Insidious: The Last Key
From the first week of January, here's our traditional Hollywood Horror movie to kick off the new year... Sweet Christmas. Here's my take on Insidious: The Last Key!
Insidious: The Last Key is directed by Adam Robitel and is the fourth installment in the Insidious franchise. However, this is the second film in the chronological ordering of this franchise and taking place after Insidious: Chapter 3. This timeline is all out of wack.
Lin Shaye returns as the featured psychic protagonist and is requested to go investigate another supernatural occurrence in a family's house. Here's the kicker; the house Shaye is investigating happens to be the house she grew up in as a child.
For the most part, I've enjoyed this franchise. I thought the first Insidious was good, the second was solid, and the third was just fine. Granted, they've gotten progressively lesser in quality, but nothing from this series has been completely bad.
If Insidious: The Last Key is any indication, it's about time we close the book on this franchise because it's running on fumes.
Shaye is giving a strong committed performance as reoccurring character of Elisa Rainier. For a "PG-13" movie, the setup for Shaye's character is very mature in its attempt to present a more sympathetic individual and why the character has been so troubled over the years that lead into the first Insidious film.
That said, Shaye's performance is far too good for the script that she has to work with. She's giving it her all to make this story feel more important with this committed delivery from her tormented character.
If you've seen any of these films, you'll know that Shaye's character is accompanied by her two Ghostbuster-wannabe rejects, Specs and Tucker. These two are essentially comic relief characters and that's an aspect this franchise has latched onto for a while now.
The problem is that this franchise thinks Specs and Tucker are funny, likable people when in actuality, they come off as just creepy and cringe worthy. I know "cringe worthy" is thrown around a lot these days, but these guys are the personification of that phrase.
In short; get these two fools off the screen. They're not funny, they're painfully lame. The way these characters are written does them zero favors.
Ultimately, the film's biggest blunder is that it doesn't feel like it has any real purpose to exist, aside from being just another horror movie. We're presented with a couple of cool ideas that could've made the story a little more fun or interesting, but the film never expands upon these ideas enough in a way that would spark intrigue.
The film's main antagonist, "Key Face" (literally how he's credited). The demon is a cool concept on paper and his appearance looks scary enough, but beyond that there's not much else than what's on the surface. What's his connection with Shaye's character? What is this demon's origins? What's with his obsession with keys? Why is this movie called "The Last Key"?
From the more simple to the more complex questions, The Last Key provides little to no explanation on its ideas.
FINAL TAKE
Despite a solid performance from Lin Shaye in the leading role and a little creativity in some scares, Insidious: The Last Key just comes off as a cheap, thrown together, stock-horror film that brings really nothing new to the table. Let's wrap this one up.
I'm going to give Insidious: The Last Key a "D+" as my final take. If you're a big Insidious junkie since the beginning, I suppose you could see the The Last Key and tie the entire series together with this installment. But if it were up to me, you could definitely do without this addition.
As always, thanks so much for reading and make sure to stay posted to Frank’s Takes for more reviews. Until next time, keep it 100.
