Insidious: Out of the Further - The Horror Franchise Birthed at TIFF Goes 'Further' Than Ever
By Jim Slotek
Rating: B
The Toronto International Film Festival looms – an event well known as an Oscar predictor.
But the fact that one of its progeny – the horror sequel Insidious: Out of the Further – is in theatres this week, points to another side of TIFF.
A spectacularly successful Midnight Madness feature in 2010, the first Insidious was the work of James Wan, who was already famous for his part in kicking off the “torture porn” era of horror with Saw. It was his attempt to do a complete 180, a horror movie with virtually no bloodletting, an act of atonement if you like.
Lin Shaye and Amelia Eve go further into The Further in Insidious: Out of the Further
Along with investors Blumhouse, the movie ushered in the “jump-scare” era, which saw sales plummet for raw sausages being passed off as intestines.
The low-budget series – Out of the Further is the sixth – was the biggest thing to debut in that TIFF program, grossing $750 million globally (while reportedly costing a combined $60 million to make).
So, of course there’s a sixth Insidious!
The title refers to The Further, Insidious’s home turf, a dark waiting room for the dead who haven’t moved on yet, and, I guess, are insanely unhappy about it (that grin they all sport isn’t particularly friendly). Their only conduit to the “material world” is possession, which has been used in the series. On the flipside, certain live people turn out to be “travellers,” folks who can astral project to that other place, inviting trouble.
Given the limitations of the premise, the filmmakers (Jacob Chase is the director/writer here, with Wan as producr) have done a good job with plot permutations, and more importantly, continue to put a lot of imagination into visuals and, yes, jump-scares. Dental-phobes be warned, arguably the most effective scene in Insidious: Out of the Further, takes place in a dentist’s office that might be imagined by Clive Barker.
See, the protagonist, Gemma (Amelia Eve) is a hygienist who encounters a patient with an off-putting mouthful of, um, let’s just say plaque.
Horror from the mundane is, to me anyway, a lot more effective and imaginative than a lunatic with a knife. The second-scariest scene in the movie involves a makeshift couch-cushion tunnel Gemma made for her daughter Maya (Island Austin).
Gemma, it turns out, is that rare traveller who is capable of bringing the dead back with them – a talent that’s come to the attention of Cyrus (Sam Spruell), the Further-bound spirit of a cult leader who envisions bringing an army of the dead into our world.
Of course, this wouldn’t be an Insidious movie if it didn’t have the psychic Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye), the breakout star of the franchise, and, alongside Halloween’s Jamie Lee Curtis, a model for actresses of a certain vintage in horror films.
Elise, a character Wan has described as “the superhero” of the series, was killed off early. But once they realized what she brought to the table, she returned in prequels, sequels to prequels, and in scenes set in The Further, where she now keeps a closer watch on the evil dead.
Realistically, her role is to deliver breathless exposition so time isn’t wasted convincing anybody that this stuff is real.
At this point, the parts in an Insidious movie are invariably greater than the whole. We know where it’s going, we know the beats of the plot, we know the explanation for certain things is going to be ludicrous. There’s an effective “Scooby Gang” at work trying to head Cyrus off at the pass – Elise, her real-world conduit Claire (Maisie Richardson-Sellers), Gemma and her boyfriend Nick (Brandon Perea).
But the commitment is there. Gemma’s real-world foes are three Cyrus “accolytes” (Joseph Lopez, Susan Gray and Robina Beard), who look dead already, and kudos to them for injecting a good measure of creepiness and crazy to a familiar story.
Insidious: Out of the Further. Written and directed by Jacob Chase. Stars Amelia Eve, Lin Shaye and Island Austin. Opens in theatres Friday, August 21.