INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 3

Starring: Dermot Mulroney, Stefanie Scott, Lin Shaye

Writer: Leigh Whannell

Director: Leigh Whannell

The third Insidious movie takes the form of a prequel in which budding teenage thesp Quinn Brenner (Scott) falls foul of a malevolent spirit after she attempts to make contact with her dead mother. As the rules of this series would have it, if you call out to the realm of the dead everyone there can hear you and Quinn attracts the attention of a deadly supernatural force which then attacks her in a series of increasingly disturbing sequences.

Yes, we're back in the realm of the multiplex-friendly jump scare once more but with Whannell at the helm these jolts are engineered with more skill and care than the norm. Even though a large proportion of them still rely on the usual long period of quiet followed by an almighty BANG on the soundtrack as something appears, jumps out or grabs a character they don't always follow the predictable beats of the genre. It's this ability to wrong-foot the audience that keeps the tension at a decent level, at least for the first hour anyway.

It's only with the introduction of paranormal investigators Specs (played by Whannell in addition to writing the film, directing it and probably doing the catering as well) and Tucker that the pervading sense of unease is undercut by goofy comedy and the flick never fully recovers from that, Elise's ultimate confrontation with the Big Bad in the spirit world struggling to capture the genuine menace of what has gone before. Yes, it's nice to see how Elise first met the not-so-dynamic duo but the story definitely loses some of its momentum by its inclusion.

Still, the first two-thirds of this movie are far better and more involving than any third chapter of a franchise has any right to be and at the centre of it at all is a fine performance from Lin Shaye, giving it all she's got as the troubled psychic Elise, even getting a crowd-pleasing Ripleyesque moment towards the end of the proceedings which is both satisfying and very funny without being too cheesy.

Elsewhere, Stefanie Scott convinces as terrified teen Quinn and Dermot Mulroney is reliably on form as her dad. It's the sort of acting gig he can do in his sleep but he doesn't phone it in here even though his role requires him to do little other than look worried, not understand most of what's going on and shout at his son to get out of bed every morning. As for his son Alex (played by Tate Berney), he has trouble getting out of the bed in the morning and....er.....okay, he's not the most complex character ever written.

In a period of generally tepid remakes *cough* Poltergeist *cough* and sorry sequels it's nice to be able to say that the third Insidious movie is solid, enjoyable fare for horror fans and manages to throw in a couple of legitimately creepy moments along the way. It's just a shame that the climactic confrontation is lacking in the taut suspense of the earlier set-pieces. Certainly worth a watch though.