As a huge fan of the Insidious franchise (and of horror movies in general), I avoided watching this sequel for years due to all the hate it got. So I sat down to watch it recently and...they really did drop the ball with this one.
Let me start by saying, it isn't all bad. This isn't Jason Takes Manhattan levels of crap. This movie isn't offensive to horror movies or anything. But it is a mediocre horror film. "Mediocre" is really the best word that comes to mind when I think of this film.
The movie blows its load early, with the opening fifteen minutes or so being by far the best part of the movie. It's creepy, it's chilling, and it's effective in setting up a story that you care about. Making the story about Elise's childhood is a pretty cool direction to take the franchise. Unfortunately, the movie never quite reaches the highs of that opening. Not only that, but the movie seems to get worse the longer it goes on.
First off, the acting is pretty terrible. This isn't a well directed movie at all. There's a lot of awkward moments, cringey lines of dialogue, and absolutely terrible attempts at humor. The "psychic sidekick" joke made me want to smash my tv with a hammer. It was bad enough that they did it once, but they do it like three times. The two paranormal investigator guys need to stop trying to be funny, because when they're being serious characters, I actually enjoy them. But when they're trying to be funny, they make me wish they weren't in the movie.
Elise (or is it Elyse?) herself is ok. Like I said I did enjoy that they dug into her backstory, but as the movie went on I found myself not caring all that much about it. The story was just so strange. The key demon was so silly and not scary in the slightest, and to be honest, there's a large chunk of this movie that doesn't even feel like an Insidious film. It feels like an action thriller that's pretending to be an Insidious film. There's even a shootout inside of a house, I was like "what is happening right now". I'm not going to spoil the film, but the "twist" was awful and pretty damn stupid. Again...who cares? There were so many directions they could have taken her backstory and they landed on THIS?
On top of all that, the film just really isn't scary. And you'll never hear me say that about haunted house movies with ghosts or demons, because I find this sub genre to be by far the scariest in all of horror. I believe in ghosts and all that stuff, so films like The Exorcist and all that really scare me and make me seriously uncomfortable. The first three Insidious films are much scarier and creepier than this one. Nothing lingered in my mind at all when it was over. I don't even think I jumped once. There's like one main jump scare in the film, but it's obvious that they just tried to copy the big jump scare from the first one, but it's not nearly as scary, it looks so cheesy. If there's another jump scare I really don't even remember it. So much of this film was unmemorable to me. There is a "lame-ness" to this movie that wasn't present in the others. It's kind of lame.
Also, what happened to the soundtrack? The creepy violins are gone, and the new music isn't very good or memorable at all. Again, this doesn't feel like an Insidious film. 1-3 all feel like they're part of the same universe. They have a similar feel and tone. Without Elise and the investigators, you wouldn't think that this is an Insidious film. Even the Further doesn't even look the same. It looks so cheap and grown together. Did they even try?
Like I said though, it's not the worst thing in the world. It's competently shot I guess, I wasn't sitting in misery. On a positive note, I did like the two female characters that we get introduced to here. They were likeable and I enjoyed their interactions with the investigators, I found that to be a pretty charming sub plot. I also liked how it tied into the first Insidious film. I won't spoil it but I thought how they did it was really cool. Also, as stupid as the "final fight" scene was (and trust me, it's REALLY stupid, like beyond stupid), I did get teary eyed in the scene right after. I always like it when horror movies make it about the bond between family.
That's really all I can say about the positives. Yeah I really wanted to like this one, or at least walk away from it going "hmm...not that bad, I think that one's pretty underrated". But I can't. It just wasn't that good. Like I said, it just got worse and worse as it went on, and by the last 30 minutes or so I was kind of checked out. This is definitely a "checking my watch" kind of movie. It wasn't interesting, it wasn't scary, it wasn't funny, it was honestly kind of boring. Small moments of something decent were few and far between. But overall, I can't recommend this one. Like I said, this isn't F tier bad. It's not a dumpster fire. But I think it sits firmly in the D tier, and is by far the weakest in the franchise.
See it if you're a die hard fan who wants to experience every film in the series. But I can't recommend it to anyone else. If I'm doing a marathon I'll watch it, but I hope the series doesn't get any worse than this.
