To all my horror movie people out there, I'm sure you've at the very least heard of the Insidious series. Just a warning this tribute will contain spoilers for all four movies. To start off with I'll give a quick summary of all four movies. The story of our heroin Elise and her companions is told out of order. So when we put the movies chronologically we start with the third movie or "Insidious Chapter 3." To summarize in the third movie Elise is called to the residence of Brenner family.
The daughter, Quinn, calls out to her dead mother and instead calls forth a demon who wants to possess her to kill others. Paranormals occurrences continue to occur and eventually, Quinn ends up with a neck injury when she is saved from being dragged out a window. Sean, Quinn's father, contacts Elise to assist him but finds herself lacking confidence in her abilities.
She refuses to go back into the further (the spirit realm) till she visits her friend Carl who continues to help her later on. In her absence, Sean brings in two paranormal bloggers by the name of Specs and Tucker who immediately screw up and admit they need Elise. Elise reenters the further and defeats the demon but unfortunately, leaves half of Quinn's soul behind.
Luckily Quinn's mother saves her and Quinn come back to reality. At the end of the movie, Elise's husband passes on and his spirit leaves his sweater on her bed.In this film, we also learn about another case she had much earlier on involving a child named Josh who had attracted the Black Bride. Elise then later senses the presence of two spirits leaving it on an open note. The way Quinn's mother saves her is a direct parallel to how Elise's mother saves her in "Insidious: The Last Key."
Chronologically the second movie to come next is the fourth movie aka "Insidious: The Last Key." A quick summary is that Elise is drawn back to her childhood home because of a new case. While she is back in her hometown she reunites with her brother and his two daughters. One of them actually has Elie's gift and has to use it, later on, to save go in after Elise. This is where we finally get a piece of her backstory.
Her father had been abusive to her because of her supernatural powers. She leaves home at the age of sixteen sometime after her mother passed away due to her letting a spirit out at a young age. This spirit goes on to possess her father and is the reason he abducts a redheaded girl. She continues doing more cases with only some of them involving the further such as Josh and the Black Bride.
Moving forward in the movie the spirit of the girl abducted decades ago helps them find the spirit responsible. When the brother and his daughters head into the home one of the sister's ends up in the hospital because of a spiritual encounter. Elise goes through alone and finds the spirit of her father. She is overtaken by both the sprit's influence and her own resentment towards him. Elise's brother's daughter must go in after her and saves both Elise and her sibling with the help of Elise's mother. At the end, Elise has a vision of the daemon from the first chapter of the Insidious series.
So, the first movie involves a black and red daemon trying to take the young son of Josh from the Black Bride case. His son is a traveler who is able to go to the further just as he once was. To elaborate, Josh had the Balck Bride attached to him at a young age and once she was gotten rid she vowed to kill Elise. This takes place before Quinn's case and is why she is unwilling to help her off the bat.
Once Josh is told about his abilities he goes into the further to rescue his son. While there seems to be a happy ending Josh actually isn't himself. Possessed by the Black Bride he kills Elise. Picking up right where we left off we follow Elise's sidekicks and Carl trying to figure out who killed her. It is later reviled that the Bride in Black is actually Parker Crane who was forced to mascarade as a girl for most of his life.
Carl finds Josh after "dying" in the real world. They later find Elise and she helps guide them both back after finding out more about Peter Crane's past. His son comes and brings him back to his body. While Elise is gone from our realm she is seen later on behind her two sidekicks.
To conclude, the way they've set up the storyline throughout these four films takes an immense amount of planning beforehand. The amount of work that went into the planning of this film is unimaginable. The complex way they tell the story keeps the audience interested in the reoccurring characters. It is very unlikely we'll ever see the fifth film because of what happened to Elise.
Even as a huge fan of the series I'm alright with that. We can connect with the issues and emotions they all experience, besides Specs killing someone. That experience I hope very few people can identify with. Personal view shots that were used during this were interesting even if they had already been done in a variety of other films. Overall, we can only hope to see something meet this level of storytelling in the horror genre soon.
