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Insidious: The Red Door

At least Patrick Wilson still cares about “ Insidious.” A staple of the James Wan-iverse (he also stars in the “Conjuring” series), Wilson makes his directorial debut with “Insidious: The Red Door.” He also stars in the movie, reprising his role as protective dad Josh Lambert from “ Insidious ” and “Insidious: Chapter Two.” In classic “why the hell not?” deep-franchise style, he also performs a hard-rock number with the Swedish band Ghost over the end credits. (Did you know Patrick Wilson could sing? Neither did I.) 

“The Red Door” is the fifth, and supposedly final, “Insidious” movie. And, with the caveat that you can never trust a horror franchise to end when it says it will end, it does deliver a reasonably satisfying wrap-up to the story of the Lambert family. They’ve been absent from “Insidious” since 2013, when Blumhouse pivoted to focus on Lin Shaye ’s motherly psychic character Elise Rainier in a string of prequels. (Although she died in the second one, she appears here, because again—why not?) And much has happened while the series was away. 

Young Dalton Lambert ( Ty Simpkins ) has grown from a possessed little boy into a brooding 19-year-old art student beginning his first semester of college. His parents, Josh (Wilson) and Renai ( Rose Byrne ), have separated. And his grandmother Lorraine, who played a role in saving Dalton from the evil spirits of The Further, has died. Dalton doesn’t remember his trip into The Further, nor does Josh; the film opens with a scene of the two of them being instructed to forget an entire year of their lives by a hypnotist. 

This is accomplished remarkably quickly—if “The Red Door” was an anti-drug PSA, its tagline would be, “Hypnosis: Not even once.” Counting backward from 10 is all it takes to wipe huge chunks of the Lamberts’ minds clean, and those memories resurface just as easily when Dalton is asked to perform a meditation exercise in his painting class. “The Red Door” plays a little with the trope of artists creating possessed or otherwise supernatural works as seen in horror movies like “The Devil’s Candy.” But most of its runtime is spent exploring something less inspired. 

Here, Josh and Dalton’s gift for astral projection isn’t just a mysterious phenomenon. It’s that old saw of inherited trauma and mental illness that’s been wreaking havoc on horror movies since “ Hereditary .” This manifests in the form of revelations about the father Josh never knew, which overlap with Josh’s guilt and Dalton’s resentment about the divorce. It’s not the most labored use of the metaphor in recent years—that would be another of co-screenwriter Scott Teems ’ credits, the nonsensical “ Halloween Kills .” But it’s such a rote theme at this point that it sucks all of the interest from the family drama.

Callbacks to other “Insidious” films are half-hearted, and “The Red Door” seems to give up on trying to make all of the pieces fit after a while. What does work are a handful of scares in the film’s first half. As a director, Wilson proves himself familiar enough with the mechanics of a jump scare—clearly, he picked up a few things from working with Wan all those years—to give audiences what they want. An early scene where Josh hallucinates a ghastly old woman while trapped inside an MRI machine is especially well done and ties in with a subplot where Josh seeks treatment for persistent fatigue and brain fog. (Long COVID? Nope, The Further!)

However, once the college-centric main plot kicks in, the movie slowly declines toward an underwhelming finale. Visually, Wilson faithfully re-creates the misty look of the previous films. Tiny Tim ’s “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” warbles in a room full of broken dolls somewhere in the negative space of The Further. This is all fine—as are the jokes, the supporting characters, and the concessions to the film’s PG-13 rating by replacing explicit gore with fake vomit and pancake makeup. Wilson is pretty good as Josh, but that’s to be expected. He’s the one that’s still invested in the whole thing. 

Now playing in theaters. 

Katie Rife is a freelance writer and critic based in Chicago with a speciality in genre cinema. She worked as the News Editor of  The A.V. Club  from 2014-2019, and as Senior Editor of that site from 2019-2022. She currently writes about film for outlets like  Vulture, Rolling Stone, Indiewire, Polygon , and  RogerEbert.com.

• Ty Simpkins as Dalton Lambert
• Patrick Wilson as Josh Lambert
• Rose Byrne as Renai Lambert
• Lin Shaye as Elise
• Andrew Astor as Foster Lambert
• Hiam Abbass as
• Sinclair Daniel as
• Peter Dager as
• Leigh Whannell as Specs
• Angus Sampson as Tucker

Cinematographer

• Autumn Eakin
• Joseph Bishara

Writer (based on characters created by)

• Leigh Whannell

Writer (story by)

• Patrick Wilson
• Scott Teems

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‘Insidious: The Red Door’ Review: The Ghost of Jump Scares Past

Patrick Wilson makes his directorial debut with this fifth installment of the horror franchise haunted by a red-faced demon.

By Jason Zinoman

“Insidious,” whose fifth installment opened Friday, is a second-tier horror franchise — it’s not even the best James Wan franchise starring Patrick Wilson, which would be “The Conjuring” — with a few elite jump scares, including one of the best in the genre. In the original in 2010, Lorraine Lambert (Barbara Hershey) is telling her son, Josh (Wilson), about a horrible dream when a red-faced demon suddenly appears behind his head. It’s a magnificent shock because of the askew blocking, the patient misdirection of the editing and Hershey’s committed performance.

