This is a prequel to the two movies about the
supernatural torture of a disturbed family. Josh Terry stated in his review, “It’s
good for a handful of genuine scares, but a late film tone change and some
general clunkiness keep it in mediocre territory.”
Instead of continuing the story of the first two
movie’s much-damaged Lambert family, this one decides to go back a few years to
focus on Elise, reprised by Lin Shaye, the psychic who kept rescuing them.
However, this movie is not an origin story. Terry
stated, “We meet Elise at the tail end of a distinguished psychic career as she’s
suffering the effects of numerous supernatural bouts and the emotional fallout
from her husband’s (Adrian Sparks) suicide.” When she is met by a high school
girl named Quinn, played by Stefanie Scott, Elise is hesitant to return to the
job.
I don’t think I will spoil the movie if I say that
Elise will eventually accept, but before we get there, we have to go through seeing
Quinn ponder.
Quinn lives with her father, Sean (Dermot Mulroney),
and her little brother, Alex (Tate Berney), on the fourth floor of a five-story
apartment building. Quinn’s mother, played by Ele Keats, died, and she is
mourning her death as she enrolls in a theater school on the East Coast.
Wanting to see her mother again, Quinn tries to call
her, but her novice psychic attempts end up calling an evil spirit instead. The
spirit – who shows up in the shape of a shadowy old man wearing Darth Vader’s
breathing mask (not really, but just go with it) – tortures her all the time
and looks like he is approaching her apartment room.
Terry informs, “Director Leigh Whannell – who wrote the
screenplays for the first two films – spends about half the film letting the
audience twist on the rope while we watch the ‘man who can’t breathe’ (Michael
Reid Mackay) torture Quinn. There’s a fine line between being scared and being
antagonized, and Whannell wanders well into the second area before finally
allowing ‘Chapter 3’s’ plot to grind forward.”
Sadly, that’s also just where “Insidious: Chapter 3”
starts to go downhill, deciding on the dark mood and inserting it with sudden
parts of humor that doesn’t feel right. By the time the third act starts doing
the full supernatural resolution bit, the movie feels completely irregular and uninspired.
Terry mentioned, “There are a handful of ‘aha’
moments sprinkled in for fans of the series.” We get to see Elise first see the
ghost-hunter duo, and we learn more about what makes her character a strong
psychic she was when she first met the Lamberts in the first movie. However,
there is something missing from Whannell’s effort which helped James Wan’s
films get a little personality.
Terry is right when he said, “It doesn’t help that
the acting and writing is often clunky, making it that much harder to suspend
disbelief in a genre that insists on doing just that.” The best part Whannell
does is putting Quinn in leg casts early on. Terry noted, “The added degree of
helplessness – think Audrey Hepburn in “Wait Until Dark” – projects a genuine
level of distress on the audience.”
It’s not enough to make “Insidious: Chapter 3” a
good film, but it helped.
I agree with Terry when he says, “Like its
predecessors, ‘Chapter 3’ is a sworn believer in the jump scare: Better to
punctuate a sudden visual with a jarring sound effect than to let the horror
really get under your skin.” If that’s what you want, then the movie will give
you that. However, you may not remember a lot when they make a fourth one,
which I’m hearing rumors of.
Like the last two movies, I didn’t find this one
scary at all. Unlike the last two movies, which made me laugh, this one I
actually hated. I didn’t like this film at all, so I don’t recommend this
movie. If you liked the last two movies, you might like this one just fine, or
you may not. I personally didn’t think this movie was worth seeing at all.
Well, stay tuned later today when I post my second
review for Halloween Day.
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