Hello everyone! Sara is back, but I am back now as Raven, my new chosen preferred name. I’m excited to be back and reviewing movies for you all. Today I will be reviewing Insidious: The Red Door.
Fans of the Insidious movie series will recall the ending of the fourth installment, The Last Key, where a call was placed to help a woman’s grandson named Dalton. If you had suspicions at the end of The Last Key of a connection to the family in the first film, then you would be correct. Parapsychologist Dr. Elise Rainier previously helped this same family in the first film after Dalton had gone into what doctors said was a coma without being a coma. We find out that Dalton, and his father, Josh Lambert, are astral projectors and can walk around in what Elise calls “The Further”.
In the beginning of Insidious: The Red Door you are met with a scene where Josh and Dalton are being hypnotized. This time it’s to forget everything about astral projecting, The Further, as well as any entity that they have encountered in The Further.
Then it cuts to a scene many years later at a funeral. Dalton’s grandmother, Josh’s mother, has passed away and they are at the gravesite service for her. Dalton is reading a scripture from the Bible but has little interest in the funeral itself. Typical teenage mentality. We find out that Josh and his wife have separated, and Dalton is about to start college in a week at a prestigious school with the best art teacher, according to Dalton.
Upon arriving at his new school with his dad, Dalton finds out that his dorm roommate is a female named Chris. Dalton says they must’ve had a mix up with the names because Chris could easily be confused with a male’s name. Chris goes to sort it out but does have to stay there for a night before she can move into her new room.
During Dalton’s first, very intense, art class, he rips up a picture he drew of his recently deceased grandmother. He also goes under a type of hypnosis by his professor. This hypnosis starts to chip away at the hypnosis that had been performed on him nearly a decade ago. He begins creating
some of his best work yet, but at what cost?
His first drawing with charcoal is of a door. And suddenly there is blood on his drawing as well. He starts to become a little scared at this point. The professor comes over to see his work and asks him if the door is keeping something in or is it keeping him out.
Dalton tries to brush it off and not think too much about it. His ex-dorm roommate turned friend, Chris, says they should go to the frat party Dalton’s dad wanted him to go to. He’s’ not thrilled with the idea as fraternities are not his idea of fun but agrees to go with her anyway. They take a selfie for proof in front of the frat house and make their way in.
The theme is “baby”, and everyone is dressed head to toe as a baby, diaper and all. A pledge is standing out front offering “diaper pudding”. They decline and head inside. After the head of the frat house speaks Dalton and Chris go upstairs to rummage through the frat boys’ things for fun.
The only door that is unlocked, however, is of course the head of the Frat, “Nick the Dick”. When Chris leaves Dalton in the room alone for a bit, Dalton starts seeing the pledge that Nick the Dick was just talking about from last year. The one who died.
Later, back at his dorm, Dalton starts to paint more. He counts himself down like the art professor did and soon enough he’s found himself in The Further again. After wandering around the dorms a bit and even waking up Chris and freaking her out in her room, he runs back to his
body in his dorm room.
Completely scared and confused, he calls his little brother, Foster to try to get answers. Things slowly start to come out about what happened when Dalton was in his “coma”. It turns out that when Dalton was hypnotized in his art class, it also unlocked things for Josh as well. So now both are dealing with things they do not understand, again.
Through some digging, Josh finds out that his father also had this ability. His last note to Josh’s mom was “It ends with me”. Josh must once again go into The Further to save his son Dalton. Dalton is not possessed by the entity behind the red door they keep seeing. However, this time they are in two completely different locations. Will Josh be able to save Dalton? Will Josh be able to seal the red door for good this time? Will Josh be able to do it all before it’s too late?
I really enjoyed this movie. It was a good way to wrap up an already wonderfully done horror series. Ya’ll know I’m a sucker for horror movies. And this one was no exception. It even had a few jump scares that got even me! So, you know they’re good if it made me jump. My favorite film of the franchise is still probably The Last Key. However, I was definitely entertained by The Red Door. This movie provided the closure that fans of the Insidious films need. It’s sad to see the films come to a close, but it did so tastefully.
Though I was left wondering what would happen with Dalton and Chris. They seem to get closer and closer throughout the film and at the end you see them sitting very close together. It would’ve been nice to see something come of their relationship, but that’s just my two cents.
Overall, I give Insidious: The Red Door a 9/10, only because I still enjoyed the previous movie a little more. But The Red Door is still very much worth a watch if you enjoy a good scare.
Insidious: The Red Door is in theatres now.