In “Insidious: The Red Door,” a grim, workmanlike effort that collapses into woo-woo nonsense, Wilson makes his directorial debut, and demonstrates he grasps the importance of that jump scare, which is sketched in charcoal on paper next to his name in the opening credits. But that reference is also a reminder of what’s missing.

The movie begins nine years after the second “Insidious” at the funeral of Lorraine, and its first scare, a nicely oblique if relatively simple one, once again takes place above her son’s head. Josh’s memory has been scrubbed in the previous film but nags at him, and Wilson doesn’t move the camera from his own face inside a car as he goes through an array of emotions while texting his son Dalton (Ty Simpkins). This prickly relationship is at the center of the movie, as dad drives his son to college. They share the family curse, a habit of being visited by evil figures from another realm called the Further (think the Upside Down from “Stranger Things” ).

As has become cliché, trauma takes center stage, with characters mouthing lines like, “We need to remember even the things that hurt” — which is at least better than pretentious small talk like “Death floods the mind with memory.”

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Review: ‘Insidious: The Red Door’ is sometimes unnerving, but even evil has an expiration date

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Director James Wan and screenwriter Leigh Whannell have had a massive impact on modern horror movies, not once, but twice: first with 2004’s “ Saw ,” which set off a wave of torture-heavy splatter films; and then with the atmospheric 2010 film “ Insidious ,” a crafty tale of paranormal intrusion. Over the last decade, “Insidious” has proved especially influential, inspiring dozens of movies about haunted objects, creepy kids and grizzled paranormal investigators — all of them filled with slow-mounting tension and assaultive jump-scares, many of them spawning entire universes of sequels, prequels and spinoffs.

“Insidious: The Red Door” is the fifth film in its series, and it seems at times like a conscious effort to remind everyone who’s the genre’s big boss. Wan isn’t involved this time, but Whannell co-wrote the story with the movie’s credited screenwriter Scott Teems, while Patrick Wilson — the star of the original “Insidious” and the costar of this one — makes his directorial debut. This team has produced something that maybe relies too much on the same old tricks, but which is often genuinely terrifying.

Wilson once again plays Josh Lambert, who in the first two films discovered that he and his son Dalton ( Ty Simpkins ) have the ability to leave their bodies via astral projection, thanks to their connection to a purgatorial dimension dubbed the Further, filled with unsettled ghosts and vicious demons who intend to use the Lamberts to help them drain the vitality from living humans. The third and fourth “Insidious” films were prequels that only mentioned the Lamberts in passing; but “The Red Door” follows directly from “ Insidious: Chapter Two ,” which ended with Josh and Dalton being hypnotized to suppress all their memories of the Further.

That cure has turned out to be a curse. Nine years later, severed from an essential part of themselves and their shared pasts, Josh and Dalton have become estranged from each other; and Josh is also now divorced from Dalton’s mother, Renai ( Rose Byrne ). But when Dalton leaves home to study painting at college, his favorite professor ( Hiam Abbass ) encourages him to tap into his subconscious, which begins to unlock his powers. At the same time, Josh starts digging into his own past to figure out why he’s such a jerk to the people he loves. The answers shock him — and awaken him, too.

Anyone who’s seen an “Insidious” movie before (or any of the “Insidious” knockoffs) knows what comes next. Both Josh and Dalton have their daily lives disrupted by visions of rotting corpses creeping toward them and making demands. From behind the camera, Wilson handles the visual grammar of all this well, though there’s no reason why he shouldn’t. He’s following a well-established blueprint. Wan (and later Whannell, when he directed the third film) perfected the art of weaponizing negative space on the screen, keeping the audience constantly on edge by threatening to fill the blurry areas around the heroes’ heads with something monstrous.

That trick still works like gangbusters, and “The Red Door” features several sequences that are “watch through your fingers while slumped down in your seat”-level scary. (A scene where Josh is playing a game of Concentration with pictures taped to his living room window while an evil spirit slowly approaches undetected is almost unbearably intense.) Having two main characters suffering from hauntings separately works against this movie’s narrative momentum, but it does allow Wilson and Teems to bounce from scare to scare, without much setup — or respite.

“The Red Door” isn’t as good as the first “Insidious,” and may actually fall short of several of the “Insidious” clones. But it’s no impersonal bit of brand extension. There’s a strong idea here about how important it is for an artist — any fully alive human being, really — to confront past traumas instead of blocking them out. Granted, the Lambert boys have to face their fears or there’ll be no horror movie. But the point is still well-taken.

“Insidious: The Red Door”

Rated: PG-13, for violence, terror, frightening images, strong language and suggestive references.

Running time: 1 hour, 47 minutes

Playing: In general release

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Insidious: The Red Door Review

07 Jul 2023

Insidious: The Red Door

After two prequels, the  Insidious  series returns to the family where it began, the Lamberts, because no good monster ever stays dead. Franchise star Patrick Wilson turns director here and does as good a job as you’d hope with the character beats of these tortured souls. But he never hits the heights of terror that the franchise is capable of – perhaps his closeness to the character preventing him from really twisting the knife.

