Insidious: The Red Door is a unique horror franchise sequel in that it is centered around the real-time maturation of one its stars, actor Ty Simpkins. Before he was popping up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Iron Man 3, Avengers: Endgame), Simpkins was best known for playing young Dalton Lambert, son of Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson), a man who had been haunted by demons all his life – and passed that curse down to his son. Horror fans saw Ty Simpkins grow a bit between Insidious (2010) and Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013), but the fact that the sequel takes place right after the first film ends meant that Simpkins’s aging couldn’t be highlighted; Insidious: The Red Door will have no choice but to make the thirteen years of aging Ty Simpkins had gone through the focal point of its story:
Videos by ComicBook.com
In Insidious: The Red Door, the horror franchise’s original cast returns for the final chapter of the Lambert family’s terrifying saga. To put their demons to rest once and for all, Josh (Patrick Wilson) and a college-aged Dalton (Ty Simpkins) must go deeper into The Further than ever before, facing their family’s dark past and a host of new and more horrifying terrors that lurk behind the red door.
Speaking to ComicBook.com, Ty Simpkins addressed what it’s like to grow up in the spotlight of a major franchise role:
“I mean I think the biggest challenge is just like: what his personality is. You see him as a kid and people as kids are just so different than who they are as adults – but also when it’s a movie character who is a kid, they don’t really fully flesh them out. As a kid you’re just there to be scared, or to be creepy or whatever it is. Now, I have to find out who ‘Dalton’ is and also, at the same time, make him likable while also making him very dark and moody and gloomy. But that’s where all the fun came in, and a lot of conversations with Patrick made that very easy and a lot of fun.”
Insidious star Patrick Wilson is not just returning for Insidious: The Red Door – he’s also directing it. Wilson also spoke to ComicBook.com about what it was like reuniting with Ty Simpkins as his onscreen son after the boy had grown up so much:
“Crazy. I mean it really is – it’s awesome… I love that. I was excited for that,” Wilson explained. “To go toe-to-toe with Ty, I think that’s a nice rite of passage. You know we roll very deep: I was first his dad in Little Children eighteen years ago, so he was three. It was great seeing him grow up into a nice young man.”
Indeed, Ty Simpkins first co-starred with Patrick Wilson, Kate Winslet, Jennifer Connelly, Jackie Earle Haley and many others in Todd Field’s (Tar) Oscar-nominated drama Little Children in 2006. Finally seeing him able to physically challenge Wilson in Insidious: The Red Door will indeed be an event to watch.
Insidious: The Red Door will be in theaters on Friday.
Related Posts
-
Image Courtesy of Vertical Entertainment
