Since its debut in 2011, the Insidious movie franchise by Blumhouse has garnered a dedicated following among horror enthusiasts. The latest entry, titled “Insidious: The Red Door (2023),” continues the successful lineage after the releases of “Insidious: Chapter 2” (2013), “Insidious: Chapter 3” (2015), and “Insidious: The Last Key” (2018). Penned by Scott Teems, known to horror fans for his work on “Halloween Kills,” the film features the multi-talented Patrick Wilson, who assumes the roles of director and star.
The fifth installment of the franchise places a strong emphasis on the intricate relationship between Josh Lambert and his son, Dalton (portrayed by Ty Simpkins). This choice is notable, as these two characters have consistently stood out as the franchise’s most compelling figures, and their shared experiences lend the new film a deeper dimension beyond mere jump-scare horror.
However, it also suffers from the constant need to go back and dig pages and set pieces out of its own IP, leading into a middling chapter. Wilson’s direction is greatly at fault because it just feels listless and in need of approval every now and then.
Since this is a movie that mostly feels like it wants to recap things for you, in the following article, I will look into Insidious: The Red Door and describe all its important details, especially that ending that might sound a little too terrifying for some people.
*Spoilers ahead*
Insidious: The Red Door (2023) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
After a brief opening scene depicting Josh’s possession by a demon, “Insidious: The Red Door” swiftly jumps ahead nine years to the present day. Josh finds himself grappling with a series of challenges, including the recent passing of his mother, Lorraine, a divorce from his wife, Renai, and his strained relationship with his now-grown son, Dalton.
Josh’s anguish is compounded by his muddled memories following his return from ‘The Further,’ an alternate dimension pivotal to the franchise. The weight of Lorraine’s death consumes him, with persistent visions of a presence haunting his every step.
At Lorraine’s funeral, Renai proposes that Josh take Dalton on a road trip to his college, an opportunity for father and son to reconnect. Initially resistant, Josh’s encounter with Carl, the priest responsible for erasing his memories of The Further, triggers a realization that prompts him to reconsider the idea. Josh senses familiarity with Carl but can’t quite place it.
Setting out together in Josh’s car, father and son attempt to bridge the emotional gap between them. However, their divergent personalities create an invisible barrier that proves difficult to breach.
Dalton’s enrollment in art school reflects his fascination with exploring the realms beyond canvas and imagination. As they reach the art school dorms, Josh attempts to open up about his inner turmoil. When Dalton suggests therapy, Josh dismisses the notion, insisting he’s coping in his own way.
This discord lays the groundwork for escalating tension, with Josh inadvertently trying to mold Dalton’s choices. Frustration mounts as Josh contrasts his own fatherless upbringing with Dalton’s, triggering Dalton’s anger at Josh’s use of his troubled past as an excuse for his present shortcomings.
The confrontation culminates in Josh storming out of the dorm, with his emotional turmoil quite evident.
Retreating home, Josh leaves a heartfelt voice message for Dalton, acknowledging the need to take his advice and seek help.
Meanwhile, Dalton’s roommate, Chris, enters the scene. Despite being female, Chris is assigned as Dalton’s roommate due to a mix-up in names. Chris’s forthright and intrusive nature leads to some revealing conversations with Dalton.
Dalton confides in her that he once experienced a year-long memory gap following a coma at the age of ten.
His first day at art school is weirder, with his art teacher Professor Armagan, asking the student to destroy one of their pieces of work that they themselves consider the best. Her idea is to make them reach into a deeply seated memory that haunts them in ways that they can’t figure out. While the professor counts down from 10, Dalton starts scribbling on his canvas, he is unable to control the urge to draw what he is drawing, and he ends up almost finishing what feels like a door. Just as he is about to put his charcoal away, a hand seems to appear out of the painting, making his hand bleed right into the center of the door that he has made.
On the other hand, Josh gets into an MRI machine to see what is wrong with him. However, Dalton’s drawing has unlocked the doors for the demons, so the father also starts experiencing strange things. For instance, the machine gets stuck mid-scan, and a deranged, demon-like figure appears inside it. Josh comes out of the machine, frightened by the possibility of something getting to him. The doctor tells him that he was just inside the machine and nothing substantial happened while he was inside. He then asks for Josh’s history of mental illness, but he is not very helpful in providing any info.
