The Defining Weakness of the Insidious Franchise

The Big Picture

The Insidious movies fail to deliver on their potential for quiet horror, opting instead for predictable jump scares and a lack of tension.

The franchise's emphasis on domestic conflicts undermines the fantastical aspects, resulting in a monotonous and unexciting experience. Furthermore, the depiction of a trans character as a serial killer in Insidious: Chapter 2 is not only clichéd but also offensive, underscoring the franchise's absence of imaginative storytelling and meaningful involvement.

The original Insidious was a breath of fresh air in the horror genre back in 2011, offering crisp wide-takes, minimal gore, and a new exploration of horror lore. However, even in the context of that year's horror films, it falls short with intrusive comic relief and an unimaginative climax. The sequels, Insidious: Chapter 2 and Insidious: The Red Door, struggle to extend the mythology of The Further into a series of films and suffer from the same flaw: they are boring. While mainstream horror movies can overcome many flaws, tedium is not one of them.

Insidious: The Red Door

The Lamberts must go deeper into The Further than ever before to put their demons to rest once and for all.

Release Date July 7, 2023Director Patrick WilsonCast Ty Simpkins, Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Andrew AstorRating PG-13Main Genre Horror

The Insidious Franchise's Biggest Problem Is That It's Boring!

The Insidious movies are not dull due to their use of silent scenes where demons quietly linger in the background while the characters engage in mundane activities. In the realm of horror cinema, silence does not necessarily equate to boredom. Examples such as The Vanishing or The Birds demonstrate how minimalistic filmmaking and lingering on simple shots can create an eerie tension that captivates the audience. Similarly, movies like The Blair Witch Project are successful in their ability to keep much of the horror off-screen, focusing instead on the slow deterioration of the characters.

Ironically, the monotonous nature of the Insidious movies stems from their reluctance to fully embrace the power of subtle scares. The prolonged moments of spooky entities lurking in the background always culminate in a main character being attacked or grabbed, accompanied by loud screams and a blaring score. This predictable structure quickly diminishes any tension that the film attempts to build. Brief glimpses of restrained camerawork are consistently disrupted by intrusive jump scares.

The Insidious Movies Focus Too Much on the Lambert Family Drama

Needless to say, this is not the subdued horror that many genre masterpieces were based on. The Insidious movies, restricted by their PG-13 ratings and uninspiring screenwriting, fail to provide satisfyingly intense or surreal scares, as is often expected. It would be forgivable if movies like Insidious: The Red Door featured terrifying demons or chilling visuals, but instead, they neither fully embrace subtle horror nor over-the-top frightening experiences. It's not surprising that they end up being so dull.