Insidious: Out of the Further is the most fun I’ve had with this franchise in years
Critics landed at 57%. They're wrong. Jacob Chase understands what these films are for.
Insidious: Out of the Further · Dir. Jacob Chase · In theaters now
The sixth Insidious has a 57% on the Tomatometer and a 69% audience score, and the audience has this one right.
Six films in, a franchise either understands its own appeal or it does not. Jacob Chase clearly does. These movies have never been about narrative surprise. They are about a filmmaker constructing a space, filling it with things you cannot quite see, and then making you stare into it for ninety seconds longer than is comfortable. Chase builds those spaces well.
The pillow fort
The set piece everyone is talking about deserves it. It is the best sequence in the series since the original, and it works on pure spatial logic: a small enclosed space, a limited sightline, and the growing certainty that the geometry is wrong. Daniel Kurland at Dread Central called it some of 2026’s most satisfying scares and that is accurate.
Amelia Eve carries the film. She plays Gemma’s fear as exhaustion rather than hysteria, which is a harder choice and the right one. Brandon Perea and Sam Spruell are solid around her, and Lin Shaye turns up again, as she has in every one of these, still the most reliable presence in modern studio horror.
On the critical response
The complaints are mostly about the script being familiar and the third act losing steam. Those are fair observations that matter less than the reviews suggest. Nobody buys a ticket to the sixth Insidious hoping to be structurally surprised. They buy a ticket to sit in the dark and get got, and this one gets you repeatedly.
It also works as a first film in the series, so this is a reasonable place to start if you have somehow missed the other five. Bring somebody who scares easily.
