Insidious started off as a subversive domestic horror that spawned James Wan’s second horror franchise after the success of Saw. The original movie interrogated the idea of haunted house horrors and instead drew on whether it is the family in the house responsible for the hauntings rather than the house itself. Following the success of the first two movies, directed by Wan, the franchise expanded with two prequels.
Five years after the fourth movie, the franchise’s fifth installment Insidious: The Red Door will be released this week, revisiting the Lambert family, ten years after the events of the first movie. Thirteen years of a franchise is hard to keep track of, so here’s a rundown of what you’ve forgotten, missed, or never got around to watching.
Warning, dear reader, for there are spoilers aplenty ahead.
Insidious (2010)
The movie begins with the Lambert family—Josh (Patrick Wilson), Renai (Rose Byrne), and their three children, Dalton (Ty Simpkins), Foster (Andrew Astor), and Calli—moving into their new house. While exploring the attic of their new house, Dalton falls from a ladder. Josh and Renai find him uninjured, but Dalton doesn’t wake up the next morning. At the hospital, doctors confirm he is in a coma. However, they can’t explain why. Fast forward three months and Dalton, still comatose, returns home. His return initiates horrific events, culminating in Renai being attacked by a demonic entity. Thinking there’s something wrong with the house, they move.
But the new house doesn’t stop the demons. When Josh’s mother Lorraine (Barbara Hershey) visits, she witnesses an apparition pointing its claws at Dalton. Lorraine confirms that Josh had a similar experience when he was a child and recommends calling psychic Elise Rainer (icon Lin Shaye). Elise arrives with her assistants Specs (Leigh Whannell) and Tucker (Angus Sampson) who confirm there are dark entities in the Lambert house. Elise reveals Dalton is an astral projector and has gotten himself lost in The Further, a dark realm filled with tortured souls of the dead. Basically, it’s a place not meant for the living. Taking advantage of Dalton being lost, these tortured souls try to harness his vessel for the chance to live again.
Elise insists they need to go to The Further to find Dalton. Lorraine and Elise reveal to Josh how he has the same ability as Dalton, which was suppressed by Elise after the entity of ‘the bride in black’ would not leave him alone. Josh agrees to unlock his childhood memories and ability to find Dalton. In the Further, he’s able to find Dalton, but he’s chained up by the demon ‘with fire on his face’.
They manage to get away but other dead entities swarm their home, slowing Josh and Dalton’s return. When they finally return to their bodies, the entities fade and all seems well, but when no one else is around, Elise sees that the ‘bride in black’ has taken over Josh’s body. Realising Elise’s discovery ‘the bride in black’ kills Elise.
Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013)
The sequel takes us back to 1986 when Lorraine is concerned about her son after noticing a veiled entity following him whenever she takes his photo. Elise Rainer is called in to help on the recommendation of Carl (Steve Coulter), another paranormal investigator.
Returning to the present, the movie directly follows the events of Chapter 1. After being investigated by the police following Elise’s death, the Lamberts stay at Josh’s childhood home. Renai suspects the entities are still present inside Josh. Lorraine also suspects the entities have not completely left the Lamberts and seeks out help in Specs and Tucker.
Specs and Tucker call in Carl to summon Elise for answers, they discern the answer to Elise’s murder lies in a hospital where Lorraine used to work. There, in the ICU, it’s determined that ‘the bride in black’ who has taken over Josh’s body and killed Elise is Parker Crane. Then they learn they have not been communicating with Elise, but the mother of Parker Crane who has been manifesting in the Lambert house.
At the Lambert house, entities return to mess with Renai, including Crane’s mother. Lorraine takes Renai from the house so Carl, Specs, and Tucker can investigate Josh. The entity attacks Carl, who ends up in the Further with the real Josh. To find answers, the pair seek out Elise in the Further. After finding her, they learn Parker Crane’s mother is responsible for his vengeful haunting, so they destroy his mother’s ghost and Crane along with her.
