Insidious: The Red Door 4K 2023 2160p WEB-DL

"Astral: Red Door" - not another fruit of creativity of Russian localizers, but really a new part of the famous franchise. Patrick Wilson will not only return to the role of Josh Lambert, but for the first time in his career will sit in the director's chair. On the one hand, personnel changes almost certainly mean that all involved directors and screenwriters are so bored with the story that they do not even want to take it, and on the other hand - who but Wilson, more than 10 years brewing in these "Astral", "Spells" and "Annabelle", will be able to provide the audience with the expected?

Insidious: The Red Door 4K Review
In 2023, the famous horror franchise "Astral" turns 13 years old. And since the number 13 by all standards is not the happiest, nothing good can be expected from the next, already the fifth movie in James Wan's universe. Against the background of gradually falling ratings of the last parts of such a mood seems more than logical. However, the appearance of Wang's main favorite Patrick Wilson in the director's chair gave hope for a better future. After all, if Wilson can't adequately continue the legacy of the franchise, no one else will. Wang's own return to "Astral" is unlikely: multi-million dollar superhero blockbusters for Warner Bros. take up too much personal time and creative space. Besides, Wan's recent horror "Wicked" showed that he's obviously bored with linear ghost stories.

The action of "Red Door" unfolds nine years after the events of the second "Astral". The plot once again returns the audience to the Lambert family. Dalton (Ty Simpkins) goes to study at an art college, where he suddenly starts practicing astral projections again. Meanwhile, his father Josh (Patrick Wilson) is going through a rough patch: the death of his mother (Hiam Abbas) and a difficult divorce from Renee (Rose Byrne) are joined by mysterious memory lapses. Josh thinks he's just getting old, meanwhile creepy ghosts begin to appear behind his back with increasing frequency. Eventually father and son return to the thing they've been running away from all these years: the red-faced demon from hell catches up with them again.

On paper, a return to the Lamberts' story seemed like a good idea that could, if not save the franchise, at least bring it back on track: the prequels/spin-offs about psychic Alice (Lin Shaye) showed that nothing triggers the viewer like a good old-fashioned family drama. Alice, who for all her virtues had only a silent spaniel among her loved ones, hardly stretched the title of inspirational protagonist. Josh Lambert is another matter. For all the mystical component of what is happening - old ladies in black veils have never been so scary - the lion's share of the timing of the first "Astral" was occupied by a sluggish crisis of Josh and his wife Renee, which in the second part reached its climax. Obviously, that living the plots of Stephen King is not for anyone goes without a trace: the marriage of the main characters finally cracked at the seams, and the eldest son Dalton expectedly distances himself from the emotionally unavailable father. In "The Red Door" new screenwriter Oren Peli, who replaced Lee Whannell (who is also too busy and famous for "Astral"), continues the theme of intergenerational trauma, responsibility and fatherhood, set at the origin of the franchise, but at some point gets too carried away, turning the once horror into a touching, but completely inappropriate here melodrama.

Wilson - either out of a desire to preserve the concept, or out of a principled love for the director - actively echoes Wang's cinematic style, and in some moments literally inserts shots from the first "Astral", adding from himself only escapades with vomit and a couple of biblical references. For a franchise that has already been in a comatose state in recent years, such a lack of creative intelligence sounds like the ultimate death sentence. "The Red Door" barely resembles a standalone horror; to a much greater extent, the movie resembles an optional story for "its own." The fifth "Astral" has an assortment of entertaining fanservice: a hilarious two-minute cameo by Specks and Tucker (Lee Whannell and Angus Sampson), Wilson also managed to bring back the entire original cast, including the Lambert family, Lin Shaye as Alice and Steve Coulter as Carl. If you take "The Red Door" as a sort of final point in Josh and Dalton's story, it becomes less painful to look at the gradually decaying corpse of "Astral." One can only hope that the producers don't have another installment in mind - Carl and his magical bones have the potential to attract quite a few creepy ghosts.