Weekend Watch: Insidious: The Red Door, The Horror Of Dolores Roach

Two very different shades of terror

Image Credit: Sony Pictures

Welcome to the latest edition of Weekend Watch, in which I recommend (or occasionally warn against) movies or TV shows I’ve been checking out. This week, Patrick Wilson’s headed back to the Further while Justina Machado has a killer new job. Follow James on Twitter: @jamwhite

Kicking off in 2010 with the original Insidious (catchy tagline: “it’s not the house that’s haunted”), the horror franchise has since spun the story (with two prequels) of the Lamberts, whose comatose son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) is actually falling victim to a strange realm known as The Further, where souls are doomed to reside unless they can reach out to (and draw life from/possess) the living.

With Patrick Wilson anchoring most entries as Josh Lambert, it has cranked out four offerings so far of mixed quality, though the concept as remained strong.

With the fifth movie picking up ten years after the events of the second film, the Lamberts are a fractured family in mourning. Patrick Wilson is back as Josh, struggling with the loss of his mother, Lorraine, and keen to mend the relationship with his oldest son, Dalton (a returning Simpkins).

He agrees to drive the talented artist to his Ivy League university, hoping the road trip and settling him in will help them reconnect. Things, as you might suspect, don’t go to plan.

At the same time, a psychological trigger revives a past Dalton didn’t even realize he’d forgotten (or, more accurately, had used hypnotized to suppress), and it gradually begins to sneak its dark fingers into his reality, opening a gateway to the nightmarish realm.

The gateway is a red door that haunts his Dalton’s art and his dreams, a portal in The Further that Josh and Dalton must unite to close for the sake of their family, past and present…

Serving in its own way as a legacy sequel, The Red Door is the first to be directed by Wilson, who makes a compelling argument for him to continue calling the shots. He makes a solid stab at the film, juggling the job effectively while also starring as the haunted Lambert patriarch, who has both daddy issues and parental problems.

Though newcomers will be a little baffled since the film only makes one nod towards catching anyone up (in a sequence that honestly grinds the story to a halt for an exposition dump from some admittedly entertaining supporting characters), fans of the franchise should appreciate the chance to spend more time with the Lamberts, Scott Teems’ script (born from a story he concocted with original Insidious writer and one-time director Leigh Whannell) making sure to develop the characters before the scary stuff truly kicks in.

And as for the horror aspects, they’re mostly successful, though some may mourn that certain key ghouls don’t get as much screen time in this one.

Simpkins, meanwhile, gives good mope as Dalton, but several of his scenes are stolen by Sinclair Daniel as Chris Winslow, a young woman assigned mistakenly as his roommate on the first day of college. She’s a sheer delight of a character, funny, askew and always with a solid heart. It’s the sort of role that should draw her plenty of attention.

Elsewhere, a returning Rose Byrne as Renai Lambert does what she can with limited screentime, while Hiram Abbass as maverick art professor Armagan makes the most of her own couple of scenes.

This is certainly not the best Insidious (the first two have yet to be topped), but it’s a more satisfying return to a franchise than the fellow legacy likes of Halloween Kills.

Insidious: The Red Door is in US and UK cinemas now.

Image Credit: Prime Video

While I keep insisting I’m not much of a horror fan, I do enjoy a good twist on the genre, and The Horror Of Dolores Roach couldn’t be more different from the strait-laced Insidious.

The story here is of the titular Dolores (Justin Machado, whose work I have followed ever since Six Feet Under and who was particularly great in the rebooted One Day At A Time), unfairly sent to jail for 16 years after her boyfriend leaves her to the police when his weed operation is busted. Released in 2019, she’s back in her old stomping ground of Washington Heights, but barely recognises the gentrified locale.

Having trouble finding a place to live or a job, Dolores lucks into an old friend ––Alejandro Hernandez’s Luis Batista, who runs the empanada restaurant he took over from his late father. Soon Dolores has both somewhere to crash and utilises the massage skills she learned in prison to make ends meet.

But because this is a take on Sweeney Todd, both the job and the empanadas become something much more gruesome. And when she and Luis encounter all manner of privileged scummy types (including Marc Maron’s cheap landlord), the stage is set for some bloody, and bloody tasty, revenge.

Satirising changes in society and the Latin experience, the series is a lightweight lark created by Aaron Mark, who adapts the eponymous podcast and runs the show alongside Dara Resnik. Directors here include Roxann Dawson (shout out to any Star Trek: Voyager fans reading this), Hiromi Kamata and The Blair Witch Project veteran Eduardo Sánchez, and for another One Day connection, that show’s developer, Gloria Calderón Kellett is an executive producer here.

Machado is typically winning, conveying both Dolores’ frustration, sass and vulnerability, while keeping you rooting for her even as she starts to slay people. It’s not going to change the world, but The Horror Of Dolores Roach is a fun concoction that should appeal to those who like a little comedy mixed in with their horror.