

My Grade: 5/10 or D