A prequel to the first film, Insidious: Chapter 3 follows Quinn Brenner (Stefanie Scott), a teenage girl who has recently lost her mother, Lilith. She believes that Lilith's spirit is still within the building and is trying to contact her, so she reaches out to Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye) - a recently retired Medium - for help. However Elise's ability is infected with a demonic presence that prevents her from helping Quinn. After a demon leads Quinn into a car accident, she becomes bed-ridden from her injuries, and starts to get harassed by the real supernatural presence in her building, a demon known as "the man who cannot breathe" (Michael Reid MacKay).
The problem with the Insidious trilogy and other like it, is their utter dependence on jump scares. Some may love this technique, but it's a cop-out. The fact that we all have a fight-or-flight defense system doesn't mean that the film is cleaver enough to instill actual terror in us. They're manipulative, lame and ultimately not even effective here because the timing is so predictable. I ended up sitting back in my seat counting down the seconds until the next ear-bursting abomination of cinematic form. Not scared and not interested.
The only provocative section of the film, which actually manages to build some sort of appropriate atmosphere, comes in the second half of the film when Elise - the series regular - enters 'the dark world' (or was it 'the further'? They look exactly the same) in search of "the man who can't breathe". She enters a long dark corridor bookended with a red elevator. An ominous room, no. 514. Sound familiar? It should, it's been lifted straight out of The Shining, they can't even be bothered to come up with original content. But is it actually possible to create unique story lines in a genre that seems to have been rewriting the same garbage for decades? Every now and then this does happen, but not nearly often enough to lift the genre out of the pulpy mass of cheap reboots.
Unsurprisingly, the setup is cheesy, and exceptionally long-winded for a 90 minute film within a pre-existing franchise. The dialogue is nothing short of terrible and the characters are just unbelievably stupid. The father seems more concerned about his cracked ceiling when he discovers bloody footprints in the apartment above Quinns room, and after admitting that there must be something inside the building, seems to naively mock his daughter when she suggests that something is haunting her - "Sure, I believe you" he says sarcastically. Elise is the only mildly interesting character, mainly because she has an all too brief section of utter badassness (clearly that's a word) when she stands up to the demons. Angus Sampson's dopey character is also good fun, mainly because of his extremely unusual haircut/beard combo. I must admit, I was thoroughly entertained throughout this film, but for all the wrong reasons. Every plot-piece, character reveal and jump-scare was so idiotic that I was laughing all the way through, however if I had actually watched the first 2 - which I understand are just more of the same - then I probably wouldn't have even been entertained. That's the only reason that I'm giving this any stars.
Insidious: Chapter 3 is a shit movie, but at least it's short.
Unsurprisingly, the setup is cheesy, and exceptionally long-winded for a 90 minute film within a pre-existing franchise. The dialogue is nothing short of terrible and the characters are just unbelievably stupid. The father seems more concerned about his cracked ceiling when he discovers bloody footprints in the apartment above Quinns room, and after admitting that there must be something inside the building, seems to naively mock his daughter when she suggests that something is haunting her - "Sure, I believe you" he says sarcastically. Elise is the only mildly interesting character, mainly because she has an all too brief section of utter badassness (clearly that's a word) when she stands up to the demons. Angus Sampson's dopey character is also good fun, mainly because of his extremely unusual haircut/beard combo. I must admit, I was thoroughly entertained throughout this film, but for all the wrong reasons. Every plot-piece, character reveal and jump-scare was so idiotic that I was laughing all the way through, however if I had actually watched the first 2 - which I understand are just more of the same - then I probably wouldn't have even been entertained. That's the only reason that I'm giving this any stars.
Insidious: Chapter 3 is a shit movie, but at least it's short.
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