With Insidious: Chapter 3, the series has started to roll down the Texas Chainsaw Massacre's slippery slope - a good idea stretched by prequels, remakes, and eventually, I predict, 3D. At this point, the franchise is a parody of itself; whatever atmosphere James Wan created is reduced to an executive's jack-in-the-box understanding of horror. Teens scream, then giggle hysterically. Rinse and repeat.
This entry is a prequel, set a few years before the Lambert haunting in the first Insidious. Hoping to contact her late mother, Quinn Brenner (Stefanie Scott) enlists the help of psychic/medium Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye). Elise declines, fearful of exposing herself to a spirit hellbent on her demise. However, when Quinn becomes plagued by an unknown entity, Elise must face her fear and fight to save Quinn's soul before it's enslaved to the darkness.
One can make the argument this is Elise's movie; a large portion is dedicated to her inner dilemmas and interactions with the realm of the dead (known as the Further). She's always been the most intriguing character of the franchise, and much of this is due to Shaye's comforting, yet mysterious performance. The scenes involving Elise are the film's best, often the most atmospheric and nerve-wracking.
It's when we get to Quinn's story, however, that the movie devolves. There's nothing reprehensible with her (aside from those "don't go in there, you idiot" moments). However, Scott doesn't add anything to the role that any other actress her age couldn't; look only to Maika Monroe from "It Follows" or Annalise Basso from "Oculus". The supporting cast, so underused they feel like a series of cameos, is forgettable, save for some comic relief by Quinn's father (Dermot Mulroney) and a pair of bumbling ghost hunters (Angus Sampson and director Leigh Whannell) who are so wildly out of place you can't help but love them.
From the title card, the cacophony of violins serves as a taste of what's to come. Noise has been Insidious's staple since the beginning, and it's no different here. Nearly every scare comes with a sting and a bass thud; after a while, it stops startling and starts infuriating. Whannell, writer of the previous Insidious films, fails to pull off the chest-pounding tension Insidious 1 and 2 director James Wan does so well; as a result, Insidious: Chapter 3 doesn't have enough time to build dread before a makeup-laden face mugs for the camera.
For a series increasingly focused in explaining how the Further works, what motivates the dead to leech off the living, and their reasons for latching on to certain individuals, I found this film to be surprisingly empty on answers. The second film provided a full backstory for the demon. Here, we know next to nothing, aside from the spirit's use of a breathing mask. The rules of the Further and classifications of its dead remain vague, subject to whatever piece of dialogue will best get the audience to go "ooh."
What this chalks up to, in the end, is a series that's worn out its welcome, comfortable with dumbing itself down to make a quick profit. Out of all this year's horror, it's not as scary as It Follows, funny as the Poltergeist remake, or even as infuriating as Unfriended. It's just mediocre.
Thank you all for reading; I'm the Man Without A Plan, signing off.
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