2026 Insidious: Out of the Further

• Directed by: Jacob Chase
• Written by: Jacob Chase, David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, Leigh Whannell
• Stars: Amelia Eve, Island Austin, Lin Shaye
• Run Time: 1 Hour, 46 Minutes
• Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxU8FU3o75A

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

A young single mom living with her daughter in the house she grew up in starts being able to see and hear ghosts and travel to The Further, and all sorts of creepy weirdness happens. It’s a freshening up of the franchise, with all new characters except for the continuity of Elise played by Lin Shaye.

We were both impressed, considering it to be one of the best of the series.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open in Pittsburg in 1999. A little girl, Gemma, walks into a house and finds her mother passed out in the kitchen. She then cleans up the house and makes her own dinner. When her mother eventually wakes up, she’s disoriented and weird, and Gemma seems a little afraid of her. We soon see that the mother has some serious mental issues. She beats herself to death in the bathroom.. And credits roll.

Twenty years later, Gemma is a grown up and a dentist. As she walks her daughter Maya home, we see the neighborhood and the all-too-normal neighborhood– except for a trio of creepy, slow-moving people who don’t belong. That night, Gemma encounters some weirdness that reminds her of the past. She gets a phone call from her long-dead mother begging for help. No, that was all a dream– maybe.

We meet Gemma’s boyfriend Nick who is also a patient. Later she gets trapped in a “Backrooms” extension of Maya’s cushion fort. She’s not alone in there, either; those three weird old people from outside are in here as well. “He’s coming,” says the old man, and then Gemma wakes up. She’s brought something back with her this time though, a brooch with a pin.

At work, she gets the same old man as a client as she cleans his teeth. He’s weird and gross, not saying a word. His mouth is a mess and the x-rays are… scary. He grows a second set of teeth and bites her, which somehow sends her to The Further.

It’s all pretty awful, but just as the creatures are about to tear her apart, a mysterious old woman shows up and runs all the monsters off. The woman is Elise, from all the previous films, and tells Gemma that she needs to find her in the real world. Gemma leaves Maya with Nick and goes searching for Elise.

Gemma learns that Elise died in 2011 (in the first film) and lives in the Further now. She goes to find Clare, who knows all about this stuff and channels Elise so that Gemma can talk to the dead woman. Elise explains that Gemma’s not been having dreams, she’s really being transported to the Further, where she sees the dead; she’s a traveller. She has a special gift; she can bring things back to the real world from the Further, which is really convenient for the bad things that exist there.

Back at home, Nick starts seeing the dead as well; she’s brought one back with her– well, half of one. The trio of old people move into the neighbor’s house, but they won’t speak to Nick, a policeman. While he keeps them busy, Gemma sneaks in and looks around; there’s a great deal of weirdness there. There’s a videotape of a cult leader, Cyrus Lam, and the tape talks to Gemma personally.

Clare stops by and says Elise has explained the baddies’ plan to her. She also has a plan to stop Cyrus Lam and his gang of the dead. They want Nick to break into the old peoples’ house and turn off their sedation so they can’t guard the red door anymore. Clare will then talk Gemma through the process of going to the Further and stopping the evil plan.

Gemma and Elise find themselves inside Gemma’s mothers’ memories. Turns out, she was fighting Cyrus way back then and wasn’t as crazy as she looked. She killed herself to prevent Cyrus from using Gemma as the portal. Gemma and her mother get a chance to talk and make peace with each other, but it’s not over. Cyrus uses Maya to come back to our world.

That’s not enough, as he wants to bring all the dead back to our side. Soon, the house is crawling with undead people, and all the characters work together to stop the one remaining guardian, the creepy old man, who’s buried himself inside the walls of the house. Elise possesses the old man to steal Maya, and then Gemma sends the whole house back to the Further.

The disappointed dead turn against Cyrus, who failed in his promise to get them all released. Gemma, Maya, Clare, and Nick all hug, as it’s a happy ending for them. Elise and Gemma’s mother are still dead.

Brian’s Commentary

I’ve written more than two thousand horror movie reviews at this point, and the old man’s mouth-cleaning scene may be the first thing I’ve literally had to turn away and not look at. Of all the monsters and all the demons, it was the dentist who finally got me.

The ending had a lot of the same vibes as “Poltergeist” (1982) although Gemma made it clear that she was the one who was haunted, not the house.

This is the sixth film in the series, which is trying its best to move on beyond Patrick Wilson, who isn’t in this at all, focusing more on new characters and situations while still cashing in on the series’ goodwill.

The visuals are excellent, the acting is good, and the creatures get plenty of screen time. It was a bit long, but there aren’t really any draggy parts. Overall, I liked this quite a bit more than many of the previous films in the series.

Kevin’s Commentary

For a character that died five movies ago, Lin Shaye has gotten a nice recurring job playing Elise in every film.

When I learned there was another Insidious movie and we were going to watch it, I said, “Oh for F- sake.” I am suffering from franchise fatigue, partially because I mix it up with the Conjuring universe, and it feels like there have been almost 20 movies.

But they did try to make a fresh restart with this one, with almost all new characters, and it is very well made. With some unsettling dentistry scenes as well as some other effective creepiness. It taps into the mythos while adding enough new elements to make it interesting. With a cool ending.

I’m going to go as far as saying this was the most entertaining movie in the series for me. My expectation going into it was quite wrong.