Insidious: The Last Key
Director: Adam Robitel
Writer: Leigh Whannell
Sequel to: Insidious, Insidious: Chapter 2, Insidious: Chapter 3
Cast: Lin Shaye, Leigh Whannell, Angus Sampson, Kirk Acevedo, Caitlin Gerard, Spencer Locke, Josh Stewart, Tessa Ferrer, Bruce Davison, Ty Simpkins, Rose Byrne, Patrick Wilson, Barbara Hershey, Joseph Bishara
Seen on: 11.1.2018
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Plot:
Elise (Lin Shaye) is a successful parapsychologist with a lot of experience under her belt. But when she is called to a case in her own childhood home, she declines to help. She can’t stomach the idea to go back to where she first encountered the supernatural. But her conscience doesn’t let her leave the cry for help unanswered. Her assistants Specs (Leigh Whannell) and Tucker (Angus Sampson) accompany her on her way to New Mexico.

Insidious: The Last Key is, unfortunately, a disappointment after the strong films in the series before it (especially the first two). The character work is still solid, but it just isn’t scary.

I really liked that the film focused on Elise – she has been a constant in the series, and Lin Shaye is great, so it’s really nice to get a film that is mostly occupied with her and her past. She’s such an unlikely protagonist in a horror film: usually the older (female) psychics are relegated to being colorful sidekicks.

Here, the colorful sidekicks are the white dudes, Specs and Tucker. And I like the two of them and their utter devotion to Elise. So seeing them was also very nice.

The trouble doesn’t lie with the narrative angle or the characters. It is simply the fact that the film isn’t scary. Not only that, the big showdown is so underwhelming that I seriously doubted that it was the showdown already. I honestly expected there to be more to it. But there wasn’t.

And there are horror films that aren’t scary, that aren’t supposed to be scary in the first place. They can be quite good. But the Insidious films so far have been very scary indeed and so to get one that is barely frightening at all, is absolutely disappointing.

Summarizing: just doesn’t hold a candle to the first films in the series