2010s, 2015, C+, Grade, Horror, mystery, Past, Review, review-movie, supernatural, Thriller, Year

Film Review: Insidious: Chapter 3 – 2015

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SPOILER DISCUSSION

The best scene in the film also demonstrates its biggest problem.

The camera pushes in on Quinn (Stefanie Scott)
Quinn (Stefanie Scott) wakes up.
The crack on the wall grows.
Quinn pulls the covers over her head.
Quinn (Stefanie Scott) peeks out from under.
The wall becomes blurrry.
Quinn hides under the covers again.
Cut to the building from outside.
Quinn thinks she’s under the covers.
Quinn (Stefanie Scott) takes off the blanket.
The camera pulls back from Quinn (Stefanie Scott).
Quinn (Stefanie Scott) notices she’s in the hallway upstairs.
The build-up to Quinn’s traversal is done in mostly silent fashion, making use of match-cuts and push/pull-in’s to establish what’s happening to Quinn. The camera pushes in on her. She notices supernatural events are happening and tries to hide from them. The nature of what’s happening isn’t apparent. Then as she takes her blanket off another time, she realizes she’s no longer in her apartment. The camera pulls out from her – she’s been transported. Then she looks over and realizes that the specter from upstairs is after her again.

The sequence starts with promise. The camera pushes in on Quinn from above. She wakes up and notices the cracks on the wall growing; this lets her know that “the Further” is after her. She covers her face in an attempt to hide from the situation. She peeks up a few times but the wall with the crack is now blurry. Perhaps the problem has gone away. She covers herself again, hoping that she’s safe for the night.

Cut to the outside of the building and then back to Quinn. She takes off the cover again and realizes she’s now on the floor above. The camera pulls back from her – a countermovement to the initial push-in that inaugaruated the sequence. The pseudo-match cut catches us unaware. We’re transported with Quinn in her seamless trip through the building – a minute of just pure build-up that happens in mostly silence.

Quinn notices how long the hallway is.
Quinn (Stefanie Scott) tries to escape.
She mashes the elevator button.
The evil spirit shows up behind Quinn ( Stefanie Scott).
Evil sneaks up behind Quinn in spite of her best attempts. There’s no loud announcing noise or auditory jolt accompanying the spirit who makes an surprise appearance behind Quinn.

Quinn notices how long the hallway is and tension sets in. She needs to escape. She makes a dash towards the elevator and desperately attempts to press the elevator button. We cut back and forth from her to her finger pressing the button; it’s in one of these cuts that Whannell places the specter haunting Quinn behind her. There’s no noise. There’s no loud BANG! There’s just the feeling of dread setting in.

Quinn gets wheeled down the hallway and starts to scream before being thrown on the floor of the room above her own.

Quinn’s doppelganger crawls towards her.

It’s here where she meets her “Further” doppelganger/ analogue – a faceless mimicry of her with knobs at its limbs’ ends. It crawls towards Quinn and generates an unsettling feeling. Understandably, Quinn screams for her father which manages to reach him. He comes up within 25 seconds and the doppelganger is now missing.

This is a wasted opportunity. The doppelganger is the closest to the unsettling and ambiguous set-pieces from the initial two films. There’s no apparent reason behind the creature and its presence is eerie. If the film instead held on the creature slowly moving towards Quinn, threatening an awful suggested fate, Quinn’s father making his way up would be a race against time. Holding on the encounter and playing it up would be terrifying.

Sean notices footsteps.
He notices the old man’s body on the floor outside.
Quinn (Stefanie Scott) looks outside of the window.
But the old man appears and attempts to pull her down.
The one-shot documenting the two separate window checks is effective in it’s own right but feels like a let down given how immaculate the build up of the scene is. Instead of rewarding the slow and eerie build-up with a nightmare to watch, the film opts for a quick jump scare with a momentary shot of something “creepy”.

Instead, the story opts for the something more contrived. Sean notices the evil spirit’s footsteps and follows them. The camera follows as he peers over the window and notices the spirit’s body on the floor before following Quinn ascertaining the same. However, as she peers over the window, the spirit shows up with loud accompanying jolt and tries to pull her out the window. The one-shot nature of the window-check is competent and makes the reveal scary in an immediate sense, but it definitely wastes the momentum built up for what feels like very little.

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