That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, theys and thems, gays and femmes, ya boi is back with another James Wan-adjacent horror bully session masquerading as a movie review! Today we get to point and laugh at Insidious: Out of the Further, the sixth film in the Insidious film franchise, featuring a helpless mom, a cop who tases multiple, unarmed old people, a pile of diapers, and white people with a hoarding problem!
Gotcha
So Insidious: Out of the Further (or I6 as I’ll be referring to it because I’m too lazy to type out the five word title) was probably one of the better films in the franchise. I’ve discussed the formula a thousand million bajillion times, but these Blumhouse annual releases follow a set of beats pretty closely, and they do it because it works: establish some form of family trauma, introduce a supernatural scary thing, deteriorate and isolate the protagonist, introduce a sage-savior, reveal a bigger scary that is in some way controlling the first scary thing, resolve said trauma, which then directly ties into being able to defeat the big bad guy. Shake it up with a sudden reveal that the big bad wasn’t totally defeated right at the end. Rolly credits.
I6, directed and written by Jacob Chase, follows all the above beats, but Chase does something that you rarely see with these types of movies. The man put in some effort. Chase doesn’t have a wikipedia page yet, but he does have a string of smaller projects listed on his IMDb. So he’s basically a nobody. But he’s a nobody with passion.
In the trailers, you know there’s a sequence in a dentist’s office with a second set of jaws, you know there’s a sequence in a creepy pillow fort that seems like it’s neverending ala Backrooms. Thankfully, the trailers hid the fact that there’s a lot more to both. The former sequence involves a lot more gross body horror, sleep paralysis, and our first introduction to a room full of haunted house actors in makeup. The latter sequence featured claustrophobia that only got worse.
There’s also a lot of stuff going on in the misc-en-scen throughout the movie that I really enjoyed. In my initial (and likely only) watch, I caught a few elements that pointed to a deeper thought put into the movie and the history of the characters. I think they’re trying to backdoor a replacement for Lin Shaye in the form of Clare, played by Maisie Richardson-Sellers. If you don’t recognize that name, that’s because she was unceremoniously vaporized by Starkiller Base in that one Star Wars movie.
I suspect there’s a lot that was left on the editing room floor involving our protagonist, Gemma, and her sleep deprivation. There’s a blink and you’ll miss it shot of her that reframes an earlier scene that I think implies that the film wanted to include themes of “is this real or am I dreaming?” that I expect extended the runtime of the movie and moved away from the ‘brand’ of the Insidious movies.
So I guess I’m saying this movie was good?
Gatcho Ass
JK this movie is balls. There’s only so much someone can do to reinvent a movie in a series that is, by necessity, formulaic. Truth be told, I hardly recall any of the other Insidious movies besides the first one and the second most recent one, Insidious: Through the Red Door. I expect I’ll forget about this shit, too.
Remember when I mentioned that the dentist sequence features haunted house actors in makeup? That’s the whole climax. The stakes to this movie are that, unless Gemma can solve this issue, the big bad is going to shuttle a bunch of dead people and demons from the bad place to the real world. Like, literally give little devil-horned children corporeal forms. Among these ghouls is a guy who died on the dentist’s chair, a dentist, and a white woman with a gun. Also Darth Maul from the first Insidious is in this. But there is literally a house full of ghouls in the climax. Like, wall-to-wall full of costumed creepies. There is no amount of smoke machines, low blue lights, or dutch angles that can cover that shit up.
So the climax is dulled initially by these cartoonish ghouls with obvious makeup and weathered costumes that you’d find at your local county fair haunted house. That’s not really… cinematic, y’know? Plus, these stakes are ridiculous. How’s a skinny, sleep deprived MILF supposed to do this? Have you considered, dear reader, moving houses?
It’s not entirely stupid that Gemma teleports the entire house into the ghost realm, but it was goofy as shit. They even establish the idea earlier, when Gemma refuses to leave the house, despite the trauma she has attached to the place. It is, technically, a real come-around moment. But it’s so fucking goofy. I chuckled.
Got Em
J6 is another fantastic entry to the mainstream slop horror genre, and I was so there for it. I don’t know if a movie theater experience was necessary, but my choices was either hauling my ass to the movie theater, or resigning myself to yet another night of leftovers and binging Modern Family until the nausea pushed me into bed. However, there is a case to be made that watching these movies alone at home is as depressing as drinking alone, so going to the theater feels like the only socially acceptable option for me if I wanted to watch this.
I rated Insidious: Out of the Further
GOOD
Because fuck you for thinking it was going to be any better, but you’d be surprised if you expected something worse.
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