Insidious: The Red Door Trailer: Go Back To The Further One More Time

It's time to go further into the, er, Further than we've ever gone before.

More than a decade after director James Wan and writer Leigh Whannell proved they didn't need buckets of gore or Jigsaw's death traps to scare moviegoers silly, the fifth entry in the duo's "Insidious" franchise is upon us. Titled "Insidious: The Red Door," this new chapter sees series lead Patrick Wilson stepping behind the camera for the first time ever as director, with Wan and Whannell back as producers. The film is being billed as "The Final Chapter," which is a tad misleading since we know there's already a spinoff in the works. (That's modern Hollywood for ya!) "The Red Door" will, however, serve as a conclusion to the story of the Lamberts, the family at the center of all the spookiness in Wan's original film.

In keeping with this legacy sequel approach, "The Red Door" features the return of the now-grown-up Ty Simpkins as Dalton Lambert, the character whose ability to astral project himself while sleeping landed him unwanted attention from those pesky demons that populate the other-worldly, time-bending realm known as the Further back when he was a child. But just as Dalton sets off for college, he and his father Josh (Wilson) — from whom Dalton inherited his out-of-body powers — find themselves once again targeted by the denizens lurking just behind the titular door that separates our world from the Further. There's nothing quite like battling evil specters to really strengthen the bond between a father and a son, eh?

Watch the final trailer for Insidious: The Red Door

The final trailer for "Insidious: The Red Door," like the marketing that came before it, alludes to Josh dealing with mental health problems that, one assumes, are directly connected to his previous experiences in the Further, including that one time he got possessed in our world by the malevolent Bride in Black. Meanwhile, Dalton is beset with sudden visions and disturbing memories of his childhood experiences imprisoned in the Further by the Lipstick-Face Demon (who's also back to terrorize the Lamberts once again), much of which Dalton appears to have repressed.

It seems as though Patrick Wilson, drawing from a script by Scott Teems ("Halloween Kills") and a story credited to Leigh Whannell, is angling to bring the "Insidious" franchise back full circle with "The Red Door" by tapping into the themes of suppressed childhood trauma that informed the original film. His progression from acting in this franchise to pulling double duty on both sides of the camera feels like a natural one and I'm personally excited to see how Wilson fares after years of working on horror movies in general. It's also nice to see Rose Byrne back as Renai Lambert, considering how worried I was the character would simply wind up being fridged in-between sequels. Whether she makes it out of "The Red Door" alive, well, that's another matter.

Andrew Astor, Sinclair Daniel, and Hiam Abbass round out the cast of "The Red Door," with Lin Shaye also back for, at least, a recorded cameo as Elise Rainier (though there's no sign of her oddball acquaintances Specs and Tucker just yet). The film arrives in theaters on July 7, 2023.