Insidious: The Last Key
/"Fear comes home."
Filmology Rating: 2 out of 4
The age of haunted houses and paranormal campfire stories seems to be over. Over the past thirty-six years we have seen stories such as Poltergeist, The Blair Witch Project, The Woman in Black, The Conjuring and It Follows; each of which bring something new to the ancient tales of spirits who are in a state of unrest. It would be hard to imagine any film being courageous enough to try to join those films atop the throne of ghoulish spirits, but Insidious: The Last Key feels that it has enough ambition to join the mighty atop the dark hill.
Elise, played by Lin Shaye, has been plagued by nightmares from her childhood growing up in New Mexico. She has been running from her past, where she accidentally killed her mother and was constantly abused by her father, but she finally gets the chance to bury the past when she is asked to return to her childhood home to vanquish the demons that she unwillingly unleashed during her childhood.
Insidious: The Last Key was crafted with the PG-13 audience in mind. The film featured little in the true scare department - focusing mainly of the tension on the jump scares, which seem to be overtaking actual horror in films lately; proxy characters who are more in the age demographic for the intended audience, but the characters do very little to serve the plot of the film, and display incredibly misplaced humor that feels like it was taken from a completely different film. I must clarify that just because the film has a PG-13 rating that doesn’t make it bad, as we have had some terrifying PG-13 rated horror films like Lights Out and The Ring, but when the director is rather unseasoned like Adam Robitel is you might have some reason for concern. Robitel clearly had no control over the tone of the film which goes all over the map from being a family drama at times with scenes that are meant to pull on your heartstrings, but just come across as pandering and pathetic; a horror film, with tension that is built up and then fizzles out like a balloon that is let go before it’s tied; and an empowerment story which tells people to not take abuse from those who want to dominant over your life. Even when it comes to the composition of shots, the focus of the scene goes from being incredibly clear one moment to the next scene being muddled. As a viewer you should never be wondering why a shot either has too much going on or too little to keep your focus, but Insidious: The Last Key is full of these puzzling moments.
Not every scene in Insidious: The Last Key is horrid, however the prologue, while overlong, is clearly the highlight of the film. It would seem that any film that takes place in previous decades seems to come across as scarier, most likely because you do not have any current technology to help you out of the situations. Films like Ouija: Origin of Evil and Annabelle: Creation are much stronger films for taking a more classic tone with the horror genre and it felt like Insidious: The Last Key could have been a special movie as well if the entire film took place in the 1950s. The prologue sets up the characters and gives more dimension regarding them than any of the scenes that take place in the 2010 scenes and the tension that is built during the scenes puts you on the edge of your seat. The opening gave the film such hope that would quickly come crashing to the ground when Specs and Tucker show up, but at least the film had a glimmer of hope and it demonstrates ways in which this franchise isn’t completely lifeless.
Insidious: The Last Key features callbacks to other moments in the Insidious franchise, which is meant to make the brains of every younger viewer to never comprehend where this film takes place on the timeline. All those callbacks did for me was make me question why I was watching a lesser film than those which had come before. While I have already stated my views on the director of the film, I feel the need to address the true boogeyman of not only this film but the entire Insidious franchise: Leigh Whannell. Whannell has not only written every film in the Insidious series, but he was also the braintrust for the original Saw trilogy. The only reason that I bring this up is because Whannell seems to be a one trick pony, creating a brilliant genesis which cannot craft another story, so he keeps falling back on the previous one, creating multiple timelines and scenarios that went unseen during the original genesis. I would argue that if the writer cannot truly advance a story and only return to previous concepts and themes that he should retire from the film he is working on and rather brainstorm a new idea. Whannell can create great concepts but as seen now with two series after he overstays his welcome, the franchise becomes stale and repetitive. The other area that irks me about Whannell is how he wrote himself into the series and with each film his role kept getting bigger and bigger much like his ego appears to inflate. Empires fall with such egotistical leadership and it would seem that the Insidious ship has fallen to ground.
When looking back at the entire Insidious franchise the best word that comes to mind is forgettable. While I enjoyed watching the first two installments well enough in the moment I could only give you the briefest of synopsis for the two films, while the third chapter was a bore in the moment and looking back at it now I cannot even think of the main plot of the film. In the realm of paranormal movies I believe this film series will be forgotten just as the Paranormal Activity series has been forgotten like jackolanterns the day after Halloween.
Rating: Skip It
-Jonny G