* * *
Medium Elise Rainier lends her particular set of skills to another poltergeist scenario – and gets maximum trouble for her efforts.
Starring Lin
Shaye, Angus Sampson, Leigh Whannell, Spencer Locke, Caitlin Gerard, Bruce
Davison
Written by Leigh
Whannell
Produced by Jason
Blum, Oren Peli, James Wan, Leigh Whannell
Duration 104
minutes
Sometime in 2026 will see the release of THREAD: AN INSIDIOUS TALE, a spin-off of the INSIDIOUS
film series. Meanwhile, a crossover of INSIDIOUS and SINISTER, both properties
of Blumhouse Productions, has long been rumoured.
I can't help thinking that spinning-off or crossing-over (over-crossing?) has, over the years, tended to be more of a TV thing. The most famous small screen example has to be Frasier,
coming from Cheers. But the tradition goes back a lot further. Happy
Days, for example, birthed no less than six other shows, to varying degrees
of success. Indeed, the spin-off matching the popularity of its originator is far from guaranteed: hit Friends begat dud Joey; Baywatch
Nights was no Baywatch. And then of course you have all the myriad
incarnations of CSI and NCIS – the latter already being a
spin-off of Naval drama JAG.
Movie spin-offs used to be less common, although of course are increasingly so these days, owing to the superhero boom. 1978's SUPERMAN led (eventually) to SUPERGIRL in
1984, but the less said about that the better. More recently, FURIOSA was
"a MAD MAX saga"; THIS IS 40 served as only a "sort-of sequel" to KNOCKED UP; US MARSHALLS followed the antagonist from THE FUGITIVE,
rather than the hero; the CREED movies spawned off from ROCKY.
Crossovers, meanwhile, have historically tended to be Universal/Hammer horror
pictures, with various monsters or monster hunters popping up in each other's
films. GODZILLA and KING KONG are keeping this tradition alive today, as FREDDY
VS JASON did with a two different monsters a couple of decades ago.
Meanwhile, what we have here is actually the fourth film in the
'main' INSIDIOUS series. Although, wait a sec, it's actually the second
chronologically, since the third one was a prequel to the second one, and so
THE LAST KEY takes place somewhere between the third and first ones.
Glad we cleared that up. Hey, at least it's not as complicated as those
CONJURING movies, which have so many instalments and spin-offs (the NUN films,
the ANNABELLE films) that they've earned the term 'shared universe', previously
only the domain of comic book movies.
Anyway, THE LAST KEY opens on a creepy prison in 1950s' New Mexico. Creepier still is a little girl, Elise, daughter of the warden – the family live in a house onsite, like caretakers in a school, or that Nazi family in THE ZONE OF INTEREST. Elise knows when someone's getting a blast from the electric chair next door, and not through the lights blinking on and off like you'd expect – early points for not using that hackneyed trope, by the way.
Her mother recognises that Elise has a gift and reassures her; pop is less open-minded, preferring the approach of beating her and locking her in the cellar. But Mom doesn't realise the extent of the girl's abilities: Elise doesn't just sense that a criminal has passed, she's actually then visited by their ghost. And boy do they love to congregate in that basement and make themselves known to the poor, terrified girl.
Such childhood trauma shapes Elise into eventually becoming seventy-something Lin Shaye – this franchise's MVP, having appeared in every instalment. Shaye is the one who can genuinely see spirits in a paranormal investigation team that also comprises two whacky, nerdy colleagues: Tucker (Angus Sampson, long hair and beard) and Specs (Leigh Whannell, wearer of specs, and also sometime INSIDIOUS director and/or writer).
When the team are summoned to Elise's old home by the current owner to deal with some demons, it's Elise who has to confront her own demons – from her past. (She also has to confront plenty of current demons, too; by which of course I mean those who are currently haunting the house in the present day.)
Now, I had seen this movie before. Also definitely the first two, and probably the third – I can't be sure, but it seems inconceivable that I would skip an entry. Anyway, I remember liking it well enough, but there's since been a fifth, THE RED DOOR, directed by early franchise star Patrick Wilson, and it hasn't crossed my radar to watch that one. I couldn't remember why I'd bowed out at this stage of the franchise, but rewatching THE LAST KEY it soon became clear.
"She's psychic; we're sidekicks," is how Tucker introduces the team to their new client, with a rehearsed delivery modelled on one of those melodramatic movie trailer voiceovers. It of course falls flat; just another zany quirk from the goofy geeks who lug around all the infrared cameras and sound equipment. They also embarrass themselves in their attempts to flirt with the local girls, exchange cringeworthy banter while studying grainy monitors in the dark, etc.
Yes, this is one of those horror movies that feels it must balance the scares with some shoe-horned in comic relief. This tends to be a huge turn-off for me: I felt that Joran Peele's universally lauded GET OUT was derailed by Daniel Kaluuya's comedy best friend's efforts to track him down. Similarly, David Gordon Green's HALLOWEEN trilogy too often undercut its tension with cheap laughs. And what do these two films have in common? Filmmakers with a background in comedy.
Director Adam Robitel doesn't have that excuse here. But, in fact, I was pleasantly surprised when watching this time to find that the film actually survives its tonal mishmash. Our pals Tucker and Specs don't manage to fatally unbalance the creepiness, and the sincere efforts of classy veteran Shaye stop it from ever wobbling completely off the tracks.
INSIDIOUS: THE LAST KEY ends up being a spooky good time. If you ever come across it on a late-night streaming browse, you could do much worse. And if I'm ever flicking through one of those same lists and coming across part five, I can see myself hitting 'OK' on the remote. Probably.
Three stars out of five.
Valid use of the
word ‘last’? It’s less about a key, more a demon called
‘Keyface’. Which is scarier than it sounds. Also, the house is in Five Keys,
Mexico. So I guess, technically … no?
What would a movie called THE FIRST KEY be about? “Theodorus of Samos in the 6th
century BC invented the first key, according to Pliny the Elder.” So says
City Security (“The magazine to improve your security know-how”) – and who are
we to disagree with them? Or, indeed, your man Pliny?
Previously: THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND
Next time: HITLER: THE LAST TEN DAYS
Check out my books: Jonathanlastauthor.com
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