Insidious: Out of the Further (2026)

We have been on a great run of horror films this year with Backrooms, Obsession, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, Evil Dead Burn and Primate and yet we have another Insidious film to remind us how good we have had it. The last Insidious film was one of the most horror films I can remember seeing and yet Blumhouse feel that we need another one of these films. It is a new family with Gemma and Maya. The film starts in the distant past of 1999 where a young Gemma is living with her mom who is being possessed and ends up dying. Fast forward 20 years and we see a grown up Gemma who is weirdly staying in the same house with her daughter Maya and she is a dental hygienist and straight away my fear of dentist put me on edge.

I thought that Amelia Eve was quite good as Gemma. Despite the odd fact that Gemma still lives in the enormous house that her mother died in, she is a likeable person and her relationship with Island Austin (Maya) was quite nice to watch. The supporting characters are all pretty decent with her boyfriend Nick who seems to come on board to the weird situation rather quickly and also Clare who becomes the vessel for Elise to talk to people in this world. 

With this being a Blumhouse film, they don't really have the patience to be clever with their jump scares and things that are supposed to be scary. The house is way too big but that is the M.O of these films. There are periods of quiet darkness and you can set your watch as to when things go bang quite loudly. There are three old people that look odd and that is apparently enough to make them scary. They do have a purpose later on in the film but it's another cliche that Blumhouse films lean on quite a lot. There is also the ridiculous sight of the house having disappeared and no-one seemingly bothered as no one goes out to check so either everyone is in a deep sleep, dead or no one cares.

So yet again they bring the 83 year old Lin Shaye back and she has been the spine of this franchise and they made up for the lack of Elise in the last one. Her first 'appearance' is in the reflection of Gemma's protective glasses doing action moves that would have been laughable. Due to the fact that the character died, they at least keep credibility by only having her in the further. 

There are moments which are quite good. The couch tunnel moment was quite well done and even though it features in the trailer, this is a longer version and quite creepy. Also the old couple that live opposite Gemma and Maya have a funny moment when they are both then, the woman points to the sky and her husband just stands there so she nudges him and he then points to the sky and I thought that was quite funny. 

Out of the Further is a huge improvement on the previous film but that was a low bar to clear. I do think that they need to stop doing these films because whilst they may have been popular in 2010 when the first one came out but we are sixteen years and six films on and there is nothing new and the genre has changed where these films are in danger of becoming cliched. If you have seen the other films then you will probably enjoy them but if you appreciate some creativity then I wouldn't have particularly high expectations.

Leviticus (2026)

Leviticus was a mystery horror screening that I was convinced was the new Insidious movie and I have to say that I was relieved that it wasn't. This is an Australian film which sees Naim (Joe Bird) fall for his classmate Ryan (Stacy Clausen) and when Ryan is subjected to a gay exorcism he and eventually Naim are stalked by a figure that takes the form of the person you have feelings for in an attempt to kill you.

The film works because of the main two performances. Both Joe Bird and Stacy Clausen give very strong performances as people falling in love when people around them will try their best to stamp it out. Yes, Naim effectively starts it when he grasses Ryan up just because he was jealous that he was kissing another guy but they do work well together. There is something about Mia Wasikowska’s performance (in a good way). She doesn't support Naim in the way that she should really and almost seems to be against him just by not being around.

I thought that the end was quite good. It would probably have been a cop out if they had managed to completely defeat it but the fact that Naim sees it as the coach he and Ryan are on and dismisses it shows that in a way they have defeated it by seemingly accepting it. Not sure if everyone else would see the ending in a good way but for me it worked and it did not undo all the good will that the film had generated over the previous 80 minutes or so.

I actually enjoyed this film. It reminded me a bit of Get Out in the sense that it has a serious theme but horror is used in a creative and effective way. The story is quite good although I could have used a better exposition scene but aside from that I thought it was a good horror film. There is something about Australian horror that is under-appreciated. This is the sort of film that I would probably have waited until it came out on streaming so I think that this was a good choice for a mystery screening and to the best of knowledge there were no walkouts which is the first time that has happened in a long time.