INSIDIOUS: THE LAST KEY

INSIDIOUS: THE LAST KEY tells the story of Elise Rainier, who was killed in the original movie, and serves as a sequel to INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 3. This part of the series explains Elise’s life as a child, and how her “psychic powers” allowed her to help so many people battle demons in the spiritual realm.

Living next to a penitentiary where people are sentenced to the death penalty regularly, the house Elise grew up in is full of lingering entities – good and evil. She and her brother are haunted by these ghosts, but she’s the only one who can see them. However, anytime she claims to see a ghost, it angers her father so much that he abuses her.

One night, her father punishes her by locking her in the dark basement, forcing her to stay in there all night. The evil entity that haunts their home begins to speak to her and asks her to open a door, because she possesses a power that allows her to do so. As she opens the door, the power becomes too much for her to handle, and the demon murders her mother.

After this incident, Elise only remains living with her father and brother for a few more years before deciding to run away. Fifty years later, Elise is working with a team of ghost hunters, helping people get rid of evil spirits that are haunting them and their homes. One day, she receives a phone call from a man who needs help, and the address he gives is the one of the house that she ran away from so many years before.

Although she refuses to help this man at first, she knows what kind of power he’s up against. She believes that the monster haunting him is using him to get to her and her powers. She decides to make the trip to Five Keys, New Mexico, and face the demon that killed her mother so long ago.

INSIDIOUS: THE LAST KEY is not much more than a poorly constructed script and an empty storyline, still trying to bank on the success of the first movie of the franchise. Full of cheesy and overly dramatic lines, the comic relief is, sadly, the best part of any of the dialogue. Elements of the story are laughable, and the setups to the jump worthy scares are very drawn out and easily predictable. The movie tries to tie itself together in what feels like a lazy attempt at storytelling, and the climax leaves the viewer very unsatisfied. The performances by the majority of the actors are less than Blockbuster movie worthy, although they were probably doing the best they could under the circumstances of the bad script.

THE LAST KEY does contain some positive elements, including self-sacrifice, good versus evil and warnings about the negative effects of feeding into hate and anger. However, it’s dominated by an overarching occult worldview where “psychic power” is the only force used to defeat the demons. The only element of a godly power is the presence of Bibles in a few places in the movie. In fact, one scene shows a man tossing a Bible to Elise as she enters a spooky room, but she never uses it. This movie also contains a relatively high amount of scary images and violence, as well as an exorbitant number of occult practices such as using hypnosis to enter the “spirit world,” and crossing over into “the other side” to battle evil in the supernatural world. The occult worldview in INSIDIOUS: THE LAST KEY is dangerous, abhorrent and unacceptable.