The Insidious franchise is an interesting case study in diminishing quality returns. What began with James Wan and Leigh Whannell’s wonderfully creative throwback haunted-house movie has now stretched across six films, different generations of filmmakers, and an increasingly elaborate mythology surrounding the mysterious spirit world of The Further.

While I have affection for the series like many, I think the further Insidious gets from its original basic formula, the less frightening it becomes. There is something inherently unsettling about a new family discovering that their home is not safe, but once the franchise starts limply trying to explain every little corner of its supernatural universe, the mystery starts to disappear. 

Whenever we’re in Lore Mode, these horror movies generally become a lot less scary. You can almost feel the writers checking items off a franchise mythology wiki. Still, there are a couple of worthwhile sequels and moments here, and the original remains an undeniable modern horror landmark. So, with the latest entry, Insidious: Out of the Further, now joining the franchise, here is our ranking of all six Insidious movies.

Insidious: The Last Key (2018)

Painfully forgettable. You will be hard-pressed to recall anything that happens in this chapter, which is especially disappointing considering The Last Key once again gives Lin Shaye’s Elise Rainier the spotlight she had earned after becoming the best thing about this franchise. The idea of digging into Elise’s childhood and exploring the traumatic experiences that shaped her supernatural abilities is absolutely sound on paper. Unfortunately, the actual movie surrounding that idea is a slog and a half. 

There are a few decent creepy images, and Shaye remains terrific in the role, but The Last Key feels like the franchise is truly just going through the motions rather than finding a new reason to exist. The mythology continues to expand but the scares become increasingly routine. It is technically competent enough, but there is almost nothing here that leaves any sort of impression. For a franchise built around unforgettable, nightmare-inducing supernatural imagery, that makes The Last Key the easiest one to leave behind.

Insidious: Out of the Further (2026)

Dental horror! Now that is a good angle. Unfortunately, Insidious: Out of the Further is another example of diminishing franchise returns. Amelia Eve gives a notable performance that I quite like, and the movie occasionally finds some genuinely uncomfortable imagery in its exploration of dental procedures and the like, but it ultimately falls into the same trap that has plagued so many of these types of horror sequels. The more time we spend in The Further, the less scary The Further becomes. 

What was once an unknowable nightmare dimension is now basically an established location with rules, mythology, history, and a growing collection of monsters. And even though this story no longer centers on the Lambert family, the movie still can’t resist dragging familiar franchise mythology back into the picture. I know we all love Elise, but her appearance here is basically the horror equivalent of a Marvel cameo: stop the movie and applaud. It is way more distracting than it is exciting. There are some good ideas here, but Out of the Further ultimately feels like the franchise struggling to justify another inspired trip into The Further.

Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015)

It has always been a wonderful decision to make Elise the center of the sequels. Lin Shaye had already proven herself to be the MVP of the Insidious movies, and giving her a chance to carry an entire film should have been an easy win. Unfortunately, despite its initial strengths, Insidious: Chapter 3 is an unremarkable and hard-to-remember prequel, with none of the drive or inspiration behind what made its predecessors work. 

Leigh Whannell was, of course, already well experienced in genre movies by this point thanks to his work with James Wan, but it would not be until later works like Upgrade and The Invisible Man that he would show just how great a director he could actually be in his own right . This was a rocky start for him in the director’s chair, as Chapter 3 is dreadfully dull more than anything else. There are certainly worse horror movies, and Shaye gives the material everything she has, but the movie rarely generates the kind of sustained tension you’d expect from an Insidious story. It feels less like a terrifying descent into The Further and more like yet another franchise obligation.

Insidious: The Red Door (2023)

A return to the Lambert family and a proper legacy sequel to the original pair of films, Insidious: The Red Door at least has a solid reason to exist beyond simply keeping the franchise alive for shareholders. Focusing on a divorced dad trying to reconnect with his son gives Patrick Wilson’s directorial debut an emotional hook that many of the later sequels desperately needed. There is genuine character work here, particularly in the relationship between Josh and Dalton, and Wilson does a commendable job of giving the material some dramatic weight. 

The emotion is there in enough spurts to make the movie work more often than not. The problem is that this is a classic example of a horror sequel that is severely lacking in the actual horror department. There are exceptions - that MRI sequence is quite good - but too much of the movie is devoted to emotional closure and franchise mythology rather than actually scaring us. Props to Wilson for giving it a whirl, though. The Red Door is a perfectly respectable attempt to close the Lambert chapter, even if it rarely feels like the grand horror event that the series’ conclusion should have been.

Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013)

Insidious: Chapter 2 isn’t nearly as scary as the first movie, but I really like the weird stuff it does with time and space inside the ghost dimension. James Wan takes the mythology established in the original and finds creative ways to use The Further as a kind of supernatural narrative puzzle box, connecting events across the two movies in ways that are genuinely cool. It is exactly the sort of thing a sequel should be doing: expanding on the first movie without simply repeating it beat for beat. 

Then there’s Patrick Wilson getting to go full The Shining mode. Watching Josh become increasingly demonically possessed after the events of the first film gives Wilson a lot more room to play, and he absolutely runs with it. The movie gets progressively sillier as it explains more of its mythology, but there is still enough inspired spookiness and invention here to make Chapter 2 surprisingly good for a sequel like this. It doesn’t recapture the viscera; terror of the original, but it proves that James Wan had more ideas for this world than simply making the same haunted-house movie again.

Insidious (2010)

Really great stuff. Insidious gets progressively sillier as it goes, and the further we venture into The Further, the more the movie loses some of the scariness that made its first half so damn effective. But before that happens, this thing absolutely earns its modern horror classic status. James Wan and Leigh Whannell take a relatively simple throwback haunted-house premise and fill it with some remarkably effective imagery, an unnerving soundscape, and a genuine sense that something terrifying is lurking just outside the frame. 

I will always prefer The Conjuring when it comes to Wan’s pair of haunted-house flicks / franchises, but Insidious can still get the heart pumping in the same way. I’m also firmly in the camp that does not consider the Darth Maul-looking demon to be particularly scary, though I certainly understand why he has his fans. Thankfully, the movie’s scares don’t live or die by that one creature. The best moments come from the atmosphere, the escalation, and the sheer weirdness of The Further. Whatever its flaws, Insidious remains the reason we’re still talking about this franchise 16 years later.