Insidious: The Last Key (2018)

Director: Adam Robitel

Writer: Leigh Whannell (Screenplay)

Starring: Lin Shaye, Leigh Whannell, Angus Sampson, Kirk Acevedo, Caitlin Gerard, Spencer Locke, Josh Stewart

 

Plot: Parapsychologist Dr. Elise Rainier faces her most fearsome and personal haunting yet – in her own family home.

Tagline – Fear comes home.

Runtime: 1 Hour 43 Minutes

 

There may be spoilers the rest of the review

 

Verdict: Nice World Building Horror

 

Story: Insidious: The Last Key starts as Elise (Shaye) is getting used to her new team of Specs (Whannell) and Tucker (Sampson) the ambitious paranormal investigators. Elise gets called to investigate her childhood home, where she learnt to battle the ghosts even against her strict father Gerald (Stewart).

Returning home to help Ted Garza (Acevedo) Elise must confront her past in the house and outside the house as her family gets taken by the very demon which took killed her mother, leading Elise to enter the Furthering one more time.

 

Thoughts on Insidious: The Last Key

 

Characters – Elise has slowly become the face of this franchise, she shows the strength to battle ghosts and demons which would leave many people screaming in fear, her skills show her to be a powerful warrior against the evil. We do learn how Elise learnt to cope with the visits at a young age too. Specs and Tucker are the experts and easily the funniest thing in this movie, they come of socially awkward at times, but are learning how to battle the spirits with Elise. Ted Garza calls for help and here he becomes terrified about what is in the house. Imogen and Melissa are nieces of Elise who only meet for the first time, they make the bad decisions in this movie and are too easily understanding of what Elise can do.

Performances – Lin Shaye is the star of the film, she remains calm through the film and by the end you want to see her be a real ghost hunter. Leigh Whannell and Angus Sampson do have great chemistry together which helps with their performances. Kirk Acevedo is good without being great, we don’t see enough of his character for him to do much more that look worried and scared. Caitlin Gerard and Spencer Locke are easily the weakest links in this movie, it feels like the producers went, ‘you can have an elderly lady in the lead role, but you must have beautiful blondes making terrible decisions too’ hence why they got hired for beauty over understanding the horror side of these films.

Story – The story continues to show us about Elise which is good, we knew when we met her in the first film that she had battle paranormal spirits before and learning about one of her first grabs our attention. The story does try to throw twists and turns in as well as Easter Eggs from the previous films, which is fine and good fan service. The creature spirit they must face has plenty of ups and downs, the way its collects is terrifying, but we don’t learn enough about its own origin. We know horror doesn’t need the deepest of stories and this is fine, this world builds for the next chapter without damaging the previous films.

Horror/Mystery – The horror is a right mixed bag here, we have moments which is just BANG something on screen where the sound makes you jump over the actual image, this is bad, but the creature creation for the key holder is terrifying especially with what it does to keep people quiet. The mystery is good, but never feels truly solved by the end of the movie.

Settings – The setting for the most part is the house on prison grounds, fine this should have extra spirits here and the Furthering always looks good for us to see.

Special Effects – The effects when it comes to creating the creature are wonderful as we see less for the most part until the final showdown, by the book but it works.

Scene of the Movie – The key creatures locking.

That Moment That Annoyed Me – The Rainer twins were awful.

Final Thoughts – This is another good addition to the Insidious line, it continues to build the world and doesn’t give too much away for future films.

 

Overall: Nice addition to the universe.

Rating