By 
Insidious: Out of the Further (2026)
Evil found a way out.
Six entries, sixteen years, one creepy red-faced demon and enough astral projection to make the spirits file a restraining order. It’s fair to say Insidious has been around the block a few times. When James Wan and Leigh Whannell unleashed the original back in 2010, it was a relatively tiny production with a wonderfully big imagination. Made for around $1.5 million, it eventually scared up around $100 million worldwide and gave modern horror one of its most memorable supernatural worlds: the Further, a foggy purgatorial nightmare where the dead hang around in dark corners and nobody has apparently thought to install a light switch. It was simple, creepy and enormously effective. More importantly, it felt new. Five sequels later, things are getting a little tired.
Insidious: Out of the Further arrives under writer-director Jacob Chase, best known for 2020’s Come Play, with James Wan and Leigh Whannell remaining aboard as producers. Chase handles the screenplay himself, working from a story credited to both himself and The Conjuring 2 co-writer David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, and this time the Lambert family has been left behind for an entirely new supernatural ordeal.
The Further gets a little handsy.
We begin with Gemma as a child (Charli Penton), witnessing the disturbing death of her mother, Ingrid (Laura Gordon), inside their family home. Years later, an adult Gemma (Amelia Eve) is working as a dental hygienist and raising her young daughter Maya (Island Austin) in that very same house. Because apparently selling it was never an option. Gemma has spent much of her life believing her mother was mentally unwell and responsible for the tragedy that defined her childhood. But when strange figures begin appearing around the house and increasingly disturbing visions start bleeding into reality, it becomes clear that poor old Mom may have been dealing with something considerably worse than anyone realized.
And yes, naturally, the Further is involved. This time Gemma possesses a particularly inconvenient supernatural ability. She can not only enter the Further, but actually bring objects — and eventually its inhabitants — back with her. That ability attracts the attention of Cyrus (Sam Spruell), a demonic cult leader who would quite like to turn Gemma into his personal Uber service out of purgatory. What could possibly go wrong?
By this point, Insidious has reached the stage where even remembering which sequel is which has become a challenge. There was the one with the breathing mask. The one with the keys. The one with the series’ now-signature red door. Lin Shaye’s psychic investigator Elise Rainier — the series’ resident expert on all things Further — died, then came back because half the series takes place before she died, then started wandering around the Further after she died. It’s a lot.
Meet the neighbors. Maybe don’t.
Nothing has come particularly close to that original either. Wan’s first outing had an unnerving looseness to it, shifting from haunted-house scares into bizarre supernatural fantasy without ever losing its sense of fun. Most of the sequels have been perfectly watchable, occasionally scary and remarkably forgettable. Ask what happened in Chapter 3 compared with The Last Key and there’s a good chance the Further itself might need to provide the answer. That franchise fatigue is the biggest problem here.
Chase clearly knows something different is required, and the idea of actually pulling demons out of the Further is certainly an attempt to expand the mythology. The trouble is, it also feels slightly desperate. The Further was scary precisely because it was somewhere humans were never supposed to be. Turning its inhabitants into supernatural contraband that can suddenly be transported into reality takes away some of that mystery. It also causes headaches once the screenplay reaches its final act. Rules involving bodies, spirits, possession and exactly what can cross between dimensions become increasingly flexible, leading to several moments where the mythology appears to operate however the current scene requires it to.
Thankfully, Chase remains considerably better at frightening people than explaining paranormal logistics. There are some genuinely effective scares here, particularly when the story stops worrying about expanding the Insidious-verse and simply finds horrible things to hide in dark places. The standout sees Gemma crawling into a cubby house made from couch cushions and blankets while searching for Maya. What begins as an innocent little fort suddenly stretches into an impossible maze of fabric corridors, growing darker and increasingly populated by things that definitely shouldn’t be in there. It’s simple. It’s creepy. And it works.
Then there’s the dentistry. For stretches, Chase seems to be simultaneously making an Insidious sequel and quietly auditioning to direct a supernatural version of 1996’s The Dentist. Gemma’s occupation gives him an excuse to linger around mouths, teeth, instruments and all those little metal objects nobody particularly enjoys seeing while lying helplessly in a chair. One especially nasty appointment gets plenty of mileage out of rotting teeth, uncomfortable close-ups and the general sliminess of the human mouth. Demons are one thing. Dental work is where things get uncomfortable. The combination works better than expected, giving Out of the Further its own slightly grotesque personality whenever Chase leans into it. There’s an icy nastiness to those sequences that suggests he could probably build an entire horror story around a dental surgery if somebody handed him the keys.
Our main baddie Cyrus is less successful. Played by Sam Spruell, he’s a sinister cult-leader type lurking inside the Further with a collection of followers and a particularly unpleasant finger blade. Spruell gives him a strange theatrical quality, and there are moments when Cyrus is creepy enough, but he never develops into the kind of nightmare figure this series once produced almost effortlessly. The Lipstick-Face Demon needed one appearance behind Patrick Wilson to become instantly iconic. Cyrus gets considerably more screen time and still feels like someone who may be difficult to remember by the seventh chapter.
Beneath all the ghosts and questionable dimensional physics, the familiar Insidious themes remain. This has always been a series about families passing fear, guilt and trauma from one generation to the next, and Gemma’s story revolves around her terror of becoming the mother she spent years misunderstanding. Her relationship with Maya gives the supernatural material an emotional foundation, while learning the truth about Ingrid forces Gemma to reconsider whether childhood trauma always tells us the whole story. It’s hardly unexplored territory for this series, but it gives the horror some heart.
A little further than they planned to go.
Amelia Eve makes a solid lead as Gemma, bringing enough vulnerability and determination to carry the story without ever overplaying the material. She handles the quieter family drama just as comfortably as the supernatural panic, while Island Austin is convincing as her young daughter Maya and gives their relationship enough warmth to make the danger feel personal. Nope’s Brandon Perea brings an easy likability as Nick, Gemma’s supportive cop boyfriend, and Maisie Richardson-Sellers has some fun as Clare, a tattoo artist with an unexpected connection to the Further.
The supporting ghouls fare pretty well too, particularly the Acolytes, a grotesque trio of elderly figures who repeatedly appear around Gemma and give the story some of its stranger, creepier imagery. They’re unsettling in that uniquely Insidious way where something looks almost absurd until it starts moving towards you. And, of course, Lin Shaye returns as psychic Elise Rainier, still dispensing supernatural advice from beyond the grave and bringing the warmth and familiarity that has made her the connective tissue of the series.
Insidious: Out of the Further is good. Nothing more. Nothing less. There are effective scares, some clever visual ideas and enough creepy atmosphere to make another trip worthwhile. Chase brings a little invention to the formula, but the attempt to dramatically expand the Further ultimately creates more problems than possibilities. Perhaps that’s the lesson. The Further worked best when it was somewhere nobody wanted to go. After six visits, the series might finally be better off staying there. Insidious: Out of the Further still has some bite, but after this many entries, this franchise is finally starting to hit a nerve.
3 / 5 – Good
Reviewed by Dan Cachia (Mr. Movie)
Insidious: Out of the Further is distributed by Sony Pictures Australia