As we rejoin the Lamberts, we’re reminded that son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) and father Josh (Wilson) had their memories wiped nine years ago, so they would never again be tempted to astral-project into “The Further” and leave their bodies vulnerable to possession by dark forces. Now Dalton is an artist just starting at a college with worryingly dim lighting and unreliable power – uh oh.  When he follows a charismatic teacher's instructions to go deep into his subconscious, he discovers memories of a strange door that threaten to destabilise his mental health. Across the country, Josh is experiencing his own nightmares, and will have to delve into his own past to confront this new threat.

While there are a few effective gross-out moments and creeping scares, they’re largely unoriginal.

Wilson picked a franchise he knows well for his directorial debut, and he and Simpkins have a convincingly thorny but loving dynamic, as he does with Rose Byrne as his now-ex-wife Renai. He also finds comic beats to leaven the scares, particularly in some amusingly lame frat party scenes. There he has an ally in Dalton's college friend Chris (Sinclair Daniel), who is a breath of fresh air even if she implausibly sticks around through some outrageously creepy behaviour.

The problem is the choppy storytelling. You’ll need to remember the first two films for any real explanation of the threat here, or how to beat it. Going into the finale, there’s only a woolly sense of what needs to be done and what exactly is tormenting our heroes, which can’t help but puncture the menace. The pace is very much a slow burn, until a sudden rush to the finish, and while there are a few effective gross-out moments and creeping scares, they’re largely unoriginal. Wilson’s debut is no disaster, but he’ll need to sharpen his talons if he wants to make his mark on the horror pantheon behind the camera as well as in front.

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‘Insidious: The Red Door’ Trailer: Fifth Movie Brings Back Patrick Wilson, Ty Simpkins and Lots of Demons

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It looks like some demons are harder to get rid of than others. 

The first official trailer for the fifth installment of the mainstay horror franchise “ Insidious ” reveals a new demonic side of the jinxed Lambert family.

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The latest “Insidious” installment marks Wilson’s directorial debut . Original cast members Simpkins, Rose Byrne, Andrew Astor and Lin Shaye are all set to return in the film. Additional stars include Hiam Abbass , Pete Drager and Sinclair Daniel. 

“Insidious: Chapter 3” and “Insidious: The Last Key” served as prequel films that lead into the original film. “Insidious: The Red Door,” the fifth film in the franchise, will premiere in theaters on July 7. 

Steven Schneider, Ryan Turek and Brian Kavanaugh Jones executive produce. Scott Teams wrote the script based on the story developed by franchise creator Leigh Whannell. Whannell, too, produced the story with Jason Blum, James Wan and Oren Peli.

Watch the full trailer below.

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'Insidious: The Red Door': Release Date, Cast, Trailer, and What to Expect

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Insidious isn't your typical haunted house or possession tale. The stories under this franchise all connect under the concept of a dark spiritual realm known as "The Further." Spirits from The Further don't haunt places, they haunt people, and they do it to the death. This sinister story, spooking viewers through the screen since 2010, has stayed relevant through the years and kept fans loyal through the telling of each chapter. It inspired the use of "Upside Down" worlds within our own , influenced the notion of cursed families throughout the genre, and made a name in horror for all those involved in the original film. With four films underway and fans left divided on the reception of the most recent installments, it's finally come time for a new chapter in the Insidious story.

The Insidious movies have non-stop terrifying action, and they make no room for slow, anticipatory fear, and instead utilize the jump-scare around every corner. The spirits and demons in these films don't just haunt, they attack, taking corporeal form more often than not. Sometimes whether they're physical or not is an ambiguous line unclear to viewers when crossed. Each chapter sticks to a standard formula created by the story: an entity takes someone's astral body to the further, and Elise, played by Lin Shaye , must bring them back. Elise is the most pivotal character , even in her death, as shown in Insidious: Chapter 2 .

It's been five years since the last installment of Insidious , and this summer, the franchise will be back for more with Insidious: The Red Door . With actor Patrick Wilson making his directorial debut, and an all-too-familiar cast, the film is making a comeback much anticipated by fans. Here's everything we know so far about Insidious: The Red Door .

Editor's Note: This piece was updated on June 22, 2023.

Related: Jason Blum on 'The Forever Purge,' 'insidious 5,' Universal Monsters & the Future of Blumhouse

Insidious: The Red Door will hit theaters on July 7, 2023 , and will be opening up against Lionsgate's R-rated comedy Joy Ride . The film has received a PG-13 rating and is set to have a 1 hour 47 minute runtime (107 minutes). This Summer will see quite a few blockbusters, so it's just the right setting for Insidious: The Red Door to make its comeback as a big-hit horror film. Since it looks like the film is going back to its roots, this might not be such a difficult task.

