Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015)

The original Insidious was a surprisingly fresh entry into the modern horror canon.  Written by Leigh Whannell and directed by James Wan, it told of a family dealing with the their young son's soul being kidnapped by a demon.  The second chapter dealt with what had happened to the father, setting the background for why the demon would have been after his son in the first place.  A common character in both movies, due to her involvement with both father and son, was psychic Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye). 

Whannell himself takes over directing the third part, as James Wan was off directing Furious 7.  I must say he does quite a good job, even if this second sequel is much more traditionally paced than the first.

Young Quinn Brenner (Stefanie Scott) visits Elise to see if she can help her contact her mother, who had passed on from cancer years before.  Elise is reluctant to help, but attempts to contact Lilith Brenner (Ele Keats).  She does not meet with success, but senses another entity trying to reach Stefanie.  Elise warns her not to continue trying to contact her mother on her own.

Quinn herself is nervous about her future, as she has an audition for a theater school coming up.  Unfortunately, her father Sean (Dermot Mulroney), finds himself constantly dealing with an overload of work and family problems, shuffling some of the responsibility onto Quinn, who cannot wait to escape.  She is still sure her mother is trying to contact her, but starts seeing a mysterious entity waving at her when she goes to her audition.  The stress causes her to forget her lines, losing her the chance to go the school.  While hanging with her friend, she sees the man waving again and, distracted, is struck by a car. She briefly dies on the operating table and, while in a limbo state, encounters a wasted man with an oxygen mask (Michael Reid Mackay).

After returning from the hospital she tries to rest, but is continually accosted by the ghost.  Elise has visions telling her to help Quinn but, due to her own fear of the Bride in Black (Tom Fitzpatrick), a woman from the other side who attempts to kill her when she uses her ability, she gives up after being attacked by the Man Who Can't Breathe in her own home. 

At the insistence of his son Alex (Tate Berney), Sean calls in two internet ghost hunters, Specs (Whannell) and Tucker (Angus Sampson), to help find out what is going on with his daughter.  What they find is that the entity has attached itself to her.  After it attempts to maker her kill herself, Sean and the ghost hunters manage to restrain Quinn.  Elise also makes a final decision to overcome her fears to help the girl, and together they help Elise go into the Further to bring back the half of Quinn's sole that the Man possesses.  

There are no time traveling aspects in this one, and as many of the rules (and some of the characters) have already been established, it does make for a more predictable entry.  The good news is it still has quite a bit going for it, from performances to true scares (although they don't really need to amp the music like that - we get the point).  Several of the scares are quite well done as well, and the ending is not as predictable as one might think - especially since Quinn's case was never really discussed in the other two movies.  This leaves it to where things can go either way.

I know there was some disappointment with this being a prequel, considering how the second chapter ended.  I do hope that the fourth movie addresses that more, or that some of what happened here plays into it.  So far, this series hasn't truly disappointed or fallen into the wash, rinse, repeat of Saw or Paranormal Activity.

Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015)
Time: 97 minutes
Starring: Stefanie Scott, Lin Shaye, Dermot Mulroney
Director: Leigh Whannell

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Lawnmower Man (1992)

Image
Virtual reality has been one of the most hyped, and one of the most disappointing, promises of technology.  While it promotes immersion into a cybernetic world what it really provides are video games with 20-year-old graphics and the occasional bruise when one accidentally hits a closet door.  In the case of The Lawnmower Man  what it is promising is that something with graphics just a little bit better than Dire Straits's "Money for Nothing" video will somehow change the world and alter humanity. It was laughable then and it is laughable now.  The only person not laughing was Stephen King, who demanded that his name be removed from all future advertising for the movie because he never wrote this.  The story, of which a short film was made in the 1980s, involves a man unwittingly hiring a Greek god to mow his lawn and, after said god creates a spectacle, paying for the landscaping with his life.  It's only a few pages and, in my opinion, it is one of King's worst
Read more

Things (1989)

Image
Most of the time when I hear a movie is the worst ever I know that is hyperbole. There are few candidates and I would even say the famous book chronicling the worst movies ever made got it wrong.  Plan 9 from Outer Space is laughably incompetent, but enjoyable.  The worst kind of films are the ones where no joy can be found in the watching experience, for reasons ranging from unlikeable characters to just sheer boredom.  A truly horrible movie is something like  Things.   This is a 1989 direct-to-video horror film from Canada, filmed on 8mm and dubbed once it was completed and the makers realized most of the sound was unusable.  Director Andrew Jordan and writer Barry J. Gillis managed to grab porn star Amber Lynn for an hour to shoot her as a news reporter just so they could put her face on the video box.  Most of the music was done by Gillis, and some of it by a local band called Familiar Strangers.  It was filmed in large part in Andrew Norman's basement, and most of the props w
Read more

The Omen (1976)

Image
A movie does not have to be high art to strike a chord with the public.  The Omen was an attempt by writer David Seltzer to make some money and get a nice trip to the UK.  It just so happened that because of The Exorcist the public was hungry for more movies involving demons and such, and adding a veneer of Catholicism didn't hurt either.  The Vatican's secrets are most likely of more interest to scholars than anyone else, but a religion doesn't hang on over the centuries without creating a bit of mystery.  In this case, Seltzer settled on the Revelation of St. John, the low-fantasy portion of the Bible and, instead of an hilariously named (albeit historically correct) demon named Pazuzu, with The Omen we get the son of Satan himself.  When Robert Thorne (Gregory Peck) is informed that his child has died he visits a priest at the hospital in Rome where his wife is coalescing.  He is given an offer too good to be true: a foundling, whose mother died in childbirth, was born
Read more