Review of Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015) by Ildefonso M — 21 Jul 2016

Not only does this keep the Insidious franchise rolling, but manages to provide just as many scares as the original, while maintaining the elaborate story telling of the second film.

"Insidious: Chapter 3" is a prequel to the first two Insidious films, taking place just a couple years earlier. A young girl, Quinn Brenner, lost her Mother due to cancer and had tried to make contact with her. She goes to a woman named Elise, who can supposedly help make said contact. But when she calls out to her Mother, she attracts something much more evil and sinister that has plans of its own to take her helpless soul.

When I first saw the trailers for "Insidious", I felt a mixture of emotions. I was excited for the fact that one of my favorite franchises was receiving a sequel, but also dissapointed at the fact that it looked like a cash grab. Thankfully, this film was not that. In fact, it was a quality made horror film that completes the Insidious trilogy in a perfect manner, and hopefully, it remains a trilogy. If not, I just hope that the future films they make can be as good as this one, or even the original.

Let's start out with the performances here. We get just a couple of returning characters, but overall, it's an entirely new cast. Lin Shaye (Elise) is the main returning character, and she gives a very committed performance here. This is probably her best performance out of the three films so far, and her character is given far more depth. We get to see some of the backstory of Elise, and we get to see a more damaged, emotional side of her character. Stefanie Scott was solid as the main lead, and Dermot Mulroney gave it his best. It was a solid cast all around, led by the talented Lin Shaye.

When I saw that James Wan himself wasn't directing this film, I was extremely dissapointed. He is one of my favorite directors of all time, and is responsible for giving us the first two films. What I didn't realize was that the director of this film worked with Wan throughout, and they're actually close friends. So while watching this film, I could see the cleverness and quality of the project, and it was a well made horror film. I was presently surprised in every way, and it's honestly one of the biggest shocks of the year to me. I expected the film to be nothing but absolute garbage, but I'm glad I was proven wrong.

This movie is very smart, creepy, and dark in many ways. There are more than a handful of moments that left chills down my spine, and many moments that felt so real that I was legitimately scared. The scares are so smart in this movie, and there are plenty of memorable scenes. There's this one scene where Quinn, who's crippled, is thrown onto the ground by an unknown force. As she lies there helplessly, all you can see is the feet of the demon walking around. It slowly shuts the door and closes the blinds, clouding the room in complete darkness. You can't help but feel helpless yourself, as there's nothing that can be done. It's moments like these that scare you because you yourself wouldn't know how to react, and it feels so intrusive. They manage to scare you in many ways, and a lot of those scares stick with you after the film.

The story had a surprising amount of depth to it. The characters were flushed out and there was more of a personal/emotional background to the situations at hand. Everything made sense, and it felt like what they were doing actually had a purpose. I truly envied the story, as it brought a personal and emotional side that was possibly even deeper than the previous films.

The thing I didn't like about this movie was its attempts at trying to connect it to its predecessors. It tried very hard to put in multiple references in order to tie things together, and while a couple of them were neat, others felt very forced and out of place. You really didn't need to bring back the woman in black, nor did you have to bring back Specs and Tucker. Elements like those that played a big part in the film felt very awkward, and they didn't fit with the overall storyline. However, the film was still enjoyable enough, despite the reluctance to make the film stand on its own.

In the end, this is one of the biggest surprises of the year to me. It was an intelligent, creepy horror film that managed to complete a trilogy. "Insidious" will forever be one of my favorite horror franchises, and this is a nice gem to add to that collection.