Insidious: The Red Door will be released exclusively in movie theaters. As of now, there are no confirmed dates as to when and where it'll be available to stream. The film's distributor, Screen Gems, is owned by Sony Pictures and has a streaming deal with Netflix, so there's a good chance that the film will be available to stream on the service sometime in late 2023.

The official trailer for Insidious: The Red Door was released on Sony Pictures Entertainment's YouTube Channel on April 19, 2023, giving fans their long-awaited first look at the return of the Lambert family.

The final trailer for Insidious: The Red Door was released on June 6 and quickly reminds us that this will be the conclusion of the franchise. The tension builds and builds as we hear the score mixed with the terrifying sound of a squeaky door. And despite the video being called the "final trailer", we also got a new TV spot for Insidious: The Red Door on June 13. See it below:

The cast consists of Patrick Wilson, returning as Josh Lambert, Ty Simpkins as his son Dalton Lambert, Rose Byrne as Josh's wife Renai, and Andrew Astor as Dalton's little brother, Foster. In unknown roles, actors Peter Dager , Sinclair Daniel , and Jarquez McClendon , all relatively new to the big screen, have been cast. Actress Hiam Abbass , known for films like Blade Runner 2049 and Hellraiser (2022), is to appear in the film. Lin Shaye will also be returning as Elise Rainier, with her character showing up through videotapes after being killed off in the second film.

Insidious: The Red Door is said to be the final film and the franchise and will feature the return of the Lambert family who was at the center of the first two films but was absent from the third and fourth entries. The official synopsis via Sony Pictures reads:

In Insidious: The Red Door, the horror franchise’s original cast returns for the final chapter of the Lambert family’s terrifying saga. To put their demons to rest once and for all, Josh (Patrick Wilson) and a college-aged Dalton (Ty Simpkins) must go deeper into The Further than ever before, facing their family’s dark past and a host of new and more horrifying terrors that lurk behind the red door.

The last film, Insidious: The Last Key , was all about Elise revisiting her traumatic childhood, and killing the demons that infested her family. It came full circle as a true prequel, in the end, giving us a glimpse into the Lambert family's dealings from chapter one. Now, it looks like we'll be getting a similar plot in the fifth installment of the series, with Dalton's past coming back to haunt him. We can expect that the film will stick to its franchise's formula, and someone will be making trips in and out of The Further to save a soul.

The film was initially set to be titled Insidious: Fear the Dark , but was changed to The Red Door in March 2023.

Patrick Wilson, one of the stars of the film, is making his directorial debut with Insidious: The Red Door It'll be the first audiences have seen of his directing skills, but it's clear he has the blessings of Jason Blum and James Wan to do so. Producers on the film include Blum, Wan, Oren Peli , and Leigh Whannell , co-creator, and co-writer of the franchise. Scott Teems of Halloween Kills wrote the screenplay for the film from a story by Whannell. Blumhouse is known for its scary good productions such as The Purge , Paranormal Activity , and Get Out , with loyal fans across the board. With a crew this talented it doesn't look like Insidious: The Red Door will miss the mark.

Related: Here's How to Watch the Insidious Movies in Order (Chronologically and By Release Date)

Jason Blum posted a photo on Twitter of him and actor-director Patrick Wilson on set back in August, pictured below.

When filming came to an end, Wilson's wife, actress Dagmara Dominczyk , also took to Twitter with a cute couple's selfie and a celebratory hashtag, happy to have her husband back to herself. Check out the post here:

• Insidious: The Red Door (2023)
• Patrick Wilson

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Insidious: The Red Door - Everything You Need To Know

The "Insidious" franchise has been freaking viewers out for over a decade, and the spooky series shows no signs of slowing down. After all, when it comes to horror movies, the dead don't stay dead for too long, and demons always have a way of coming back. In that spirit, a fifth installment is on the way and will haunt your local theaters in the near future. 

It's been three years since horror fans were last scared by evil creatures from the Further, with "Insidious: The Last Key." That movie grossed $167 million worldwide on the back of a $10 million budget, so with those kinds of numbers, another flick was always going to happen. However, the last two "Insidious" movies saw the supernatural saga focus on prequels, but this fifth film will take a different approach and bring back some fan favorites. What else can we expect from "Insidious: The Red Door" when it finally arrives?

When will Insidious: The Red Door be released?

"Insidious" fans, rejoice — after this sequel was announced in the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the movie finally made headway in 2022. In February of that year, star and director Patrick Wilson said that location scouting had begun, and by August, he also revealed that filming had wrapped.

The next installment in the "Insidious" franchise is set to be released on July 7, 2023, and now that COVID-19 delays are (hopefully) a thing of the past, that seems like it'll probably stick. That means that this horror sequel will arrive ahead of huge releases like "Oppenheimer" and "Barbie," among others, and it will eventually have to go up against them at the box office.

Interestingly, the movie has undergone a bit of a big change in the months leading up to its release. Originally, the fifth "Insidious" film was subtitled "Fear the Dark." Now, it's called "The Red Door," in reference to the ominous passages that have led to great evil throughout the franchise.

What is the plot of Insidious: The Red Door?

