What’s it about?

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.

What’d we think?

As long-time franchise star Patrick Wilson’s directorial debut, I was curious to see the fifth entry in the Insidious franchise, continuing the story from James Wan’s and Leigh Whannel’s first two movies. As an Insidious casual, I found this pretty easy to pick up as the movie does a decent job of keeping the audience up to speed with the lore. Unfortunately, the movie was overly convoluted, awkwardly paced, repetitive and criminally devoid of scares.

I don’t subscribe to the idea that a horror movie has to be terrifying to be enjoyable, but for a series that prides itself on its inventive bait-and-switch jumpscares, I thought this one failed. Sure, there are spooks and things go boo as you’d expect, but the movie is completely devoid of atmosphere or stakes.

We follow Patrick Wilson and Ty Simpkin’s characters nine years after the events of the second movie. The story mostly takes place on a college campus, with Ty Simpkin’s revisiting his past trauma through spooky situations. Screenwriters should consider consulting with actual young people because this is some of the most unnatural “young person” dialogue I’ve heard in a long time. Unfortunately, Patrick Wilson’s first attempt at directing didn’t impress. The entire third act was confusingly edited and framed such that it sucked the tension right out of the movie.

The Insidious movies have a reputation for being the horror movie equivalent of an exciting theme park ride and James Wan understands how to frame an atmospheric scene, but after this one I feel like they need to close the door on this series.