What Rotten Tomatoes Reviews Are Saying About Insidious: The Red Door
"Insidious: The Red Door" is set to deliver chills and thrills aplenty when it hits theatres on July 7. But unfortunately, it looks like Rotten Tomatoes critics aren't willing to go along for the ride with the franchise's latest installment; the movie sits at 50% with six positive reviews and six negative ones posted to the website as of press time.
Leading the pack of negative reviews is Graeme Tuckett of Stuff.co.nz, whose take on the film declared, "Insidious: The Red Door [m]ostly plays as though someone read the outlines for three or four average horror movies and then watched a couple of episodes of Stranger Things with a bottle of gin and a mild concussion."
But there are some positive reviews to be had: Anthony O'Connor of FILMINK went into his screening with tempered expectations about the film's originality. He praised Patrick Wilson's performance and that of Ty Simpkins. He also noted that Wilson's direction manages to frighten the audience without leaning on cheap jump scares. O'Connor concluded with mixed feelings, expressing enjoyment for the way it closes off the "Insidious" series, but expressing displeasure for several plot elements and its poor pacing. "With those caveats in place, knocking on this door should provide an adequate, if not spectacular, final trip into the Further," he concluded.
It's lukewarm praise, but praise nonetheless.
Critics aren't digging what Insidious: The Red Door has in store
Unfortunately for "Insidious" fans, the hits from Rotten Tomatoes kept coming early on. Casey Chong of Fiction Horizon wrote, "Insidious: Chapter 2 is a tepid supernatural-horror disappointment." Peter Gray of the AU Review mocked the series' conventions and said, "Open the door, don't open the door...we fail to care and wish the other dimensional demon would put us all out of our misery." And Jim Schembri's review concluded with a plaintive "Enough Already."
The ongoing horror franchise splits its focus between the life story of demonologist Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye) and the travails of the Lambert family, who must cope with the aftereffects of moving into a home haunted by demonic forces and evil ghosts. "Insidious: The Red Door" returns the series' focus back to the Lambert family, following dad Josh (Patrick Wilson) and son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) to the East Coast 10 years after the events of "Insidious: Part 2." Dalton is set to go to college but the institution appears to encourage the Lamberts' old ghosts to resurface. Fans will find out who will win the battle for the family's souls soon enough.