‘Insidious: The Red Door’ review: fresh college setting creates a nightmare on campus

With early 2010s classics The Conjuring and Insidious, director James Wan rewrote the rulebook on paranormal horror to box office-busting effect. Cheaply made and powered by popcorn-scattering jump scares, these were haunted house movies designed to fuel the multiplex fright machine. Part of their charm was lead actor Patrick Wilson, who became a sort of spooky mascot for Wan’s new supernatural theme park. Seven collaborations down the line though and Wilson is getting a promotion – Insidious: The Red Door, the fifth in the series, marks his directorial debut.

Picking up nine years after the events of Insidious: Chapter 2 – films three and four followed a different set of characters – The Red Door finds the Lambert clan once again beset by evil spirits intent on trapping their son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) in a hellish dimension called The Further. Thanks to a teen drama twist, Dalton is no longer a helpless nine-year-old; but an angsty art student with a growing resentment towards his dad, Wilson’s anxious schoolteacher Josh. Recently divorced from Dalton’s mum Renai (Rose Byrne), Josh complains of feeling “foggy” – the result of having his and Dalton’s memories wiped by a psychotherapist so they wouldn’t remember the ghosts lurking in their past. The process definitely worked, but it changed Josh and made him unbearable to live with. Likewise, Dalton turned inwards, pestered by disturbing images in his head that he can’t make sense of. As the story develops, shadowy figures threaten to bring these unholy memories screaming back into the present.

As with all horror movies, The Red Door works best when you’re sat front-row of the theatre, slap-bang in the middle. Make sure the cinema has a good surround sound set-up too. Ghoulish moans and creaky doors (which there’s plenty of) sound much scarier when they drift out of the dark behind you. At one point during the press screening NME attended, a door actually did creak open behind us. It was probably just a projectionist popping their head in, but you can never be too sure… What is certain is that Insidious 5 deserves the big-screen experience. Packed with dread-filled moments that will make your stomach churn in anticipation (but still shock you at the right bit), this is the genre at its most fun and irresistible. Perhaps the best sequence sees Josh get stuck in an MRI scanner, while a crusty old crone crawls towards him. Claustrophobics should steer clear.

There’s more to Wilson’s film than dread though. In between the terror, the newbie director makes time for actual plot. Some is borrowed from Wan’s preternatural playbook – past trauma, repressed family demons – but Wilson should be applauded for trying to mix things up. The campus setting adds a new dimension – and watching an older Dalton discover his powers all over again feels nostalgic in a fresh way. There’s a focus on family, too. If Vin Diesel ever ditches the Fast & Furious franchise to burn seance candles instead of rubber, it’ll probably look something like this. Wilson makes the step up look simple.