"Insidious: The Red Door" will be a direct sequel to "Insidious: Chapter 2," which ended with the Lambert men being hypnotized so they'd forget all about the Further and its demonic residents. The new movie takes place 10 years after the events of the sequel, with the father and son duo dealing with the aftermath of those events. Or as the official plot synopsis puts it, "To put their demons to rest once and for all, Josh and a college-aged Dalton must go deeper into the Further than ever before, facing their family's dark past and a host of new and more horrifying terrors that lurk behind the red door."

As for as additional plot details go, "Red Door" actor/director Patrick Wilson talked a bit more about Dalton and his experiences at the 2020 BlumFest. The character was just a child the last time viewers saw him, and as Wilson explained, "I just latched onto watching Dalton go to college and what does that do? Watching a young man go to college and all the new experiences and feeling like an outsider trying to fit in." So it looks like things are about to get really spooky on a college campus, as Dalton deals yet again with a demonic presence.

Who is starring in Insidious: The Red Door?

"Insidious: The Red Door" will bring back several major players from the first two films of the franchise. Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, and Ty Simpkins are all coming back to face some demonic forces. They'll be joined here by Hiam Abbess ("Succession"), Sinclair Daniel ("Madam Secretary"), Jarquez McClendon ("Attack"), and Peter Dager ("WITS Academy").

Now, here's the big question — will we see the return of Lin Shaye? The actress has played a major part in the "Insidious" franchise, portraying medium Elise Rainier. While her character died in the first movie, she returned in two prequels, and fortunately for "Insidious" fans, she'll be coming back here — courtesy of video footage that's likely to help our tormented heroes. 

It's pretty awesome that Shaye is returning to the franchise, as she's long wanted to come back, telling ComingSoon in September 2020 , "It was a really beautiful arc for me to find as the character and in the storyline. Now it's in my memory, and I would love it if there was another one."

Who is directing Insidious: The Red Door?

"Insidious: The Red Door" is marking a really huge turning point for the franchise. For the first time in his career, star Patrick Wilson is set to pull double duty for an "Insidious" movie. The man will both star and direct, and "The Red Door" will mark his directorial debut.

"I'm honored and thrilled to be at the helm of the next 'Insidious' installment, which will provide an amazing chance to unpack everything the Lamberts went through a decade ago, as well as deal with the consequences of their choices," Wilson said, in a statement that was provided to Variety in late 2020. "Directing the movie is both professionally and personally a full circle moment for me, and I am extremely grateful to be entrusted in continuing to tell this frightening and haunting story. Into the Further we go..."

Who is writing Insidious: The Red Door?

A new name is joining the "Insidious" team for this fifth installment — writer Scott Teems, whom you might know as the scribe behind movies like "The Quarry," "Halloween Kills," and the recent remake of "Firestarter."

Speaking to ScreenRant , Patrick Wilson expressed his excitement about working with Teems and making his own directorial debut with the movie: "It's something that I'm super passionate about, and there hasn't been a day since they pitched me the idea that I haven't been all in. It's been a lot of work by Scott Teems, the writer, and me." Fans can only wait and see where Teems takes this hit franchise now that he's helping with the storyline.

Who is producing Insidious: The Red Door?

It shouldn't be a huge surprise to anyone familiar with the "Insidious" franchise to hear that some of horror's heaviest hitters are behind the project. Jason Blum, James Wan, Oren Peli, and Leigh Whannell are all listed as producers, and if you're a horror buff, you know those are some of the biggest names in the industry. Jason Blum is, of course, the mind behind Blumhouse Productions, which was released some of the biggest indie horror hits in recent memory. Leigh Whannell wrote the original "Insidious," as well as the second film, along with directing movies like "The Invisible Man," and he worked with Scott Teems to craft the story for "Insidious: The Red Door."

As for Oren Peli, he produced 2007's "Paranormal Activity," one of the biggest low-budget horror flicks of all time, and James Wan, of course,  created the entire "Insidious" franchise — as well as "Saw" and "The Conjuring" — and directed the first film.

Blum talked to The Hollywood Reporter about Wan handing his director's chair to Wilson, and he only had good things to say. "I'm super excited for what Patrick's doing with 'Insidious,"' the producer explained. "Patrick reminds me a little bit of Leigh Whannell in that they are not just actors slash whatever; they are filmmakers as well. They're film buffs, and being film buffs, they look at acting from the point of view of what the final film will be like. And so that actually helps inform them as filmmakers. So I'm always very excited when people like Leigh Whannell and Patrick Wilson want to jump behind the camera."

Is there a trailer for Insidious: The Red Door?

It's been 10 years since the Daltons found themselves up against a bunch of demons, but those evil spirits are back again. As we see in the trailer for "The Red Door," Josh Lambert and his son, Dalton, had their traumatic memories suppressed to keep them safe from the Further. But now, they're both experiencing some pretty upsetting visions. Josh is assaulted in his home, and as Dalton goes to college, his art class seems to unlock something dangerous deep inside his mind. The trailer for "The Red Door" highlights all sorts of messed-up monsters as the entry to the Further opens up and demons come crawling out. Plus, it brings back that creepy little ditty "Tiptoe Through the Tulips," which is sure to send a shudder down your spine. If the official trailer is any indication, it looks like "The Red Door" will be the scariest "Insidious" movie yet.

