Insidious: The Red Door (Movie Review)

 ***This review will contain spoilers***

Summary:

Josh Lambert heads east to drop his son, Dalton, off at school. However, Dalton's college dream soon becomes a living nightmare when the repressed demons of his past suddenly return to haunt them both.

I have watched and followed this horror movie franchise for over a decade. I was in high school when the first movie came out and I'm now in my late twenties. This franchise has been around for a while and I have been waiting impatiently for a follow up movie since The Last Key movie in 2018. I've always wanted to know more about the cases that Elise worked on and has helped and I hope we do end up getting that someday. 

This movie was not what I was expecting. I realized that they never defeated the demon that was haunting Dalton but I didn't realize that they would be spending half the movie making both Dolton and Josh remember what we (the audience) already experienced from the first 2 movies. What a wasted opportunity to have missed out on creating an amazing fifth movie. I wonder if they wrote the movie that way to try and garner new fans. Either way, the movie was lackluster at best. The movie had less than half a dozen jump scares and the way of defeating the demon seemed way too easy. The movie focused more on Dalton trying to break through the haze of his repressed memories than on actually defeating the demon in an epic manner. I'm all about epic endings and amazing build up when it comes to the climax of the movies but for this one Dalton 'defeating' the demon was beyond anti-climactic. 

Dalton expresses himself through his art which we have seen from the first movie of all his drawings and in one of his classes he drew a red door that somehow is tied to the further and the demon. It's as if his ability of astral projection is also tied to his creative ability. The way that they stopped the demon was by Dalton painting the door he drew black to keep the demon trapped on the other side. 

My boyfriend and I were looking at each other at the end of the movie saying "this can't be all of it. It can't be that easy to defeat the demon." The movie felt unfinished. They spent most of it having Dalton remember his past that they rushed the ending. Additionally, there wasn't any background on the demon or any expansion on his backstory. They could have had Dalton meet the poor souls trapped by the demon or made up something like the demon is attracted to those with ability to torture humans in the real world. Just something to add context. Cause without it what do we have to fear of something that we have seen countless times but we don't know the extent of his evilness. 

Personally, I would have preferred that Josh went to Specs, Tucker and Imogen to help pull the demon out of Dalton. Specs and Tucker help immobilize Dalton's possessed body while Imogen goes into the further with Josh to free Dalton's spirit. But there is the demon trying to hurt them and to prevent Dalton from leaving. And out of no where when all hope is lost Elise comes in to save the day same as to how her mother rushed in to save her against the key demon. That sounds a hell of a lot better to me than what we actually had. 

Rating:

I'm giving this movie 2 stars on 5. I love that they  brought back almost all the actors from the original movie but the movie itself was disappointing. I expected more. I wanted to be terrified and instead I was in disbelief of how poorly written this movie was. I know there is going to be a sixth movie because there was a post credit scene of the painted black door with the light flickering meaning that demon isn't gone but I hope they actually do bring back Imogen and the team. And give us a solid storyline.