INSIDIOUS: OUT OF THE FURTHER
A small family haunted by demonic entities overcome evil through dark forces.
Should You Watch It?
No. Like its predecessors in the INSIDIOUS franchise, this movie delivers horror, suspense, and mystery mixed with the occult and medium practices. It introduces a new set of characters and brings back a familiar one, Elise.
This time, the story asks a different question: what happens when a person doesn't just travel into the spiritual world, but drags something, or someone, back with them into ours? That's an interesting hook for a horror movie, but it doesn't make the movie worth watching.
Like the movies before it, this one loads up on horror, violence, torture, and grotesque scenes, and it even shows suicide and murder. Scary demonic characters show up throughout, and the only way the story deals with them is through the occult and medium practices.
The Bible has something to say about that in Deuteronomy 18:10-11: "Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead." So while the movie treats talking to the dead as a workable fix, God calls it detestable and off-limits.
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The Story
NO SPOILERS — WE KEEP THE SURPRISESThe movie opens with a young girl named Gemma, who lives in fear of her own mother, Ingrid. Ingrid appears to be severely mentally unstable, and the story soon reveals why: she takes her own life, right in front of Gemma. Gemma doesn't just witness her mother's death, though. She also senses an invisible force in the room, something present at the moment Ingrid dies.
The story then jumps forward to a grown Gemma, who now has a daughter of her own, Maya, about the same age Gemma was when her mother died. Gemma and Maya live in that same house, the one where Ingrid took her life. The movie raises an unsettling question: what really happened to Gemma's mother, and is history about to repeat itself?
Is It Any Good?
This one earns three stars for the interesting question it raises: what happens when a person can travel into the spiritual world and then drag something, or someone, back into the natural world? That question fuels the horror plot well.
The movie boasts a strong cast, and each actor handles their role skillfully. It even brings back a familiar face from the earlier INSIDIOUS movies: Elise, played by Lin Shaye.
The movie offers some funny moments, and viewers may let out a chuckle. But not every joke serves the story. Some humor pulls viewers right out of the horror plot instead.
A strong sense of dread builds, too, but it pushes that dread too far. To its credit, the story roots itself in a mother's fight to protect her daughter from the same fate that took her own mother, and that protective, sacrificial love gives the movie a genuine emotional core. Still, that pro-family thread doesn't offset how far the movie pushes its horror and occult elements.
The Worldview
The movie's premise centers on a strong occult and pagan worldview. A person travels into the spiritual world through astral projection and then brings something or someone back into the natural world.
Gemma embodies that premise. She lost her mother, Ingrid, to a mental collapse and suicide, with an unseen entity present at her death. Now Gemma raises her own daughter, Maya, in that same house, and fear pushes her toward the same astral and medium practices that likely doomed her mother.
The movie frames this as an act of love, but no faith or prayer enters the picture as a true alternative. Instead, it rewards Gemma's occult gamble, and it piles on grotesque, torture-heavy scenes, including a fully nude demon and a half-nude one, which add nothing to the story.
A real thread of motherly love runs through the movie, but it misdirects that love through evil anti-biblical practices. Scripture offers Gemma a way to protect Maya that doesn't require a trip into the spiritual world at all: trust God as refuge, not power seized from dark forces.
The Content Guide
The specifics — spoilers included by nature — so you can judge for your own family.
Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements
A light biblical worldview where a mother tries to protect her daughter from the demonic evils that seek to hurt them. Strong occult and pagan worldviews, posing occult practices as the solution to demonic evils haunting a mother and daughter. A disturbing depiction of occult practice from the main villain and his acolytes. Frightening demonic characters appear. A mother turns to occult and medium practices, clouding the light biblical worldview
Foul Language
Two profanities including one “Gd” word and “holy sh" word. 10 obscenities including five “sh" words, one "a" word, three "f" words, and one "b" word
Violence
Strong horror violence. A mother lunges towards her young daughter with a kitchen knife. A character commits suicide by bashing her head multiple times into a bathroom wall, demonic entities attack and torture characters multipe times. An evil acolyte cuts a character’s hand and splatters blood. Three murder scenes. Demonic entities attack and torture the main demonic villain. A character discovers deceased bodies and uses an electric taser on the evil acolytes to wake them from their sleep and stop them from fulfilling their evil occult plan
Sex
No sex
Nudity
A demonic entity appearing fully nude four times and another demonic entity appears half nude, wearing a shirt and underwear
Alcohol Use
No alcohol use
Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse
No explicit smoking or drug use, but there is depiction of evil acolytes using chemicals to sedate themselves;
Miscellaneous Immorality
A character abuses his authority as a police officer to gain access and information on a group of evil acolytes occupying a home that does not belong to them. The character is shown a second time abusing his authority as a police officer by breaking into a home to stop the evil acolytes.
Talk About It
Questions for the drive home, the dinner table, or the youth group.
In the movie, Gemma and Maya are targeted by demonic evils, even to the point of hopelessness. Where in scripture can we find counsel for hope in God? Psalm 27: 1-14
The Final Word
INSIDIOUS: OUT OF THE FURTHER continues the franchise with a familiar hook: someone crosses into the spiritual world, then drags something, or someone, back into ours. Gemma and Maya carry that hook as mother and daughter, and their bond gives the story real stakes. But the movie leans hard on demonic evil and grotesque imagery it doesn't need, and it treats occult and medium practices as the answer to that evil rather than the cause of it. Needless scenes of suicide and murder pile on top of that.
