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Insidious: Chapter 3
Stars: Dermot Mulroney, Stefanie Scott, Lin Shaye, Angus Sampson, Leigh Whannell, Hayley Kiyoko, Steve Coulter, Tate Berney
Director: Leigh Whannell
Another week, another horror movie sequel although, to give its writer-director Leigh Whannell his due, he has at least tried to be a little different.
But how has he achieved this, you might ask, after watching this all-too-familiar brew of supernatural shrieks, shocks and nasty things that go bump in the night?
Well, while the slick show, complete with its all-too-predictable predictable Wow, I never saw that coming! Carrie-style final scene, is patently a sequel, its actually a prequel set before the hauntings of the Lambert family that drove the previous two pictures.
So never underestimate the creative force behind the majority of Hollywood movies the need to make a profit and also, in this case, to maintain a moneymaking franchise.
And so Whannell, creator of the Insidious series, boldly goes where he has been before to deliver more of the same.
Lin Shaye, who played the psychic in the previous two pictures, returns to try and help after some persuasion traumatised teen Stefanie Scott who believes her dead mother is trying to contact her from beyond.
Do not try to contact your mother on your own, warns Shaye who senses the horrific goings-on to come.
Cue the dramatic catalyst. After being hit by a car, Scott ends up trapped with both legs in plaster in the apartment where she lives with father Dermot Mulroney and younger brother Tate Berney and is subjected to a reign of terror by hideous apparitions from beyond
This entity is very powerful, states Shaye when she finally comes to the rescue - and slickly-staged supernatural sequences prove the point.
Its the mixture as before, served up over-loudly with smart special effects and performances that fit in well enough with the chills and thrills.
Franchise renewed. Something new and/or different comes a poor second.
(The appearance of a couple of largely pointless TV psychics who join in the riotous fights against the spectres adds little: Jared Harris fulfilled much the same role and rather better, in the recent remake of Poltergeist).
Alan Frank
USA 2015. UK Distributor: EntertainmentOne. Colour.
97 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 15.
Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 2, Violence/Horror 3, Drugs 0, Swearing 2.
Review date: 04 Jun 2015