I actually really liked Insidious and Insidious Part Two. Yes, I admit, I generally like director James Wan’s cinematography and technical acumen in terms of positioning, action and suspense. No, he’s not a storyteller like Ari Aster and Jordan Peele, but he has a solid eye for scene-building.
So it’s a shame to see him move on to other things, leaving Insidious to less talented directors, but now it’s back and in the hands of a very, very underrated actor, Patrick Wilson, who has Made Insidious: The Red Door his directorial debut.
The Red Door is actually a sort of chronological sequel to Part Two, as it focuses again on the Lambert family and how their relationship with The Further, a sort of shadowy dimension below us that also harbors ghosts and demons, has been twisted their relationship. Not only does Wilson himself return as Josh, but Ty Simpkins returns as his now half-old son, Dalton, as does Rose Byrne as Rene. The family is reunited, which means The Red Door is already better than the mediocre prequel on several classic parameters.
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Wilson strikes a delicate balance between exhibition-driven melodrama and more intense horror settings most of the time.The entire movie actually belongs to Simpkin’s Dalton and Wilson’s Josh, and while The Red Door has a lot going for it, it’s essentially a“Sin of the Father”Narratively, Josh and Dalton each struggled with their own upbringings, and they may never fully break free from their connection to The Further.
That’s not to say Wilson reinvented the wheel here, or even swapped out the series’ classic setup for a different, innovative approach. There’s plenty of suspense and dissonant strumming of the stringed instruments, leading to an eerie moment. Insidious is Insidious, for better or worse, but just as effective as the first time? Well, The Red Door can’t do that.
Most annoying of all, Rose Byrne’s Renai is reduced to a walking cliché that does nothing more than react to something Dalton and Josh do. Not only that, but some of the phone conversations with Renai were almost entirely an unwelcome interpretation. It’s just bad storytelling.
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Insidious: The Red Door is at its best when Wilson takes his time, and there are five or six times he builds up a single sequence in minutes and really exploits the suspense in a more classic way. It’s like a gold medal, sometimes of the same caliber as the best scenes in The Conjuring.
The Red Door isn’t perfect, far from it. But without a doubt, this is one of the best horror movies to watch in 2023.
