‘Insidious: Out of the Further’ Scares up a Cruel & Creative Sequel That’s on Par With the Franchise’s Best [Review]

“The door is open.”

It’s sometimes easy to take the Insidious franchise for granted. The Conjuring films steal its thunder, despite Insidious being the one that came out first and a franchise that has grossed nearly $750 million on a combined budget of roughly $42.5 million across five films. The first two entries feature some of James Wan’s greatest tricks, and I’d argue that the franchise is actually more consistent than the mainline The Conjuring films. The Conjuring and The Conjuring 2 may slightly clear Insidious and Insidious: Chapter 3, but I’d much rather watch Insidious: Chapter 3 and Insidious: The Last Key than I would The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It and The Conjuring: Last Rites. 

That being said, Insidious: The Red Door was the franchise at its worst and the only truly bad film in the lot. The Red Door felt like diminishing returns for the first time, and that Insidious was running out of places to go, despite it still being a reliable performer at the box office. Insidious: Out of the Further is thankfully a step in the right direction that gets some welcome distance from the Lamberts and pushes the franchise out of its comfort zone. It’s a captivating mix of clever scares and a heartbreaking emotional foundation. Insidious: Out of the Further emerges as one of the franchise’s best entries and one of 2026’s best surprises.

Out of the Further follows Gemma (Amelia Eve), a loving mother who is doing her best to raise her daughter (Island Austin), but starts to experience haunting dreams and supernatural struggles when they return to Gemma’s childhood home. Gemma soon discovers that she doesn’t just have the ability to travel to the Further – a dark dimension where the dead reside – but that she’s a “Courier” who can transport elements back and forth between realms. This makes Gemma and her daughter targets for a powerful evil who wants to abuse this power so that the Further’s worst monsters can wreak havoc in the real world.

Generational pain and unresolved trauma are business as usual in horror at this point, but this has always been something that’s been baked into the franchise regarding the top-tier horrors that occupy the Further. is especially powerful in this regard, and the horror film becomes this grander meditation on motherhood and having the strength to break toxic cycles rather than becoming a part of them. This material gets quite maudlin on a few occasions, but it helps that Amelia Eve absolutely sells Gemma’s pain, fear, and the psychic scars that she carries. It’s devastating to watch the rug of reality slowly get pulled out from under her. It’s a fantastic performance that still manages to stand out and leave an impression in a year that’s been full of strong horror performances.