Carl and Josh end up in young Josh’s world trying to find his way back to the living. Carl and Josh escape the Further with Dalton’s help leading them home. In a bid to keep the entities away from them, Carl removes Josh and Dalton’s ability to astral project. Specs and Tucker are guided by Elise as they help people others bothered by the paranormal.
Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015)
The first of the franchise’s two prequels, Insidious: Chapter 3 follows the story of Quinn Brenner, who seeks the help of Elise Rainier to communicate with her deceased mother. Her previous attempts to communicate with the dead, however, caused her to unintentionally contact a malevolent spirit who proceeds to haunt her.
After the entity causes her to be hit by a car and breaks both of her legs, the effects of the haunting worsen. The entity attacks her relentlessly, and once Quinn’s father concedes something is happening, he seeks out Elise for help. Reluctant, Elise agrees to help Quinn, but warns how she has grown fearful of her ability, as a veiled woman from the Further (the same one who stalked Josh) intent on killing her.
In an attempt to figure out who is contacting Quinn, they perform a séance and discover it is the entity of a man ‘who can’t breathe’, contacting Quinn, not her mother. But while inside the further, the veiled woman comes for Elise, leading her to panic and say she can no longer help. At a loss, Quinn’s brother suggests they call in web series paranormal investigators, Specs and Tucker. The haunting escalates, with the entity using Quinn’s physical body as a vessel to enter the living world and attack them. The entity tries to force Quinn to kill herself, but her father restrains her in time.
Elise returns after being haunted herself by the ‘man who can’t breathe’, and although Tucker and Spec claim this haunting is out of their league, Elise insists they stay to help. Performing another séance to delve into the Further, Elise manages to find Quinn, and with the help of Quinn’s mother, they destroy the evil entity. Quinn returns to her body.
Insidious: The Last Key
In the second prequel before Insidious, we learn of Elise’s childhood, and how her family handled her abilities. When Elise’s brother is afraid of the things Elise sees, he uses a whistle to call her mother. After claiming to have seen a ghost, Elise’s father punishes her by locking her in a dark room. She escapes with the help of a demon who has keys for nails, and the demon then kills her mother.
Back in the present, Elise receives a call from someone needing help to combat entities at her childhood home. Arriving at the house with Specs and Tucker, the owner, Ted Garza shows them the room where most of the encounters have happened. It is Elise’s childhood bedroom which has hardly changed. When she investigates the room alone, she encounters a ghost she had seen as a child.
The next day, she sees her brother, Christian, and her nieces, Imogen and Melissa for the first time since she left. Back at the house, an entity has taken her brother’s old whistle and leads her to a room where a young woman had been chained up and kidnapped by Ted Garza. Garza is killed and his victim is freed.
After learning the whistle he lost as a child is still at the house, Christian and his daughters search for it. An entity lures Melissa into the basement where she is attacked by the demon with keys for nails. Elise has a vision of her niece being attacked and rushes to the house, in time to get Melissa to the hospital. However, Elise claims Melissa’s soul is trapped in the Further.
Elise discovers suitcases filled with bones and clothes. She discovers that, like Garza, her father had kidnapped and killed many women in the basement over the years. That includes the ghost from her childhood (who was actually alive when Elise first saw her). While searching the suitcases, the key demon appears and drags Elise into the Further.
Imogen goes into the Further to find her. A ghost of one of the victims leads Imogen to a red door. Beyond it, there is a hallway of cells, filled with people and souls kept by the demon with keys for nails. Imogen finds Elise just as the demon has encouraged her to take vengeance on her father. Elise stops, refusing to feed the demon with more hatred. The demon attacks Melissa and Imogen. Imogen tosses Elise Christian’s whistle, she blows it and the ghost of Elise’s mother comes and fights off the demon, freeing them all. They all return safely from the Further.
The next night, Elise dreams of Dalton, and receives the phone call from Lorraine, which leads the franchise back to the original movie.
The four movies have been leading up to the final installment in Insidious: The Red Door which arrives exclusively in theaters on July 7. We’ve been waiting for all the answers about the red doors for a long time, so maybe we’ll get all the answers back with the Lamberts.
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