4/10.
Let me start by saying, it isn't all bad. This isn't Jason Takes Manhattan levels of crap. This movie isn't offensive to horror movies or anything. But it is a mediocre horror film. "Mediocre" is really the best word that comes to mind when I think of this film.
The movie blows its load early, with the opening fifteen minutes or so being by far the best part of the movie. It's creepy, it's chilling, and it's effective in setting up a story that you care about. Making the story about Elise's childhood is a pretty cool direction to take the franchise. Unfortunately, the movie never quite reaches the highs of that opening. Not only that, but the movie seems to get worse the longer it goes on.
First off, the acting is pretty terrible. This isn't a well directed movie at all. There's a lot of awkward moments, cringey lines of dialogue, and absolutely terrible attempts at humor. The "psychic sidekick" joke made me want to smash my tv with a hammer. It was bad enough that they did it once, but they do it like three times. The two paranormal investigator guys need to stop trying to be funny, because when they're being serious characters, I actually enjoy them. But when they're trying to be funny, they make me wish they weren't in the movie.
Elise (or is it Elyse?) herself is ok. Like I said I did enjoy that they dug into her backstory, but as the movie went on I found myself not caring all that much about it. The story was just so strange. The key demon was so silly and not scary in the slightest, and to be honest, there's a large chunk of this movie that doesn't even feel like an Insidious film. It feels like an action thriller that's pretending to be an Insidious film. There's even a shootout inside of a house, I was like "what is happening right now". I'm not going to spoil the film, but the "twist" was awful and pretty damn stupid. Again...who cares? There were so many directions they could have taken her backstory and they landed on THIS?
On top of all that, the film just really isn't scary. And you'll never hear me say that about haunted house movies with ghosts or demons, because I find this sub genre to be by far the scariest in all of horror. I believe in ghosts and all that stuff, so films like The Exorcist and all that really scare me and make me seriously uncomfortable. The first three Insidious films are much scarier and creepier than this one. Nothing lingered in my mind at all when it was over. I don't even think I jumped once. There's like one main jump scare in the film, but it's obvious that they just tried to copy the big jump scare from the first one, but it's not nearly as scary, it looks so cheesy. If there's another jump scare I really don't even remember it. So much of this film was unmemorable to me. There is a "lame-ness" to this movie that wasn't present in the others. It's kind of lame.
Also, what happened to the soundtrack? The creepy violins are gone, and the new music isn't very good or memorable at all. Again, this doesn't feel like an Insidious film. 1-3 all feel like they're part of the same universe. They have a similar feel and tone. Without Elise and the investigators, you wouldn't think that this is an Insidious film. Even the Further doesn't even look the same. It looks so cheap and grown together. Did they even try?
Like I said though, it's not the worst thing in the world. It's competently shot I guess, I wasn't sitting in misery. On a positive note, I did like the two female characters that we get introduced to here. They were likeable and I enjoyed their interactions with the investigators, I found that to be a pretty charming sub plot. I also liked how it tied into the first Insidious film. I won't spoil it but I thought how they did it was really cool. Also, as stupid as the "final fight" scene was (and trust me, it's REALLY stupid, like beyond stupid), I did get teary eyed in the scene right after. I always like it when horror movies make it about the bond between family.
That's really all I can say about the positives. Yeah I really wanted to like this one, or at least walk away from it going "hmm...not that bad, I think that one's pretty underrated". But I can't. It just wasn't that good. Like I said, it just got worse and worse as it went on, and by the last 30 minutes or so I was kind of checked out. This is definitely a "checking my watch" kind of movie. It wasn't interesting, it wasn't scary, it wasn't funny, it was honestly kind of boring. Small moments of something decent were few and far between. But overall, I can't recommend this one. Like I said, this isn't F tier bad. It's not a dumpster fire. But I think it sits firmly in the D tier, and is by far the weakest in the franchise.
See it if you're a die hard fan who wants to experience every film in the series. But I can't recommend it to anyone else. If I'm doing a marathon I'll watch it, but I hope the series doesn't get any worse than this.
4/10.