What will Insidious: The Red Door be rated?

When "The Red Door" opens up for viewers, it's going to be a terrifying experience — albeit a PG-13 one. Yep, the latest installment in the "Insidious" franchise has earned a PG-13 for "violence, terror, frightening images, strong language, and suggestive references." 

Of course, we're expecting the film to press the boundaries of PG-13 and truly frighten everyone in the audience. After all, every movie in the "Insidious" franchise has been rated PG-13, and they've all been incredibly horrific movies. So while we might not be getting buckets of blood, that's not really what the "Insidious" films are about. Instead, expect plenty of demons lurking in the shadows, getting ready for some upsetting jump scares .

Where can you watch the Insidious franchise?

If you're completely new to the "Insidious" franchise or just want to revisit all of them before you watch "The Red Door," you can currently find them spread across a few different streamers or available to rent.

The film that kicked off the franchise — and introduced us to the Lipstick Demon, the Further, Elise Rainier, and the poor Lambert family — is available to stream on Max . You can also rent it on Apple iTunes , Google Play , Prime Video , Vudu , and YouTube .

In the sequel, there's something very strange going on with Josh Lambert, and his loved ones must go to incredibly dark places to save his soul. (Also, keep an eye out for a very young Jenna Ortega.) You can stream "Insidious: Chapter 2" on Max , or you can rent it on Apple iTunes , Google Play , Prime Video , Vudu , and YouTube .

With "Insidious: Chapter 3," the franchise shifts focus from the Lamberts to psychic Elise Rainier. In this prequel, Elise gets involved in a supernatural case when a young girl wants help contacting her dead mom. Needless to say, this doesn't go well. You can rent the third film on Apple iTunes , Google Play , Prime Video , Vudu , and YouTube .

Lastly, there's the prequel "Insidious: The Last Key," where Elise must travel back to her childhood home and face an evil she unleashed years before. You can rent the fourth film on Apple iTunes , Google Play , Prime Video , Vudu , and YouTube .    

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Insidious: The Red Door’ on Netflix, The Fifth Outing In The Horror Franchise That Continues To Deliver

Where to stream:.

• Insidious: The Red Door
• Patrick Wilson

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Stream it or skip it: ‘aquaman and the lost kingdom’ on vod, where the dc extended universe wraps with a small splash, amber heard thanks ‘aquaman 2’ fans for “overwhelming support and love” following turmoil over her limited screen time, is ‘aquaman and the lost kingdom’ streaming on hbo max or netflix.

Insidious: The Red Door (now streaming on Netflix, in addition to VOD services like Amazon Prime Video ) marks five films in the Insidioverse, which launched in 2010 with Insidious , followed by a sequel, Insidious: Chapter Two and two prequels, the confusingly titled Insidious: Chapter 3 (should’ve been Insidious: Chapter 0.5 ) and Insidious: The Last Key (should’ve been Insidious: Chapter 0.7883499 ). The Red Door further clutters the timeline, being a direct sequel to Chapter 2 , and bringing back principals Patrick Wilson (also making his directorial debut), Ty Simpkins and Rose Byrne. Got all that? More to the point, do you even care if you got all that? A few of you do, probably, but most of you, well, you’re in my boat, and you’re bored out of your mind by this pseudo-atmospheric supernatural-horror generica. 

INSIDIOUS: THE RED DOOR : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: We open with a flashback to the end of Chapter 2 , when Josh (Wilson) and Dalton (Simpkins) were hypnotized so they’ll forget the horrible stuff that happened to their family. Josh’s wife Renai (Byrne) and mother Loraine (Barbara Hershey), notably, are not hypnotized, so they remember all the demonic possession and astral planes and attempted murders. NINE YEARS LATER, the family attends a funeral. Loraine has died. Dalton is heading off to college to be an art major – he’s really good at drawing, see. Josh and Renai are divorced. Josh hopes to narrow the emotional gulf between himself and Dalton by driving the kid out to school. The animosity stems from Josh feeling “foggy” and not himself all the time; death and divorce don’t help it at all. Dalton, meanwhile, is a sullen poop who permafrowns his way through everything, and believes that the blank year of his life is due to a coma induced by viral meningitis. 

But we all know that’s a big load of bull plop. The kid’s being forced to bury his trauma, and if anyone knows anything about trauma, it’s that shoveling dirt overtop isn’t going to keep it at bay, because trauma is an undead zombie that must be faced head-on so you can smash its head in with a shillelagh lest it stalk you forever and ever. Dalton’s first-ever college class doesn’t help; his pretentious art prof implores her students to reach deep into the subconscious to find a subject for their drawings, which is a catalyst for some serious psychological vomit. And psychologically vomit Dalton does, furiously scribbling and shading with charcoal As If Possessed, until his hand bleeds all over the door he sketched. And now it’s the thing in the title of the movie, which is the trigger to lead Dalton to a dimly lit parallel universe that’s draped in dry ice fog and swamped in blue light, and allows him to function like a ghost, where other people in reality see things floating through the air and it’s actually just Dalton’s astrally projected body holding those things, which would be a neat party trick if this movie had even the slightest sense of humor.

