BY BRYAN WEBER
Insidious seems to have fallen into the trap that so many horror movies like it have done. The little bit of uniqueness that had warranted a watch of the first films has become completely stale and tiring. The newest film in the saga, ‘The Last Key’, is an amalgamation of incredibly poor screenplay and writing coupled with some of the worst acting performances I have seen in quite some time. Moreover, the sheer lack of originality garnered in the movie definitely leaves the viewer wanting more from the film.
The film takes place in 2010 and focuses on the previous character Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye) as she goes back to her childhood home in New Mexico after receiving a call from the current owner. The movie uses a series of flashbacks in order to convey the trauma that Elise experienced during her early life and the monsters that haunted her in that house. The saddest thing about these flashbacks is that they are actually incredibly well done and interesting compared to the rest of the movie; I was actually disappointed when they ended. In retrospect, I think that it would have been riveting to completely ditch the idea of Elise’s backstory and focus on the story taking place in 1950’s.
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The story itself seems to drag on and on until finally climaxing in the last fifteen-ish minutes. To be honest, it is definitely not worth the rest of the one hour and thirty minute build up of mush displayed in the film. The few jokes thrown in by the two sidekicks on occasion were actually quite clever. It makes me wonder why they spent so much time on the jokes but scrapped the dialogue and exposition together in seemingly five minutes.
On the topic of the ‘genre-defining’ jumpscares, the movie delivers, albeit not creatively or effectively. It’s quite hard to mess up a core element of your movie you’ve made three previous installments of, but ‘The Last Key’ certainly does. The high production sounds and effects are there, but it seemed the creators were really scraping the bottom of the bucket for cheap scares to reduce the boringness the rest of the film created.
Overall, I found the film to be quite terrible, and I wouldn’t recommend to anyone fan or not. If you would like to study what NOT to do in a film, this is a perfect example. The writing is awful, the screenplay and dialogue seem like a joke and the acting is a sometimes Tommy Wiseau level bad. Avoid the film at any costs, because there are so many better films to waste your time on and enjoy. I will give the film a three out of ten based on the sheer lack of creativity or originality.
Hmmm, I guess I will have to write reviews myself to share, as this is not indicative of what I would call a decent review. Really “Tommy Wiseau level bad.” is the biggest stretch I have ever read in a review. All of my friends who went and watched this film said they enjoyed it and some went on to say they enjoyed it more than previous installments. Sure it wasn’t the 10/10 best film ever, but it was definitely no 3/10. What criteria do you use to write these reviews?