Here’s the premise: Parapsychologist Dr. Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye) faces her most fearsome and personal haunting yet – in her own family home. As a child, Lin could see and talk to the spirit world, her dad (Josh Stewart) used brutal methods to squash her ability; now as an adult, she is called by the new owner of her childhood house to help him with the spirits that surround the estate.
As a franchise, Insidious has done a pretty good job, the initial film was very well done and loved by the audiences; while the second film was not as good, the third film returned to level the audiences wanted. This fourth installment stays on this trajectory and delivers a top notch horror film that will scare you and make you clench the stranger beside you.
Lin Shaye does a great job bringing Elise to the next level, and it is fantastic to see her back story and understand where she comes from and how she had to deal with the βgiftβ and also how her family dealt with it. Also back for this film is Specs and Tucker (Leigh Whannell, Angus Sampson) the two associates of Elise, they provide the very dry comic relief for the movie and they do a decent job.
The scares are genuine, with very few fake jump scares, so when they happen it makes you either grip your seat or gasp out loud; depending on how your scare reaction manifests. I am a gripper, so the arm of my chair got a got groping for sure. The story itself was awesome, I loved Eliseβs back story and the subsequent story of the house and who and why behind the hauntings were very intriguing.
If you are a fan of the franchise, you will love the movie; although, there are references to the franchise, you can still enjoy the story and scares without having seen the other three.
Russell Lockhart