Oh, and Dalton also can see dead people, like the frat kid who died, presumably from partying too hard bro, and is now eternally spewing extra-chunky pea soup from his face. But I’m getting ahead of myself here – that happens after Dalton starts palling around with Chris (Sinclair Daniel), who soon finds herself implicated in her new friend’s paranormal shenanigans. Meanwhile, Josh tries to get to the bottom of his “fog” by going to the doctor to get his brain scanned and whatnot, and when he sees entities in the dark, e.g., after he’s shoved into that narrow MRI machine, whoa boy, look out, something almost happens there! All this might have something to do with why Josh’s father abandoned the family when he was a lad, or it might just be borderline incoherent foofaraw, it’s hard to tell or care. Just being honest here, folks.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: I always get the Insidious es mixed up with The Conjuring s and affiliated spinoffs ( Annabelle , The Nun , etc.), and don’t the Sinister s fit in here somewhere maybe? I dunno. If you’re itching to see some paranormal horror affiliated with James Wan, just go watch Malignant again, because it’s wild and funny as hell and unheralded among modern scary films.

Performance Worth Watching: I liked Sinclair Daniel in her limited screen time, since she appears to be the only character capable of smiling without fear of her face shattering into bits and crumbs. 

Memorable Dialogue: Dalton’s Eastern Bloc art prof looks at his The Red Door drawing and asks the key question: “Is it keeping you in, or out?”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Insidious: The Red Door is either nonsense or isn’t engaging enough to inspire one to make sense of it. Dramatically, its tires spin but never touch the road. It’s a half-assed story about the things sons inherit from their fathers and offers little more than a cloddish metaphor for not repressing your demons, lest they come back to bite you in that half of an ass. Deep in the third act, Dalton comes to a no-duh conclusion: “We need to remember. Even the things that hurt,” he says, as if it’s a major revelation and not on page two of every Psych 101 textbook. 

Prior to that, we get some of the usual Insidious jump-scare drivel and scads of long, boring sequences in which our gloomy-gus protags take their sweet-ass time piecing together the mystery of the monster that stalks them from an astral plane, or whatever. It’s utterly humorless, and even the melodrama is muted, failing to ever make us feel invested in these characters and their predicament. It’s off-the-rack tame PG-13 horror twaddle, and as a director, Wilson generates blandly glum atmosphere and strikes a flavorless tone. Maybe if you’re a devoted Insidious ite – and I know you’re out there; everything has its niche – it’ll carry greater weight. But for the rest of us, casual fans and first-timers alike, we’ll be hard-pressed to give a single damn about this boring, draggy outing that fails to engender a single memorable moment.

Our Call: Remember, “insidious” is only a few letters away from “insipid.” Earlier franchise chapters featured a few smirkworthy scares and some stylish filmmaking flourishes, but The Red Door is merely an inert, boring drag. SKIP IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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Insidious 5 first reviews lead to low Rotten Tomatoes score

"A disappointingly anticlimactic conclusion to the Lambert family story arc."

The first reviews have arrived for Insidious: The Red Door , and the critics don't seem too impressed.

The fifth Insidious instalment brings back the Lambert family , who kickstarted the horror franchise back in 2010.

Now a teenager, Dalton (Ty Simpkins) is travelling to college with his father (Patrick Wilson), but his college dreams quickly turn into a living nightmare when the repressed demons of his past suddenly return.

Rose Byrne and Lin Shaye also return for the film, which is directed by Wilson.

Related: Patrick Wilson didn't want Insidious: The Red Door to deliver the same scares

Although further reviews will be published as soon as critics who didn't get to see film ahead of time watch it, the ones already out aren't exactly glowing.

At the time of writing, Insidious: The Red Door is currently sitting at 33% on Rotten Tomatoes , giving the film a relatively poor start.

Here's what they have been saying:

The AU Review

"For a film that’s had plenty of time to simmer, it’s even more disappointing that Wilson is unable to move beyond the very tropes he apparently wanted to avoid.

"In making this more a film about Dalton, he’s also relegated to a supporting role (and Byrne even less-so, a shame when she’s the only one in the film turning in solid work), and whilst Simpkins showed promise under the direction of Wan, here he’s such a bore of a performer, which doesn’t remotely help us as an audience to feel invested in his plight."

"While the runtime feels flabby, [Patrick Wilson] manages to create some menacing scenes (a sequence in an MRI machine is particularly effective) without resorting to endless jump scares. That said, you probably won’t be checking behind the couch or losing any sleep after seeing this film."

Fiction Horizon

"Considering the nearly 10-year gap between Insidious: Chapter 2 and Insidious: The Red Door , Wilson could only muster a disappointingly anticlimactic conclusion to the Lambert family story arc."

Insidious: The Red Door is out now in cinemas.

