INSIDIOUS CHAPTER 3: THE BEGINNING

It’s that time of year again, when things that go bump in the night roam the streets in search of candy, things that scare us come out from under the bed to drink apple cider and of course movies that make us toss our popcorn into the air make their way to the big and small screen. The month has a number of horror movies making their way to DVD and this week we start the month with one of those. Written and directed by Leigh Whannell, the creator/writer of the first two films in the series, is INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 3.

If you recall the first two films they involved a family haunted by spirits that have left this world to move on to a place known as The Further. This time around the story goes back in time, a prequel to events that happened in those films. It helps us understand The Further a bit better as well as the reasons why the character of Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye) does what she does.

The movie opens with a young girl named Quinn Brenner (Stefanie Scott) approaching Elise to do a psychic reading for her. Elise tells her she doesn’t do that anymore but is convinced to help the girl who wants to speak to her recently deceased mother. The girl has tried to reach her on her own with no success and yet feels her mother is there. Elise does a reading for her and recoils in fear, telling the girl not to attempt to reach her mother again because when you call out to one of the dead, they all hear.

Quinn returns home disappointed but then things begin to happen, the most terrible of which is her being hit by a car. Quinn survives and ends up homebound with two broken legs as well as other injuries. Her father Sean (Dermot Mulroney) is concerned for her and does all he can to make her comfortable. Even her younger brother Alex tries to help. But try as they might, this is where the scares start to happen and things go from bad to worse.

It starts with something small, Quinn tapping on the wall of her bedroom, the same wall shared by the boy next door she thinks is cute. He taps back so she texts him. He responds by telling her he isn’t home but at his grandmother’s. Cue jump scare. If you don’t know what a jump scare is, it’s when in a movie they do something guaranteed to make you jump. No spoiler here as this one featured prominently in the trailer for this film.

Quinn begins to see more and more while alone in her room or the apartment. A ghostly image of a man with a mask on continues to appear before her. When noises are heard in the apartment upstairs and the ceiling cracks, her dad sees this and takes the building super with him to check it out. The apartment is vacant and yet there on the floor are slimy footprints of bare feet.

While all of this is going on Elise remains home concerned about the girl having had visions of her. She wants to help her but at the same time is frightened of what will happen to her if she does. The movie tells us why she’s afraid and what she was looking for when this frightening event changed her life. Since she appears in the first two movies (that take place after this one) we know she’ll come out all right, but what about Quinn? Will Elise be able to help the girl or will she face banishment from this world at the hands of a demon Elise is unwilling to confront?

The movie won’t go down in the annals of horror films as the best movie ever made but it won’t be considered one of the worst either. The two previous films were well made and frightening enough that in making a third the bar was set high. While it doesn’t quite reach the level of those movies this one does present an entertaining enough film that holds your interests and does a good job of filling in some of the blanks from the previous films.

While all of the actors here do a great job Shaye deserves more credit than she ever gets. She’s a familiar face to movie fans who most will remember from her roles in the comedy films of the Farrelly brothers like KINGPIN and DUMB AND DUMBER, but once she got the attention of casting directors she began appearing in a number of horror films. She always turns in a performance that is outstanding and makes the roles she takes on believable, something not easy to accomplish in a horror film.

As the days grow colder, the nights grow longer, as leaves change and fall and every dog that howls seems to take on an ominous tone, horror films during the month of October just seem like the thing to watch. INSIDIOUS CHAPTER 3 is one worth watching and having a good time with. While rated only PG-13 I would say that most kids won’t have a problem with this movie. If they’re impressionable perhaps you might hold off a while though. For most it will be as fun filled as a trip to the haunted mansion.

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