Over the last seven years, we’ve watched the Insidious franchise become one of the biggest in modern history, but even more remarkable than that impressive feat is the fact that it has also become the perfect showcase for veteran actress Lin Shaye, whose character Elise Rainier has become a fixture throughout this series. And what began as a quirky supporting player introduced very late in the game in Insidious has now become something so much greater, making Elise one of the very best characters we’ve seen in modern horror.
A big part of that is without a doubt Shaye and her wonderfully complex depiction of a woman driven to battle against dark forces, but still yearning to keep in touch with her own humanity. Also, much credit is also due writer Leigh Whannell, who has continually done a bang-up job of writing such a compelling, intriguing, and endearing protagonist for us to follow through the course of four Insidious films. It’s a killer combo between Shaye and Whannell, and they’ve done an amazing job making Elise into a truly unique heroine.
For Insidious: The Last Key, we travel back in time to Elise’s childhood home in 1954, which just happens to be next door to an ominous prison in New Mexico. She grows up under the thumb of her abusive father, often confiding in her well-meaning mother about her special abilities, and alongside her younger brother, who she’s forced to abandon after running away during her teens. We learn that beyond the emotional scars Elise takes with her, she also carries brief recollections of her time living at that home, particularly flashes of the otherworldly entities which inhabited the residence alongside her family. And, as you may have guessed, not all of those spirits were benign, either.
And so, as a familiar foe from Elise’s childhood begins to wage spiritual war with her old house’s new owner (played by Josh Stewart) in The Last Key, the determined parapsychologist embarks on a dangerous and deeply personal journey into the realm of the supernatural that proves the past can’t—and won’t—stay buried forever. Oh, and of course Tucker (Angus Sampson) and Specs (Whannell) come along for the ride and add in a bit of comedic relief for good measure.
Taking on directorial duties for Insidious: The Last Key is filmmaker Adam Robitel, who did an incredible job on The Taking of Deborah Logan (which is a film I highly recommend seeing, if you haven’t already) and slips into this universe with relative ease. Again, it’s helpful that he has a strong script from Whannell to work from, and someone like Shaye in the lead, but that doesn’t mean Robitel didn’t do some heavy lifting himself, in regards to crafting a sequel that’s remarkably well-constructed, but also feels like the perfect celebration of Shaye’s endlessly engaging on-screen persona in this franchise.
I also really loved the creature design for “Key Face,” the central supernatural antagonist in The Last Key, as it was an inspired choice to make his appearance be a visual manifestation of several of the central themes at play in this latest chapter in the Insidious saga. And the fact that he utilizes his key-stubbed fingers to oppress and attack his victims was a downright creepy touch that definitely appealed to my macabre sensibilities.
While I enjoyed Insidious: The Last Key immensely, I will say that the least successful aspects of the film happened any time the focus moved away from Shaye’s character and onto her extended family. I just don’t know if those scenes felt like they fit with the rest of the film, and maybe it’s just my cold dead heart, but they felt a tad on the schmaltzy side, and a little heavy-handed, too.
That being said, I could not have asked for a better vehicle for Lin Shaye and her cinematic counterpart Elise Rainier to come full circle than Insidious: The Last Key. There’s a thoughtfulness to her character that makes this latest sequel something very special, and I think Robitel has done a great job of constructing an effective horror outing that has a lot of heart to it as well.
Movie Score: 3.5/5
Heather A. Wixson was born and raised in the Chicago suburbs, until she followed her dreams and moved to Los Angeles in 2009. A 14-year veteran in the world of horror entertainment journalism, Wixson fell in love with genre films at a very early age, and has spent more than a decade as a writer and supporter of preserving the history of horror and science fiction cinema. Throughout her career, Wixson has contributed to several notable websites, including Fangoria, Dread Central, Terror Tube, and FEARnet, and she currently serves as the Managing Editor for Daily Dead, which has been her home since 2013. She's also written for both Fangoria Magazine & ReMind Magazine, and her latest book project, Monsters, Makeup & Effects: Volume One will be released on October 20, 2021.
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