Meanwhile, Dalton, who was apprehensive about fart parties when his father suggested them, decides to go to one when Chris coerces him. At the party, an introverted Dalton sees visions of a boy who had died in the house. The dead kick calls out to him and says that he should “close the door.” The scare leads Dalton to rush away from the party along with Chris. The two of them head back to the dorms, where Dalton learns that ‘the further’ is basically a realm similar to an astral projection that Chris finds out about on YouTube.
While Dalton endeavors to decipher his experiences in his own manner, Josh, haunted by his MRI encounter, finds himself plagued by grim visions. During one such episode, a mysterious man thrusts him into ‘The Future,’ where he discovers a box of photographs labeled “Ben Burton.”
Who is Ben Burton, and how is he related to Josh?
Before long, the pieces begin to fall into place, revealing the identity of the man named Ben Burton – he is, in fact, Josh’s father. Through a series of flashbacks and potential visions, we’re offered insight into Ben’s life, specifically his struggle with Schizophrenia. These glimpses unveil that Ben possessed a similar ability to traverse into The Further, quite like Dalton and Josh. However, during that era, Lorraine, Ben’s wife, remained oblivious to the nature of these experiences and was unable to provide the necessary support.
Josh also gets to learn that since the visions of The Further and everything in it became too much to take for Ben, he took his own life by jumping from the room of the hospital he was admitted to.
The box of photographs also comes with a message that says that he would end it all. This might be a reference to the cycle of abuse, violence, and depression that ran in the Burton family and was passed on in some form to Josh and Dalton too. The whole idea of Insidious: The Red Door is based on generational trauma and these flashbacks are essential in setting them up.
Insidious: The Red Door (2023) Movie Ending, Explained:
Are Dalton and Josh able to close the Red Door?
The final leg of the movie can be broken down in just one way. This act hints that since both Dalton and Josh had repressed the memories of experiencing ‘The Further’ 9 years ago, they are not faced with strange happenings that may be a manifestation of the trauma they have kept inside.
Since Dalton left for college, these foggy memories intensified in Josh’s mind, manifest into some form of ghostly entities that haunt him. The entire journey of him trying to learn about his father and what led him to have an estranged relationship with his wife and Dalton is used as a metaphor for this repressed trauma.
The Red Door that Dalton drew was his subconscious telling him to open up the channels that he has surpassed, thereby uncovering the trauma that he experienced back then.
Finally, all of it boils down to when Dalton astral projectes one more time. Chris gets attacked by the red-faced demon while Dalton is trying to understand things by going back to the place of the frat party. When Foster, Dalton’s brother, calls him and they talk about a dream where their father was trying to kill them, the memories become clearer for Dalton, and he is able to complete his incomplete painting.
These memories show him the time when Josh, possessed by the Bride in Black, tried to kill his own family. In a loopy-loop kind of way, Dalton, now projecting himself into his memories, stops Josh from killing his younger self. However, walking back into the past also causes him to get sucked into the lair of the red-faced demon.
Now stuck in the demon’s lair chained up by the entity, Dalton is forced to stay in while the demon tries to kill Chris.
However, before he can do that, Josh, who, despite being warned about doing astral projection, goes into ‘The Further’ at his wife’s house and saves Dalton in time; the two of them get chased by the demon in ‘The Further,’ but they are able to barely escape through the Red Door.
The demon, who has been following them, tries to break down the door. This is where Josh tells Dalton to go away as he stays to keep the demon at bay.
The ending of Insidious: The Red Door is marked by Dalton returning back to his body, painting all over his Red Door painting with black paint, turning the door in ‘The Further’ dark, leading the demon to get stuck there and avoiding his entry into the real world (at least till the next film in the franchise).
Since the painting seals the demon away, Josh is trapped there, wandering along. He meets with the spirit of his father, Ben, and sort of reconciles with him. The spirit leaves a lamp for him before going away, and Josh is able to return back to the world of living peacefully.
The Lamberts sit down together and have dinner, and when Josh is about to leave the next morning, he meets Elsie’s spirit, who tells him that his future will not be without difficulties, but it will be brighter now.
The final moments of the film see Josh driving Dalton back to college and having a nice time with him. Dalton, who has now dropped some inhibitions for his somehow changed father, presents him with a painting of him rescuing a young Dalton from ‘The Further.’
Is there a post-credit scene in ‘Insidious: The Red Door’?
Yes. A very brief sequence that comes right after the final credit roll shows a light flickering over the now-sealed Red Door, hinting at the possibility that more Insidious movies are on the horizon.
