Insidious: Out Of The Further ★★★★

Released: 21 August 2026

Director: Jacob Chase

Starring: Amelia Eve, Island Austin, Lin Shaye, Brandon Perea, Sam Spruell, Maisie Richardson-Sellers

The Red Door has always been a markedly terrifying image – not only as a symbol of the Further and what lurks beyond, but as a place of uninhibited evil, of mould and of rot, but maybe — most terrifyingly — a place of permanence and memory. Memories, especially ones from our childhood are uniquely precious. Some half-forgotten and nightmarish, others wondrous and the-like, they are all invaluable for navigating the life that proceeds you. With sweaty-legs and twitching hands, the process of experiencing the Insidious Franchise’s sixth edition Insidious: Out of the Further is a wholly consuming one. A propulsive, profound presentation of the horrors of childhood and maternal relationships, Insidious: Out of the Further utilises the foundations of what makes the franchise so acutely sincere, but doubles down on an extra-dose of terrifying, uncanny horror.

There are a myriad of fascinating elements to director Jacob Chase’s Insidious: Out of the Further. One key strand to the film’s opening images are that of childhood memories, and how we re-contextualise these memories as an adult. This is often to protect us from what lies beneath, but sometimes these memories are junctures in time…fleeting crucial moments that we are far too young to ever understand. Chase opens Insidious: Out of the Further with a young Gemma. Gemma’s mother is suffering psychologically and physically, meaning Gemma comes home alone — often in the rain — to an empty house. Here she cleans up for herself, does her own laundry, cooks her own food and takes herself to bed, comforting herself in her academic work. Their sinister, suburban house painted in dark shadows and murky light, beautifully photographed by David Carbitt. What’s in the dark? What’s in the light? Insidious: Out of the Further plays into its audience’s preconceived ideas of horror, so perfectly with a piercing sense of light and space. Gemma witnesses just about the most unbearable thing, and we flash forward twenty years.

Gemma, performed tremendously by Amelia Eve, is now a dental hygienist and single mother to her wonderful child Maya, played magnificently well by Island Austin. Gemma has these debilitating nightmares of her childhood and of what the audience know as the Further — to her astral projection is an entirely alien notion. These incapacitating nightmares feel markedly close to reality for Gemma, and she is unknowingly leaving her corporeal form open to that of the undead and the tormented inside the Further. In one of the most petrifying sequences of the year, Gemma is somewhat summoned into Maya’s play pen — a random, uncanny formation of sofas and pillows — entering this limbo-esque, terrifying landscape of vacuous space. Classically, the elderly trio of unearthly individuals following Gemma and Maya everyday, are now creeping around in this dark formation.

After some truly eerie and hair-raising sequences, it’s revealed by none other than Insidious legend Lin Shaye, that Gemma is a “courier” in the fabric of the Further. Unlike Josh and Dalton (from the original Insidious trilogy), who can just astral project, Gemma has a much more dangerous gift. There are some remarkable metaphors at play here, one including tattoo artist Clare, Maisie Richardson-Sellers, who uses needles ink, grapefruits and scars to interpret messages from the Further, the whole thing is remarkably well put together. Insidious: Out of the Further is an immense achievement of extraordinary formalism and emotional sensibility, culminating in what might be the surprise horror film of the summer.