The latest in the now episodic “Insidious” horror franchise doesn’t have much to do with the last few movies. There’s only a passing mention of the Lamberts, whose house become a gateway to purgatory in three of the last five “Insidious”es, mostly because the Lamberts’ story concluded in the last movie (for now).
The main conceptual throughline uniting “Insidious: Out of the Further” with its predecessors is that this latest potboiler concerns another ominous would-be invasion from the Further, the limbo-like nether-realm that hosts a multitude of demons and lost souls. So instead of the Lamberts, the new “Insidious” follows a haunted dental hygienist and her worried daughter, albeit without much grounding interest in their characters’ or the plot’s development. That’s not really what you come to these movies for, but it’s still worth noting for anyone who’s wondering if the sixth “Insidious” movie is for them.
Stretched well past its high concept’s breaking point, the “Insidious” franchise is now ostensibly about inter-generational trauma and the purported sins of two mothers. Gemma (Amelia Eve) tries in vain to lead a carefree life with her daughter Maya (Island Austin). She mostly refuses to engage with her own troubled upbringing with her mom Ingrid (Laura Gordon), who commits suicide in an unsettling opening flashback. Twenty years have passed since then, and now Gemma’s scaring Maya in the same ways that her mom did back when she was bounding around the house with a carving knife, wailing and moaning to herself at odd hours of the night. The makers of “Insidious: Out of the Further” barely set up and then negligibly fall back on this grounding narrative, since they’re more taken with setting up the next batch of noisy, over-determined shock scares.
An almost equal amount of time is wasted on re-introducing viewers to the Further and its latest boogeyman, Cyrus Lam (Sam Spruell), a tall, gaunt death cult leader who resembles a cross between Marilyn Manson and Todd Rundgren. We learn some things about what Cyrus and his imaginatively named followers, the Acolytes, want and how they operate. Then we go right back to mindless, brooding, and only fitfully effective scare scenes. A small village of helpers try to support Gemma, including sympathetic cop Nick (Brandon Perea) and helpful tattoo parlor owner/psychic medium Clare (Maisie Richardson-Sellers). Gemma remains harried and emotionally unstable, though apparently only little Maya has to worry about that.
Admittedly, one probably shouldn’t expect inter-personal relationships to be the top priority in the sixth entry of a horror franchise that was always unabashedly effects-driven. Rather, you should look forward to monotonous, assaultive jump scares and nightmarish imagery straight out of a tacky, overproduced haunted house attraction (watch out for that dentist chair scene!). Unfortunately, this movie never fully conjures an atmosphere rich enough to make sense of everything.
Like the cinematic equivalent of mall food court fare, you get what you get here, which in this case happens to be a smothering over-abundance of silver blue camera filters, over-active fog machines (or dry ice?), and leering extras drowning in pancake makeup and darkened contact lenses. There’s also some possessed toys, creepy old people (wow, adult diapers), and a mood-lit after-life that, like the rest of the movie, seems to have been borrowed piecemeal from other horror movies.
None of these familiar elements are necessarily beneath viewers’ notice; they also aren’t very compelling given their variable expression. The sound design, for example, makes good use out of overscored floorboard groans and heavy breathing. There’s also a lot of dicey, arhythmic cutting during the movie’s signature paranormal sequences, making it harder to enter, let alone stay in a suggestive mood.
“Insidious: Out of the Further” has a real Spirit Halloween fire sale vibe as far as its haphazard variety and wildly fitful effectiveness. Some scenes and images are spookier than others, like a surreal chase between the couch cushions in Gemma’s living room. Don’t worry, it’s a dream sequence and there isn’t anything else like it in the movie.
The filmmakers rarely take advantage of the fact that their movie is obviously not grounded by our world’s rules, though they do occasionally apply cartoon physics in amusing ways. I’m partial to an improbable sight gag involving Cyrus, a closet, and the neighbors’ dog. It’s still hard to just roll with a sequel that encourages audiences to start over again with a fresh slate of characters, but then does very little to make its protagonists and their feelings stand out.
Thankfully, the filmmakers sometimes let their imaginations run farther afield than usual, including a few genuinely disarming twists, like the endearingly goofy scene where Clare uses a half dozen grapefruits, which she’s tattooed different characters’ faces and silhouettes onto, to illustrate her plan to help Gemma defeat Cyrus. It doesn’t make sense beyond a point, but it never had to. Too bad most of “Insidious: Out of the Further” isn’t as loopy or entertaining. Sometimes, sure, but not nearly enough.
