Usually horror sagas get gradually worse, more phoned-in, more amateurish, as they go along. The “Insidious” films are a notable exception through the first four entries (the fifth, “The Red Door,” is out now).
Rather than peaking with the original and then coasting, series creator and lead writer Leigh Whannell studiously improves as he goes along. This leads to “Insidious: The Last Key” (2018), the saga’s fourth film but second chronologically (the order is 3-4-1-2-5).
A more personal story
With Whannell writing the screenplay but handing off director duties to a game Adam Robitel, “The Last Key” features emotional (if familiar) traumas for children who are “different,” commentary on society’s cycle of violence and how governments use violent people as its tools, and a demon that’s not merely creepy-looking but also has a specific purpose.
“Insidious: The Last Key” (2018)
Director: Adam Robitel
Writer: Leigh Whannell
Stars: Lin Shaye, Leigh Whannell, Angus Sampson
We start by flashing back to the childhood of Elise (Lin Shaye as an adult, Ava Kolker as a child – with each performance boosting the other) in Five Keys, New Mexico. Adult Elise’s residence – and the location of the Lamberts (films 1 and 2) and Brenners (3) – has been in California, it turns out.
The sense of place immediately improves as the Rainiers live near what seems to be a missile range in the 1950s. But the flickering electricity is actually due to the nearby prison, where the state carries out executions. Gerald Rainier (Josh Stewart, who specializes in sleepy-eyed villains; see also “The Punisher” Season 2) is the prison-guard dad who aims to beat the ghost-visions out of daughter Elise.
Tunnel of scares
The previous “Insidiouses” would’ve stopped there in terms of character depth and plot surprises, but Whannell is a better writer now. We learn additional factors in Gerald’s evil nature. We hit the usual beats of adult Elise going into The Further – more personal this time because it’s in her childhood house (she pointedly doesn’t use the word “home”) – but now the scares smoothly parallel information about the nature of KeyFace (Javier Botet under the prosthetics).
My favorite twist in “The Last Key” is the notion that Elise – so steeped in The Further and its residents – can’t necessarily tell the difference between a living human and a ghost. This leads to a spine-tingling new way of viewing one crucial scene the second time through.
Despite Whannell’s newfound emphasis on character and plot, the scares aren’t sacrificed. Robitel does this stuff as well as James Wan (1, 2) and Whannell (3) did. A showcase sequence finds Shaye’s Elise crawling into pipes where old suitcases are stashed.
As she opens each one and peers in with her flashlight, we know from the visual language of horror films that when she closes it, a demon could pop out of the shadows. Robitel plays out the thread of our expectations to the breaking point, then delivers the smash-scare from an angle we didn’t anticipate.
A step forward for the saga
I could quibble that previous films give no indication of Elise’s traumatic past or her estrangement from brother Christian (Bruce Davison as an adult) or two nieces she didn’t even know exist (!), Spencer Locke’s Melissa and Caitlin Gerard’s Imogen. On the other hand, those films don’t exclude such a backstory.
In previous entries, I’ve felt the interplay between Elise’s assistants Specs (Whannell) and Tucker (Angus Sampson) isn’t as hilarious as the filmmakers think it is. But in “The Last Key” it starts to pay off. Trying (and failing) to play it cool, the socially awkward duo battles it out over Melissa and Imogen, with Elise an amused observer.
While “The Last Key” is the best of the first four entries, it does owe something to our established knowledge about Elise’s skills, the rules of The Further, and the warm makeshift family of Elise and “the boys.” It’s also forward-looking, building up The Red Door mythology. This might be important for future films, which could also utilize the psychic powers of Elise’s niece Imogen.
Although “last” is in the title, “The Last Key” marks the beginning of the “Insidious” saga unlocking its full potential.
A second opinion: Michael’s review of “Insidious: The Last Key.”