‘Insidious: Out of the Further’ Review: Horror Franchise Shows Its Teeth

The “Insidious” franchise might not be the longest running in the genre, but hitting your sixth installment isn’t anything to sneeze at. “Insidious: Out of the Further” continues James Wan and Leigh Whannell’s horrific juggernaut 16 years after the original debuted. The world may look a little different than it did back in those simpler times, but you know what they say: the more things change, the more they stay the same. Wan and Whannell may have more or less moved on (they’re still executive producers on the project, but have handed over directing duties in this particular entry to Jacob Chase and screenwriting to David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick and Chase), but horror legend Lin Shaye remains as her very own final girl, Elise Rainier, and continues to protect unwitting families from within the Further well after her death.

This entry follows Gemma (Amelia Eve), a dentist and mother to Maya (Island Austin). The two live in Gemma’s childhood home and have a seemingly happy life together. Problem is, that childhood home has more than its fair share of traumatic memories. Despite her insistence that she’ll never let the house go, those memories are starting to catch up to her and hints of the mental illness that ailed Gemma’s late mother begin to shine through. 

The audience is, of course, fully aware that Gemma’s mother Ingrid (Laura Gordon) isn’t dealing with internal demons at all but rather very real threats from within the Further. Then again, there’s very little that the audience isn’t aware of in “Out of the Further.” Johnson-McGoldrick and Chase’s screenplay is about as predictable as they come, in part due to the aforementioned sixth installment of it all and otherwise thanks to relatively weak writing. Still, the middling script is only actively annoying when it treats its reveals as some sort of surprise rather than a foregone conclusion. The rest of its struggles are firmly rooted in good old-fashioned hokeyness. If you’re on the wavelength of some extremely silly dialogue, ghastly grinning gho—sorry—acolytes, concepts that stretch the limits of absurdity even of an “Insidious” entry and some nice, gooey familial heart, you’re gonna have a good-to-great time.

“Insidious: Out of the Further” has several secret weapons, but its sound design (Bill R. Dean as sound designer, mixed by Paul Hackner and Brian Ortiz) is far and away its most important one. The texture the sound adds to each individual scene — particularly the most haunting — is so essential that I found myself focusing more closely on it than on Joseph Bishara’s perfectly capable score. Though the sound is especially noticeable in the several scenes involving a dentist chair, it’s the depth it brings in the smaller, more suspenseful moments that make it so noteworthy. 

Speaking of the dentist’s chair, those with any kind of dental phobia probably aren’t having the best time in this entry. Of course, that’s because it’s using the widely shared fear to great effect. Though, the gnarliest of these moments isn’t due to mouth trauma and, instead, thanks to the nastiest mouth you’ve ever witnessed. I watch a lot of horror films and, apparently, while watching people get hacked into tiny pieces is something I’ve long been able to stomach, viscerally disgusting maws are where I draw the line.

What’s so interesting about that, and the way “Out of the Further” uses oral horror as a whole, is that it never overstays its welcome. The film has no intention of living in gross-out horror; it uses it as a tool to add another layer of terror to the experience. 

Said terror is ever-present in this chapter of the franchise. There is constant unease from the moment we meet Ingrid and young Gemma (Charli Penton) in the opening scene, and “Out of the Further” wastes no time when it comes to delivering scares. Chase and cinematographer David Garbett implement several shots that pay homage to the horror greats, but in a film that’s so full of (well used) jump scares, it’s the call out to the quietness of Bryan Bertino’s “The Strangers” (2008) that stood out the most.

While “Insidious: Out of the Further” takes care to be its own story, longtime fans of the franchise will still feel right at home. Shaye’s return as Elise notwithstanding, plenty of favorites from older entries make appearances as Gemma fights to keep the door between our world and the Further firmly shut with the help of boyfriend Nick (Brandon Perea) and new medium/tattoo artist friend Clare (Maisie Richardson-Sellers).

If Gemma’s goal seems a little silly or reductive, that’s because “Out of the Further” is a silly movie! You’re going to jump a lot, and there’s no way you make it out of that mouth scene without immediately going home to floss so hard your gums bleed, but there are also more than a few moments that are outright comical. The flashes of humor aren’t distracting, but not since Specs (Whannell) and Tucker (Angus Sampson) has the “Insidious” franchise been this funny. As for reductive, well, there’s a little of that, too! Elise in particular is written so laughably bad that it’s very, very good that she’s played by Shaye. It would be intolerable otherwise (and was occasionally grating even still).

Like most long-running stories, “Insidious” has struggled with a few stinkers in the middle. Despite a weaker-than-usual script, “Out of the Further” is a nice return to form. Moreover, it also seems to be a one-and-done. If you like your horror mean and ambiguous, you might walk out of the theater frustrated by how neatly the bow is tied on this particular chapter. Sometimes, though, it’s nice to leave a theater knowing that you’ve seen the beginning, middle and end of someone’s arc (even if there are plenty of ways for the surviving — and still dead, in the case of Elise — players to get dragged back into the fray). 

“Insidious: Out of the Further” opens in theaters on Friday.