"Insidious" is a film series for which I had written reviews of all of its past installments. These were: "Insidious" (James Wan, 2011) (MY REVIEW), "Insidious Chapter 2" (James Wan, 2013) (MY REVIEW), "Insidious Chapter 3" (Leigh Whannell, 2015) (MY REVIEW). Now, the fourth episode is released, this time subtitled "The Last Key" (Adam Robitel, 2018).
This latest film in the series brought us way back to the year 1953 to introduce us to our favorite parapsychologist Elise Rainier as a child (Ava Kolker). Even then she already possessed the ability to see and communicate with spirits. While her mother Audrey (Tessa Ferrer) was understanding and supportive about it, her abusive father Gerald (Josh Stewart) wanted to beat out her dubious "talent" out of her.
Fast forward to 2010, elderly Elise (Lin Shaye) received a phone call from a distressed man named Ted Garza (Kirk Acevedo) who wanted her help to rid his house of ghosts. When he gave her his address, Elise realized that he was living in the same house where she grew up as a girl. While hesitant at first, Elise eventually accepted to look into the case, as a way of facing and conquering the same old demon with the keys that caused her childhood to be one of tragedy and misery.
If you've seen the other Insidious films, the jump-scare style of horror is still very similar in this new one. This was despite having a new director Adam Robitel, who had only directed one other film before this one which was also a horror -- "The Taking of Deborah Logan" (2014). Robitel just coasted along with the familiar and did not seem to innovate too much. That main monster they called Key Face only had sinister-looking fingernails and hands, but his ugly face was not at all scary. The Further was hardly seen or explored this time around. The actors portraying Elise's brother (Bruce Greenwood) and her nieces (Spencer Locke and Caitlin Gerard) look miscast age-wise
Nevertheless, to be fair, there were still quite a number of pretty well-executed horror sequences here. The best for me was that tense scene where Elise was examining the suitcase inside the exhaust tunnel, built up so well by the camera angles, editing and music sound effects. Over the past four films, Elise Rainier is a character I really like, and much of this was because of Lin Shaye's ever-enigmatic portrayal. She is the heart and soul of the Insidious series.
Adding further entertainment was the always-bickering Spectral Sightings sidekick duo of Specs (Leigh Whannell) and Tucker (Angus Simpson). Call their lines lame, sappy, corny, or cringy, but they are truly indispensable because of their invaluable comic relief. Some pure horror fans may dislike the intrusion of comedy, but I did not mind, and in fact enjoyed more than a chuckle or two with their antics.
The timeline of this fourth chapter lay sometime between the events of Episode 3 and the first film, then went even further back to tell us about Elise as a young girl. It introduced us to her parents, her younger brother Christian and the unbearably violent upbringing she had under the iron fist of her father. I thought it was a clever idea of writer Leigh Whannell to bring Elise back to the house of her childhood so her life would come full circle. How the ending sequence connected to the first Insidious film with the phone call for help to Elise from Lorraine Lambert was also a nice touch. 6/10.
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