Insidious: Out of the Further swaps sadness for terror. Then forgets to terrorize

Maybe Insidious: Out of the Further 's main issue is simply that viewers need to see the prequels — or at least one of the five films stretching back to the original James Wan horror movie that introduced this world. A world first established by the spookily depressing "It's not the house that's haunted; it's you" conceit that helped define the franchise — alongside a Darth Maul-fuelled jump scare and the dulcet tones of Tiny Tim's Tiptoe Through the Tulips .

This time, it's a return to the same: A scary story told through an emotional lens. A sort of frightening, sort of funny, more-than-flimsy family-drama morality play that reads like "Pennywise goes to the psychologist." One that works when it works — competent and restrained in ways that feel mature and suspenseful and, aesthetically, quite impressive.

But one that stumbles, falters and fails the longer it wears on, showing its age and flimsiness as its various, incompatible tones clash over a plot that feels just a little too rote to sustain our interest when combined with an intentional lack of actual fear.

One that uses parenthood, aging and the pain we inexorably pass on to our children as its big bad, populated by a world of ghosts and ghouls — white-faced, wrinkle-grinning monsters straight out of George Romero's central casting. Assuming that casting office was kitty-corner to the local senior's centre.

It's all related to the preceding films, you see. It's a movie ostensibly for the fans — not a disqualifying fact, even if it does make the plot harder for newcomers to discern. But combined with a near-complete lack of scares in what is, you'd think, a horror film, the biggest hurdles to enjoying Out of the Further is an odd mix of both under- and overwriting.

Who do we follow? That would be Gemma (played by Charli Penton as a child, and Amelia Eve as an adult), the traumatized daughter of a traumatized, raccoon-eyed mother, Ingrid (Laura Gordon).

Ingrid is a woman who screams violent nonsense to herself as young Gemma does homework and makes her own dinner by flashlight, then cowers under her blankets as those screams float up from downstairs. That is, until those screams suddenly stop the night a deeply unwell Ingrid bashes her own head against the shower tiles.

As is obvious to us, it's a death clearly related to the otherworldly whispers and general supernatural goings-on around her. It's also a death that becomes a traumatizing memory Gemma carries into her own motherhood of young Maya (Island Austin), morphing into a barely suppressed fear she'll fail her daughter the same way her own mother failed her.

Of course, that fear is supercharged when those whispers and white-faced seniors come for her, too. Out of that unfolds a complicated — but still poorly fleshed-out — paranormal race against the clock involving a mysterious, coke-nail-wearing villain (Sam Spruell), a trio of balding cultists and trips to and from the "Further" — the indigo-tinged purgatory where Insidious 's entire lore resides.

But for all the layers and self-references in this setup, it isn't supported by an equally fleshed-out plot.