‘Insidious: Out of The Further’ Review: Horror Franchise Goes Further and Delivers

The movie franchise and its Horror Queen, Lin Shaye, remind the genre: The Insidious Universe is not for the weak. 

Insidious still uncovers and delivers its signature nightmarish fuel fifteen years after Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson) was first possessed in his living room. We’re six doors into the highly respected horror movie franchise, Insidious, where horror junkies come to find they’ll need to go in further to get out.

Well, I went in all the way… So, let’s get further into it.

‘Insidious: Out of The Further’ Review | 7/10

Screenshot by Reel Movie Junkie

Insidious: Out of the Further hands the reins to writer-director Jacob Chase, and this time our unlucky psychic isn’t a suburban dad — it’s Gemma (Amelia Eve, The Haunting of Bly Manor), a dental hygienist raising her daughter Maya in the same house where she watched her own mother spiral into a body-hijacking breakdown that ended in tragedy back in 1999.

Two decades later, history’s rhyming in the worst way: Gemma’s night terrors are getting louder, her cop boyfriend Nick (Brandon Perea) is worried, and a cult leader named Cyrus Lam has her locked in his sights. And of course, Lin Shaye is back as Elise Rainier, because at this point, she’s basically the franchise’s saint.

What It Delivers

It’s the spooky house energy during the break of spooky season. It’s the jump scares timed like a wicked rollercoaster operator who knows exactly when to yank the lever. And on that note: Out of the Further delivers.

Some of the film’s most effective scares involve a dentist’s chair, tipping full tilt and heavy into body-horror territory. If you’ve got any dental anxieties, maybe sit this one out or bring a stress ball. There’s also a genuinely inspired dream sequence involving a chase through couch cushions in Gemma’s living room that is one of the standout parts of the whole movie.

It’s the kind of “wait; they actually went there” creativity that made the earlier films fun in the first place. Especially because we’ve all built a fort out of cushions and blankets in our parents’ living room before. Where the story kind of loses balance is when there is a lot of overexplaining to try to onboard new fans into six movies’ worth of history.

The Cast, Script, and Performances

It’s a lot of lore, and the script leans hard into astral planes, cross-generational trauma, hypnotism, sunken places, and red doors. All this to say it’s not the worst chapter, and it’s not the best; but really, there’s only so much newness you can expect from a franchise that’s going on six sequels deep.

Where it does work is the unexpected emotional weight that Gemma is carrying. Eve brings a real fragility to the character’s arc as a mother trying to break a cycle of trauma while also literally couriering demons between dimensions. It’s a lot to ask of one performance, and she mostly pulls it off.

It definitely has its moments that are far from predictable, which pushes this chapter into the top 3 of the franchise.

Insidious: Out of the Further | 7/10

Screenshot by Reel Movie Junkie

This film was on my most anticipated films of the year, and it did give just what I was expecting, nothing more, nothing less. For hardcore fans of the franchise, it’s no doubt 100% worth the watch.

The first Insidious chapter reset the bar for the genre, no lie. After it dropped, horror movies had to do better. The entire genre’s fans demanded it. So, if you’ve been riding with the franchise since the beginning, Out of the Further gives its fans the ghost-train ride they’re showing up for.

In every respect of its craft, it does the job. The story, the life-scarring jump scares, the undeniably remarkable set pieces, the familiar retreads, and Lin Shaye reminding everyone why she’s truly one of the Horror Queens whose name and universe are not to be played with.

Insidious: Out of the Further hits theaters on August 21, and if it’s streaming by October, bet it goes triple platinum by Halloween…!?

Need more insidious horror recommendations to go further into? We’ve got you SMOTHERED with the iconic comeback of American Horror Story 13, and our ‘don’t even bother to argue’ list of the most sinister and disturbing true-crime horror shows streaming.