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Aside from a shaky final act, Insidious is a very scary and very fun haunted house thrill ride.

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Screen Rant's Rob Frappier reviews Insidious

Director James Wan and writer Leigh Whannell may be best known for kicking off the long-running (and phenomenally successful) Saw franchise, but the pair's latest film is arguably their first attempt at pure horror. There's no blood, no guts, and no devious death traps. Just a spooky old house, a collection of things that go bump in the dark, and a hell of a lot of jump scares.

And did I mention that Insidious is the scariest movie I've seen in years?

For the most part, Insidious sticks closely to the haunted house genre of horror (a sort of revival of classics like Poltergeist and The Amityville Horror ). A married couple, Josh (Patrick Wilson) and Renai (Rose Byrne), move into a beautiful old house with their two young sons and a new baby. The early scenes in the film establish the characters very clearly. Renai is the put-upon mother and Josh is the loving, but somewhat aloof husband.

As the family adjusts to their new home, Renai begins noticing unusual events in the house (classic horror movie stuff like the books being moved from one place to another).  Their oldest son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) also seems aware of something faintly sinister lurking in the shadows. While exploring the attic, Dalton is spooked off of a ladder and bumps his head.

The next morning, Dalton simply doesn't wake up. Josh and Renai turn to doctors who run Dalton through a variety of tests, but nobody can explain the boy's coma. (Duh! Because it's not a medical coma. Don't doctors watch scary movies?)

Over the next few months, Renai does her best to care for her son, all while dealing with increasingly spooky stuff happening in her home. Using tried and true techniques (the slow build jump scare accompanied by raucous strings), Wan delivers some of the most effective scares in the film during this stretch of the plot.  I'm not ashamed to admit that I spent a good portion of this sequence digging my nails into my arm rests and crouching low in my seat.

Eventually, Renai convinces her husband to leave the house. In a smart bit of writing, Josh agrees with his wife and they move. (I hate how in haunted house movies, there's always someone who wants to stay. Why? I'd be gone in a second if my wife wanted to leave.) Of course, anyone who has seen the trailer for Insidious knows that moving doesn't help the situation because it's not the house that's haunted... IT'S DALTON HIMSELF!

What's a family to do? Why, bring in a psychic medium of course. Lin Shaye plays the medium and writer Leigh Whannell plays one half of her two man team paranormal investigation team. While each of these characters was somewhat familiar, I enjoyed all of the performances and was impressed by the fresh writing. The film's obligatory seance scene, which could have been rehashed from past horror films, is given a unique twist and makes for one of the movie's most effective moments.

I won't talk much more about the story. Suffice it to say, the rest of the film revolves around Renai and Josh's efforts to save their son from slipping away from them forever. Astral projection, demonic possession, and other issues are brought up, but always intelligently and with a certain realism that allows the film to be that much scarier.

With the exception of a somewhat offbeat third act, which is very clearly Wan and Whannell's personal touch and something that I actually enjoyed, the movie hits mostly familiar beats. I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing though. I think of it as a master chef preparing a basic recipe. Just because something is simple, that doesn't mean it can't be amazing in the right hands. While the movie doesn't break much new ground in the haunted house genre, Wan and Whannell handle the formula like pros.

I've criticized the overuse of jump scares in horror movies, but I don't think that's an issue here. Almost every scare is set-up and executed well and the additional elements of the film (score, cinematography, etc.) work together seamlessly. Technically speaking, what Wan was able to do with this movie on a relatively limited budget is incredible. ( Insidious producer and Paranormal Activity director Oren Peli probably deserves credit here too.)

In our interview with James Wan and Leigh Whannell , Wan talked about working on a tight budget and how it forced him to be creative during filming. It really shows throughout the movie. Where other films might have relied on special effects, Wan (who also edited the movie) uses unique camera angles and ominous shadows to inspire dread. Likewise, Wan does a great job getting believable performances from his cast. Despite the potential for the movie to devolve into silliness, the actors keep the plot grounded. Credit also goes to Whannell for writing relatable characters.

Bottom line: Insidious is the movie that horror fans deserve. Even with its oft-maligned PG-13 rating, Insidious serves up more frightening imagery and pulse-pounding scares than any other recent horror movie, with the possible exception of Paranormal Activity . The movie simply works. I sincerely hope that people flock to see Insidious this weekend and scare themselves silly.

I love blood and gore in movies as much as the next horror fan, but I'm very tired of the so-called "torture porn" genre (which, somewhat ironically was kicked off by Saw ). I hope that Insidious convinces audiences that a real horror movie doesn't need to be gruesome and that, sometimes, there's more to be scared of in the shadows of your own house than in some fictional faraway torture chamber.

Insidious trailer:

[poll id="141"]

When Josh (Patrick Wilson) and Renai (Rose Byrne) move into a new home, their son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) explores the attic and discovers a malevolent entity. After Dalton slips into an unexplained coma, Josh and Renai enlist the help of spiritual medium Elise (Lin Shaye) to enter the spirit world and recover Dalton's consciousness, which they believe is being held by an unknown hostile force. 

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