'Insidious' is probably my favourite mainstream horror film of the past five years. When it was released it was a refreshing move away from the torture-porn cycle of films and a return to the more measured, subtle chills of classic horror. It was built on characters we cared about, suspense, a creepy build up of events and some effective sudden jolts. It was a deserved hit and paved the way for the current vogue for cattle prod cinema.
I have seen 'Insidious 2' but can't remember much about it at all. Something about the cross-dressing ghost of a serial killer, or something. I remember it was quite disappointing.
'Insidious 3' is somewhere in between. It's not as surprising or as engrossing as the first one but it's not a waste of time either.
This one is a prequel of sorts. I'm not quite sure where it fits in the chronology. There's a girl who wears a Pixies t-shirt and has P J Harvey posters on her wall, so I'm guessing its sometime in the mid 1990s but then again the wi-fi is pretty good so who knows? Maybe it's just to show that she's the "alternative" type, although she clearly isn't.
Anyhow, the plot, this time is about a teenage girl who wants to communicate with her dead mother, gets knocked down by a car, has half her soul stolen by "the man who can't breathe, the man who lives in the vents", enlists reluctant psychic Elise to stop the demon stealing the other half of her soul and tries to find the time to rehearse for her drama audition. It's that plot. I think Shakespeare did it first.
On top of all that we have the scary cross-dressing woman in black screaming in people's faces and the horrible Darth Maul-styled demon from the first one relegated to a cameo in the final reel.
The real strength of the 'Insidious' franchise is when it depicts characters crossing over to "the other side". This is something that has always done well by these films and it is truly nightmarish when it starts to happen in this one. This film is at its best when it focuses on Elise the psychic lady as she wanders into the various levels of the spiritual abyss within which the demons live. Those scenes have genuine power and come close to a David Lynch like level of menace and surrealism. It helps that Lin Shaye is a really good actress and that we really don't want any harm to come to Elise.
I tried hard, but wasn't really that bothered by the other parts of the story. The film seemed to take forever to get started. Now, I don't mind horror films taking their time, actually I like it in fact, but when you spend the first twenty minutes of the movie building up to a "big scare" that's been telegraphed for months in the trailer it becomes a bit of a chore. Once it kicks in properly though the film is pretty good with lots of suspense, a few unnerving moments and big jump scares that actually are scares rather than false alarms.
There's a new monster introduced into this one: "The man who can't breathe". I'm not sure about this. "The man who leaves messy footprints everywhere" would be a more accurate moniker. At times it's a really, really, creepy creation but for the most part it's just not. His actions are certainly horrible. There's a strong scene where the victim lies defenceless on the floor of a room whilst this horror slowly, methodically shuts down all the light sources in the room. At other times it just looks like a shuffling patient who has lost his way in a hospital corridor; it's Darth Vader in a night gown. Overall he just seems a blander adversary to overcome in comparison to the foes faced in the other instalments.
One of my complaints about Chapter 2 was that there was too much explanation, too much backstory for what remained more frightening as an unknowable force of evil. Hypocritically, I would have like more information about who "the man who can't breathe" was. Why does he make people commit suicide? Why does he vomit up dust? Was he an asbestos engineer? is he related to the Mothman?
But....as much I can find ways to knock "Insidious: Chapter 3' I have to admit that it was still a hundred times better than 'Annabelle' or 'The Conjuring' or 'The Woman In Black 2". It's a good entry in the series, had some unique moments and is worth seeing if you liked the other ones. The couple behind me upped and left three quarters of the way through because it was becoming too much for them. Always a good measure of success for a horror film when people walk out.
'Insidious 3' is an okay horror. It's not great, but it will do.
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