Critic Reviews

There’s more to Wilson’s film than dread though. In between the terror, the newbie director makes time for actual plot.

Insidious: The Red Door has some wonderful jump scares, some very creepy sequences, and it gives new terror to the prospect of receiving an MRI. This is an excellent summer horror film, and if you like having the bejesus scared out of you, Insidious: The Red Door will provide about 2 hours of entertainment.

Insidious: The Red Door is a satisfying conclusion to the Lambert family’s long nightmare journey into The Further, even if it starts to rely too heavily on jump scares by the end.

Having two main characters suffering from hauntings separately works against this movie’s narrative momentum, but it does allow Wilson and Teems to bounce from scare to scare, without much setup — or respite.

While it may be time, and somewhat bittersweet, to say goodbye to the Lamberts and their parapsychological baggage, this is a well-conceived and impressively executed finale to the saga. It also proves that Wilson has what it takes both behind and in front of the camera. It’s a little scary how multitalented he is.

Insidious: The Red Door might not be the scariest installment in the franchise, but it feels a lot more human than the others before it. The character moments end up feeling more effective than some of the film's big set-pieces and, while that may bug some genre purists, those who have stuck around since the first film released over 10 years ago will be pleased.

Insidious: The Red Door closes the book on the Lambert family and delivers more than a few thrills and chills. It doesn't reinvent the wheel, and it doesn't really add a whole lot to the series as a whole.

Screenwriter Scott Teems reflects on Leigh Whannell and James Wan’s Insidious franchise by showing the Lamberts after a decade’s worth of otherworldly traumatic repression, which disappointingly gets away from what’s otherwise made this series so sinisterly supernatural.

For a first-time director, Patrick Wilson doesn’t do a bad job, but he’s working with tropes that have already been worked to death. It’s time to close this carnival of souls down.

If the “Insidious” franchise is your jam, by all means go and see the original Fab Four of the Lambert family battle hollow-eyed demons for perhaps the last time. But for everyone else, why not let the past stay in the past?