Insidious: Out of the Further Review: Jump Scare-Packed Sequel Pushes Its PG-13 Rating to the Limit
Amelia Eve (The Haunting of Bly Manor) leads the latest haunted house tale in the lucrative franchise started by James Wan’s 2010 hit
by Alex Kaan 20 August 2026
Sony Pictures Releasing
It’s no secret why the Insidious franchise is still going strong 16 years after the release of the original. Made relatively cheap (the latest entry has the biggest budget at only $18 million) and reaching wider audiences thanks to a PG-13 rating, the previous five instalments have delivered a winning formula of eerie mythology and well-crafted jump scares, grossing over $740 million in the process.
After 2023’s The Red Door neatly wrapped up the saga of the Lambert family (led by Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne) following two prequels focusing on other characters, this sixth film has the task of paving a way forward for the series — and it’s an effective soft reboot. With a handful of superb scares and a compelling emotional undercurrent, Insidious: Out of the Further finds the hit franchise on spooky, solid ground, standing out as one of the better sequels to James Wan’s modern horror classic.
Sony Pictures Releasing
Written and directed by Jacob Chase (Come Play), Out of the Further follows Gemma (Amelia Eve), a young mother raising her nine-year-old daughter, Maya (Island Austin), in her childhood home, where 20 years ago her mentally ill mother committed suicide in an engrossingly grim opening flashback. Soon, Gemma is plagued with nightmares featuring an eerie, mute elderly trio (Joseph Lopez, Susan Gray, and Robina Beard). Her cop boyfriend (Brandon Perea of Nope and Twisters) thinks the dreams are induced by her childhood trauma, but Insidious fans will note that she is travelling through a perilous astral plane known as the Further.
After a standout set piece at the dentist’s office when Gemma inspects the rotting mouth of Lopez’s character, Out of the Further establishes its connection to the previous films when the psychic medium Elise (Lin Shaye) swoops in to save her. A franchise fan-favourite despite her death in the original, Elise is able to communicate with Gemma from the Further via a fellow medium (Maisie Richardson-Sellers), informing her that she is a “courrier”: someone with the power to bring objects — and people — to and from the Further.
Sony Pictures Releasing
Replicating the tonal balance of the original film, Out of the Further works because it is as much a touching domestic drama as it is a chilling haunted house story, thanks to a committed performance by Amelia Eve as a traumatised mother determined to be the stable parent she never had. And the scares match the intensity of her acting. Like previous entries, the sequel just about evades an R-rating thanks to a welcome silliness in its tone and the relative absence of gore — but that doesn’t diminish the weight of several gross-out moments nor the horrific impact of an inventive sequence unfolding inside a couch fort.
Granted, Out of the Further does stumble at the finish line with a convoluted ending that starkly contrasts the simplicity of the stellar set pieces earlier in the runtime. As to be expected, this sixth film falls short of the heights of the electrifying original, but it expands the franchise’s lore well, and its many strengths outweigh its faults.
Proving that the franchise still has gas in the tank, Insidious: Out of the Further is a fun, frightful popcorn horror flick that delivers some of the best jump scares in the series.