Insidious: The Red Door Review

As Blumhouse’s first wholly original franchise, there’s always a sense of homecoming when we get a new Insidious movie – and after two prequel chapters that diverted attention to Lin Shaye’s medium Elise, this feeling permeates Insidious: The Red Door. Patrick Wilson returns to the series, as both an actor and a first-time director, and refocuses the action on the Lambert family, whose journeys into the atmospheric netherworld of The Further have left their strength as a unit broken. Coming full circle back to the Lamberts and pushing those characters to reckon with the effect the first two films had on them provides The Red Door with fertile ground to stage a headier – if less terrifying – take on those bedrock Blumhouse movies.

The Red Door picks up nine years after the Lambert haunting with a slightly-altered version of Chapter 2’s ending: father and son astral projectors Josh (Patrick Wilson) and Dalton (Ty Simpkins) elect to have their memories of the first two movies – and of their abilities – wiped in an effort to prevent the hungry entities of The Further. But the blissful ignorance of that fade-to-white happy ending was short-lived: Though Josh and Dalton can’t remember any specifics, the psychological scarring of the Lipstick-Face Demon’s attacks fractured their family, with Josh in particular unable to express himself in the midst of a worsening brain fog. Dalton is similarly haunted, but a passion for art – a cute nod to his drawings from the first film – seems to have kept him on the rails. A death in the family and Dalton’s simultaneous departure for college puts great strain on the Lamberts, and this time of transition represents a chance for the entities of The Further to attempt to cross over into the living world once again.

In his directorial debut, Patrick Wilson strikes a franchise-best balance between family melodrama and how Insidious’ supernatural elements illustrate it. The Further has always been a charmingly lo-fi horror locale, but The Red Door feels like the first time it (and the entities which call it home) has been used effectively as microcosm for the character arcs being pushed along. Dalton’s art teacher (Hiam Abbass) encourages him to “sink further” into his subconscious as he works on his big project: a painting of a red door he’s seeing in his nightmares. As these trance-like sessions bring secrets about his connection to the spirit world bubbling to the surface, both Dalton’s relationship with Josh and the appetite of the restless spirits become more severe. This shared “sins of the father” storyline and journey towards reconciliation is a simple, but solid thematic base to root the evil entities’ hunger in, and is lent weight by Wilson and Simpkins’ earnest performances. As Dalton, Simpkins in particular has to walk a fine line between the predictable angst of an 18-year-old and the genuine suspicion with which he has to treat Wilson’s Josh.

By and large, Simpkins strikes this balance very well, and maintains a measure of vulnerability for a character who easily could’ve fallen into the “broody art kid” archetype. Josh is on a somewhat parallel track to Dalton in putting his demons to bed. Haunted by Further entities as a child himself, Josh always struggled to engage with the spectral attacks on his family, but his tendency to push through things without talking about them has fully caught up with him here. Compared to the boisterous family man of the first two movies, Wilson plays Josh as a harried husk in The Red Door, and shines in the moments where the character’s barely holding it together. The increased focus on depth for Josh and Dalton reduces Renai (Rose Byrne) and Foster (Andrew Astor) to sounding boards for the lead characters’ struggles, usually through over-the-phone exposition dumps that routinely drag down the pace.

Wilson’s horror chops are at their most fruitful during luxurious long takes

As director, Wilson’s horror chops are at their most fruitful during The Red Door’s luxurious long takes, and he’s able to sustain significant stretches of dread around that strength. For as famous as the Insidious films are for their jump scares, they’re usually at their best and most creative in the buildup to the fright, forcing us to stop trusting the corners of our eyes. The writing is on the wall for Josh as soon as he agrees to go into an MRI machine (great time for a pee break, claustrophobes) but Wilson uses smart edits and escalating panic in his performance to turn that screw for as long as is sustainable before paying it off with the inevitable punchline. Wilson pushes this sensibility during daylight scares too, with one early appearance of a spirit playing out in a single take that goes on for what feels like a full minute, re-establishing that creeping, creepy tone that has always been a calling card for the series. Being involved with the franchise since the beginning –  and a frequent collaborator of James Wan’s to boot – it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that Wilson is so attuned to the hallmarks of the Insidious movies, but his ability to execute on them so confidently gives The Red Door an identity consistent with what Wan did in Insidious and Insidious: Chapter 2, all while better illuminating the drama. 

Of course, these marathon, dread-filled rides to the top of the roller coaster often pay off with cacophonous outbursts of demonic rage or ghostly malcontent, punctuated by discordant string hits, and the potency of those moments is one area where The Red Door suffers from the law of diminishing returns. There’s a glut of jump scares throughout the movie, and not always as the result of minutes of carefully layered tension and misdirection. There’s an ugly scratch across my notepad that will attest to the raw power these moments can have out of the blue, but scant few of The Red Door’s attempts at frightening you feel like they’re iterating or innovating in a substantial way.

While Wilson has no problem mining the Lambert family drama for interpersonal conflict, The Red Door’s college setting feels comparatively nondescript. Though we get spooky moments in expected arenas – a classroom, a dorm room, a frat house – little of the activity feels specifically tied to Dalton’s college experience, and so doesn’t connect as cleanly as the family-themed horror does. With images of alcohol-poisoned ghost kids crawling after Dalton – maybe ones who had upbringings as affecting as his – The Red Door hints at more complex avenues it could’ve explored using its college trappings, a more frank look at how Dalton relates to these kids who’ve died in tragedy. It seems that thread would’ve required one less Lambert to really home in on.

A new setting does mean a new opportunity to explain old information, and Dalton’s roommate Chris (Sinclair Daniel) serves as a refreshingly down-to-earth foil in that role. How quickly Chris is willing to accept Dalton’s astral powers and the resultant paranormal activity calls to mind Insidious’ bumbling ghost hunters Specs and Tucker. With Dalton now the relative expert on the subject, Chris’ matter-of-fact reactions and willingness to roll with punches for her new friend provide The Red Door with a reliable levity when needed.