Insidious: The Last Key - More of a Laugher than Horror

Movie cast: Lin Shaye, Angus Sampson, Leigh Whannell, Josh Stewart, Caitlin Gerard
Movie director: Adam Robitel

The movie sets in 1950s when a young girl named Elise is treated harsh by her father who used to lock her up in the basement of an old house. The scene shifts to 2010 with the eerie voices of a little child with shadows looming in the background. Elise (Lin Shaye) is an old woman who works as a ghost hunter with two men, Specs (Leigh Whannell) and Tucker (Angus Sampson) from the last installment, who are mainly present to provide some laughs and are vessels for some expositional dialogue. The phone rings and Elise talks to the man on the line whispered the words ‘New’ and ‘Mexico’, Elise slams the phone down. Elise’s sixth sense kicked into sixth gear and informed her that this haunting is happening in the same house that she grew up in. She calls it a ‘house’ and not a ‘home’ because she faced physical and psychological assault at the hands of her own father.  Elise decides to investigate and help the man. The old house brings up terrible memories and Elise is determined to look for the “red door” and get the house spirit-free.

Insidious: The Last Key’s plot rolls down from being horror to comic by showing a crazy man’s obsession of locking up women. The comedy is heightened with as the cat-and-mouse game between Specs. Like every horror movies, there are unresolved issues from Elise’s childhood that spins the entire plot rolling around it. The ghosts of that looms in the house clings with a whistle that belonged to Elise’s mother and which has some extraordinary magical powers.

The comedy scene is elevated when one of Elise’s nieces can also feel the spirit’s presence too and also the hilarious scene where Specs and Tucker trying to hypnotise the niece. The ghost in the basement maintains a prison for all the human spirits that he has captured but unsurprisingly loses all control once the whistle is blown.

The makers wanted to make their audience feel the “other side” by creating human spirits in the climax. With the punctured plot and characters like Specs and Tucker in the story, Insidious: The Last Key, disappoints the diehard fan of horror movie who are looking for some spine-chilling thrills and a well-made horror mystery. The half-hearted writing, the lazy scares, the ineffective background and the ghosts you can see without cringing is undoubtedly the most cliched horror movie.  Insidious: The Last Key is a horror-comedy because it makes audience laughs instead of gasping in unison.

Read other reviews:

Tiger Zinda Hai: The Record-Breaking Blockbuster

'The Big Sick': Light-Hearted, Heart Melting Rom-Com