Revisiting Insidious Chapters 3 and 4

I recently purchased Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015) and Insidious: The Last Key (2018) after my daughter and I watched the first film last weekend. It is one of those film series you watch with someone you love and want to share the experience with.  

Watching these two prequels (what I guess could be considered the Elise double feature) again for the first time since they were released (I didn't watch "The Last Key" until I believe it was on HBO), I'm actually glad I waited on the second Insidious film. Lin Shaye's presence in these two films are so essential to my enjoyment of them, but I really liked the young actress, Stefanie Scott, who portrayed Quinn Brenner in Chapter 3. She has a good head on her shoulders, having to grow up far beyond her years due to losing her mother to cancer and her father to overtime on the job as an electrician. Quinn wants to get into a prestigious acting college, but instead encounters a vile, parasitic demon from the Further, in the form of an Oxygen-deprived, deteriorated former occupant of another room upstairs in her old brownstone apartment building. This demon feeds off of Quinn, and we see when inside the Further that a portion of the teenager has been taken from her already. Now this "partial form" of Quinn is the stuff of nightmares, without eyes, mouth, hands, or feet, crawling and making knocking sounds on the floor. The demon in the form of the occupant who leaped from his window to his death floors to the sidewalk years prior is basically a skeleton with very little meat, just flesh and bones, eyes white, barely any lips when the mask is pulled away, black sludge footprints, and a slow walk...the sound effects for this creature follow the success of Wan horror films from the past. Dermot Mulroney is the tired father, fed up with the demands of a job that expects him everywhere but with his family...but as father Sean, he's also tortured when he looks at his daughter and sees his wife's face. Alex, the son, comes and goes when the film needs him to pass a remark, recognize Specs and Tucker from their faux paranormal adventures, and want to be there for his dad during a serious crisis which could take the very soul of his daughter. Chapter 3 is the prequel that "brings the band together", Elise, crippled from the loss of her husband to suicide (she didn't quite understand how debilitating depression was until losing him), and Specs and Tucker, in dire need of "parental guidance" and someone legit in their field. Elise had decided to fight off going into the Further any longer, but Quinn comes to her, wanting to contact mommy. And because Quinn tried to contact her before, Elise realizes she did make contact...the wrong kind of contact.

In Chapter 4, we go further (pun unintended) into Elise's background. The father (Josh Stewart) who beat her every time she was able to see someone else from "the other side" and a new occupant in the home of her youth (a nurse from another county, kidnapped and kept in the basement) who calls her in need of help due to the noise of a certain room Elise discovers were or are being used by the "keys demon", responsible for the death of her own mother. A pipe in the basement of the house has suitcases with the skulls of women who were kidnapped by Elise's father and later killed...and a past memory regarding a sound from a laundry room where Anna, an actual victim of her father's, was there in person, told by her father to have no one in there. When Elise left at 16, her brother begged her to stay. So Chapter 4 has Elise returning to New Mexico to see her brother for the first time in like 50 years. Bruce Davison, veteran of television and film, is the brother, Christian, with an ax to grind because of the horrors he had to live with while she was able to ditch her sorry father. Christian has two pretty daughters, both of whom will be victims of the keys demon when they follow their father into the old home, looking for a whistle. Yep, the whistle is from childhood and will be used even within the Further. I totally can see why many might consider the fourth film cheesy, and the Further is opened up even more as this incredibly expansive place with more detail. The demon that torments Elise (and the men of the house) has keys for fingers and can put them in throats and necks, locking their voices and a "knife key" that latches them prisoner in the Further. Much like Chapter 3 when Quinn's mother arrives to help save her from the demon, in Chapter 4, Elise's mother comes to the rescue of Elise and her two nieces. And one of Elise's nieces actually has her gift.

Both Chapters feature Specs and Tucker as comic relief. Considering how intense these Insidious films can be, a little comic relief is needed. In Chapter 4, both look silly when flirting with the nieces. In Chapter 3, they are goofs in way over their head until Elise can ground them with her real ability to "tap into" the paranormal. Tucker's gadgets come in handy as does Specs' fast writing, taking down what Elise sees while the different devices offer audio and video for detection and recording. But Tucker loves to eat sugar junk and Specs loves comic books (he discovers vintage comics in Christian's old bedroom, geeking out while playing with a light, that colors her finger to which he mimicks ET), always arguing with each other. Their banter can break the tension, since they often disagree on how they contribute to the ghost hunting. But Chapter 4 allows Specs to be heroic when he stops the gun-carrying current occupant of the house, tipping over a shelf on top of the violent guy. In Chapter 3, most of the film is about Elise helping Quinn's dad rescue all of his daughter. Chapter 4 is Elise doing battle with a demon from her own past, when she was a child being tormented. 

I like how the films sort of hint at the first Insidious film without walloping us with how they are prequels. I realize they are an excuse to bring back Elise and her guys, and considering we know what happens to our psychic in the first film, the only route to do that are prequels. I'm guessing a lot of folks couldn't care less if there had been any other Insidious films past the second one, but there are those of us who can't seem to get enough of them. I'm cool if there weren't any more, but I'd lie if I didn't admit I could watch another one. 

Chapter 3: 3/5

Chapter 4: 3/5