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Movie Review: 'Insidious: The Last Key'

Lyn Shaye-led horror franchise goes out on high note.

By Sean PatrickPublished 6 years ago 4 min read
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I’ve finally figured out why I love the 'Insidious' franchise so much. It’s not that the franchise is all that better than most modern horror films, it still has the clumsiness and exposition laden dialogue and awkward humor that mark most low budget horror of the era. But, what 'Insidious' has over other modern horror movies is great characters. Genuinely likable, funny, and strong characters that we can really root for, especially Lyn Shaye’s brilliant Elise Rainier.

Insidious: The Last Key stars Lyn Shaye as Elise Rainier. Elise is a psychic who can speak to the dead and she’s made a business of it with her partners, Specs (Leigh Whannell, also the series screenwriter) and Tucker (Angus Simpson). Together they battle demons but their latest investigation is one that hits close to home, quite literally for Elise; this haunting is in her childhood home in Five Keys, New Mexico.

In an exceptional opening scene we are introduced to Elise as a child, played by Ava Colker). We find that Elise has always had the ability to speak to the dead, an ability that her mother encouraged and her father punished, quite violently. The opening scene finds Elise locked in her basement by her abusive father and suffering an immense tragedy in the fallout. The opening is exceptionally well-staged with a terrific jump scare and a genuinely moving bit of tragedy that only deepens our connection to Elise our franchise heroine.

Cut to Elise awakening from a dream in her home in California. Each dream for Elise is a piece of a puzzle she can use when she goes into 'The Further' that place between life and death where she battles demons for the souls of those who are taken. It is then that Elise receives a call from a man in New Mexico who has a haunting that happens to be in Elise's childhood home. The demons are calling her back to the place where her gift first took hold.

It is impossible to understate just what a find Lyn Shaye was for this franchise. While Hollywood seems to go out of its way to ignore actresses of Lyn Shaye’s age, Leigh Whannell recognized her soothing presence and inner strength and saw what a great hero she might make for a demon fighting franchise. Shaye’s warmth and understanding bely a toughness and bravery that have made this franchise one of the most consistently engaging and entertaining in a desperately faltering genre.

What Whannell recognizes more than most horror movie screenwriters is that people are compelled by characters and not by jump scares. Point of fact, a jump scare can be even jumpier if we are legitimately invested in the characters being frightened along with us. We care so much about Elise, Specs and Tucker that we are always on guard for them, wishing we could warn them, we talk to the screen in our mind as we fear for them and that makes the movie so much more compelling.

Many modern horror movies are built around colorful villains and CGI gore effects all happening around generically attractive casts who we don’t care about. Leigh Whannell offers a corrective on that by starting with colorful heroes and then giving them something frightening to overcome. It’s not rocket science and Leigh Whannell hasn’t reinvented the wheel with the 'Insidious' franchise, but he stands out as one of the few practitioners of character-first horror.

That Whannell also writes with a strong wit is nice bonus but yes, 'Insidious' the franchise stands out because it is the opposite of the current trend in horror. While everyone else is searching for the next Freddy Krueger, Whannell and his directing partners, here Adam Robitel of the 'Paranormal Activity' franchise, are searching for the next Nancy, the hero of A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Starting with a good hero is what modern horror has forgotten. While they search for a scary new franchise villain to build on, Leigh Whannell went the other way and gave us three heroes we like and explored the villains with them. Again, it's not a major reinvention, it's just a good idea and the fact that Whannell is a strong writer of good characters and good scares brings it all together.

Insidious: The Last Key has terrific scares, a few good laughs, but most importantly, it has lovable characters. With all of this in place I can forgive some clunky direction and editing choices. Adam Robitel was trained in the Paranormal Activity school, having directed the most recent entry in that franchise and he still has a lot to learn. What Robitel does best here is make sure not to get in the way of what we have come to love about the 'Insidious' franchise, Elise, Specs and Tucker, our heroes.

This is said to be the final movie in the Insidious franchise and if so, The Last Key is a good note to go out on. Lyn Shaye is tremendous, Whannell's writing is on point and the jump scares are some of the best in the genre. What more could we ask of a modern horror franchise? Each outing has been genuinely better than the last and Insidious: The Last Key may be the best of the bunch.

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About the Creator

Sean Patrick

Hello, my name is Sean Patrick He/Him, and I am a film critic and podcast host for the I Hate Critics Movie Review Podcast I am a voting member of the Critics Choice Association, the group behind the annual Critics Choice Awards.

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