Review: Insidious - The Last Key

Insidious: The Last Key
Cert: 15 / 103 mins / Dir. Adam Robitel / Trailer



And welcome to New Mexico. You join us now live for the first-round*¹ of the 2018 'Long-Term Psychic Person Investigates Noise Emanating From Basement In Knowingly Haunted House Without Torch And Is Still Surprised When Ghost Appears' contest. And it's a suitably reliable turn from director Adam Robitel with the fourth chapter in the Insidious series, The Last Key, a film that sets the bar by opening with a domestic conversation taking place in someone's lounge, which is still somehow FAR TOO LOUD™. Blumhouse are the Spinal Tap of horror cinema.

In other, 'before you even sit down' news, you almost have to admire the way the marketing team have waited until now to drop the chapter number from the film title even though this would appear to be the final entry. Always a shaky gamble to take with horror flicks of course, but since Chapter 3 was a prequel to the first two movies, and since The Last Key follows this up by taking us to the beginning of Chapter 1, it's difficult to see how the franchise could be mined for more quiet-quiet-BANG gold. Although I'm sure writer Leigh Whannell will find a way, should the opportunity present itself.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The Last Key follows corpse-whisperer Elise (Lin Shaye) as she returns to her childhood home (see New Mexico reference, above), where the ghosts of the past are both metaphorical and literal (although mostly literal). A series of continuing disturbances results in a call-out for the Spectral Sightings team; great work-experience for newly anointed sidekicks Spex (Leigh Whannell) and Tucker (Angus Sampson), and a last chance for their boss to take care of old business.

An unduly large percentage of all this plays out in someone's cellar.

So, a couple of problems here. First and foremost, since this happens before 50% of the films in the Insidious franchise, it's pretty much a done-deal that the three recurring characters in the centre of it all are in no real danger. A bit of deft writing can get around this in many another genre, but once you remove that level of overall threat in Horror™, all you're left with is the loud bangs. Although Whannell makes a pretty tight job of tying everything up, the fact remains that The Last Key doesn't really need to exist.

Secondly, while Insidious Chapter 2 worked in narrative symbiosis*² with the first movie, intertwining with the events of the original and making both films more enjoyable as a result, the third - back-story - entry had less to offer, dynamically. This carries over into the new one, as callback setups and nods to other chapters are laid into the screenplay with all the subtlety of someone banging on the door of Wetherspoon's ten minutes before they're due to open.

While it almost feels unfair to complain that a movie like this is utterly mechanical in its scares, the bottom line is that there's little else to it. When the original Lambert-family story ran its course in 2013, it appears the producers couldn't let it go, so now we get Previously Supporting Character's Continuing Adventures In Ghost Town. As much as the series as a whole has become about the character of Elise, her story itself isn't particularly remarkable in the scope of modern, studio-horror*³. That said, this could well be Lin Shaye's best performance in the role. I only hope she can resist the lure of the genre for a good while to come.

Insidious: The Last Key is basically fine for what it is. But to be honest, when you're watching part four of a horror franchise you either know exactly what to expect or you're starting in the wrong place…

Let us not drive this one around the houses for too long: Insidious.



Not unless you're really a fan of the series.



Again, if you've got these sitting on your shelf at home, you'll probably want The Last Key to round out the set. Other than that, a quick stream should do.



I hope not.



I shouldn't imagine so.



There isn't.



Level 1: This film's got Dormé in it.
I mean, it's archive-footage, used towards the end, but it still counts.





*¹ And regarding the demographically-selected trailers, Slender Man looks like a Ring/Evil Dead fan-film with a gleefully unrestrained budget, and is Winchester really where Dame Helen Mirren's career is at now? Graveyard-slot autopilot horror flicks and excruciating drink-driving PSA ads? Their respective release-dates simply cannot come quickly enough... ^{[ BACK ]}

*² Yeah, get me... ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ Unless you're one of the just-over-the-line 15yr olds watching this, there is nothing in The Last Key to keep you awake at night. The only thing differentiating the Insidious series from the Conjuring one is that the former at least had more intricate writing to begin with... ^{[ BACK ]}

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