Insidious: The Red Door Reviews Say Franchise Can't Go Any Further

Blumhouse may be shutting the (red) door on Insidious. The fifth — and supposedly final — chapter in the franchise created by James Wan's SAW collaborator Leigh Whannell creeps into theaters on Friday, and the first reviews are mixed. Insidious: The Red Door is currently sitting at 44% "rotten" on the Tomatometer — better than the last installment, 2018's Insidious: The Last Key — but below the original 2010 film's 66% "fresh." Actor Patrick Wilson's directorial debut also fared better with critics than 2013's Insidious: Chapter 2 (38%) but worse than the 2015 prequel Insidious: Chapter 3 (57%).

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 (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.

But is this one door that should have remained closed? Here's what critics are saying:

Variety: "A parallel-reality fear zone. Faces in the dark. The return of repressed family demons. These are the elements that "Insidious" elevated (and that Ari Aster sprung Hereditary from), but depending on their design and execution they can be spooky — or banal — as hell. For a first-time director, Patrick Wilson doesn't do a bad job, but he's working with tropes that have already been worked to death. It's time to close this carnival of souls down."

Deadline: "The narrative meanders through supernatural phenomena that science can't explain, leading Josh and Dalton to search for answers on their own separate journeys. While the film does maintain the franchise's signature eerie atmospheric tone even with the directorial change, it drifts frustratingly slow between father and son storylines, leaving viewers to wait for the narratives to converge. When they finally do, the result is chaotic and bewildering thanks to sloppy editing and a lack of cohesiveness as the story moves all over the series' timeline and presents a lot of surface level ideas it has no intentions of expounding upon. The closer the characters get to the truth, and consequently death, the more it spirals into confusion and monotony."

The Associated Press: "The movie gradually falls apart into incoherence and the use of jumpscares of shocking images, like creepy dolls in a birdcage, a demon vomiting or circus contortionists emerging from sofas ... If the Insidious franchise is your jam, by all means go and see the original Fab Four of the Lambert family battle hollow-eyed demons for perhaps the last time. But for everyone else, why not let the past stay in the past?" 

The Daily Beast: "Its characters may be desperate to remember the things they've willfully suppressed, but as this dud confirms, some things are best left forgotten ... Insidious: The Red Door grows less chilling as it gets closer to the Further, and Josh and Dalton's climactic confrontation with unholy forces is almost stunningly limp. At least the maiden two Insidious movies tried to concoct a reason for Josh and Dalton's hauntings; here, on the other hand, their ordeal feels threadbare and scattershot."

Bloody Disgusting: "The Red Door isn't interested in the mythology but instead in examining how its ghosts fractured the family and whether their enduring love can make them whole again. Wilson reminds audiences why they fell for the Lambert family in the first place with a sentimental sequel that tenderly bids them farewell. While it doesn't give a sense of finality to the Further or its ghostly inhabitants, it does offer poignant closure to the protagonists that started it all." 

Insidious: The Red Door is in theaters July 7th.