The Insidious franchise has now been scaring audiences for over fifteen years, but as it turns out, the latest installment is relying on some much more modern horror success stories to lend a bit more muscle to its marketing materials.
Advertisements for the upcoming sixth film in the franchise, Insidious: Out of the Further, have failed to exactly set the world on fire with excitement for the new entry, so now, marketing materials are being created that cite the film as from the makers of Obsession and Backrooms. While this is objectively true, with Insidious being a Blumhouse Atomic Monster production just as both Obsession and Backrooms were, the namedropping of these titles speaks to something larger.
The first Insidious movie, directed by James Wan and produced by Blumhouse, was released in 2010. The film was a crucial juncture for Wan as a filmmaker, as he had achieved massive success with the first Saw film in 2004 but seen both of his subsequent films, Dead Silence and Death Sentence (both of which were released in 2007), fall flat. As such, Insidious was a return to his roots, anchored in low-budget horror fare. The film turned out to be a massive success, both critically and commercially, and set Wan on the track that he would continue down in the years to come, with films like Insidious: Chapter Two, The Conjuring, and even Aquaman.
In the midst of amassing such success, Wan started his own production company, Atomic Monster. Initially, it was an entity all its own, producing projects like Insidious and Conjuring sequels, as well as original horror movies and TV shows. Atomic Monster would frequently collaborate with Blumhouse, given Wan’s affinity and pre-established connections to Jason Blum and co., but then in 2024, the two merged.
While things got off to a rocky start (the first film released post-merger was Night Swim, a not-good film that was panned by critics and audiences alike), the creative conglomerate clearly eventually found its footings, as they had a hand in the production and distribution of both of this year’s breakout horror hits: Obsession and Backrooms. The fact that they are now utilizing this fact to try and drum up further excitement for the new Insidious sequel is indicative of the chasm of difference between those films and this sixth installment.
Out of the Further features a befuddling narrative hook, and though the marketing features some solid scares, it’s done little to incite excitement. For what it’s worth, I think part of the issue is that the prior film, Insidious: The Red Door, was heavily marketed as the “final” film, and this new installment seems to be doing very little to comment on anything relating to that. It’s not a new beginning for the franchise, nor is it a direct continuation of the prior film, leaving it in this bizarrely nebulous zone, which its marketing has done little to clarify.
It feels as if the marketing for Out of the Further has just been banking on audiences showing up for little more than ‘another Insidious movie.’ And maybe they will, who knows? I wouldn’t have pegged the similarly latter-day sequel to a James Wan film, The Conjuring: Last Rites, to be the kind of success that it was last year, but that film had the advantage of utilizing its ‘final installment’ marketing to its advantage.
Conversely, Insidious: Out of the Further does not, as the franchise can’t exactly play that same card again after having already done it last time. Thus, the fact that the marketing materials are now pivoting to include Obsession and Backrooms name drops feels like an indication that Blumhouse Atomic Monster is getting a bit nervous about things and concerned that audiences’ appetites haven’t been properly whetted for this new installment.
Will this marketing tactic actually work? Only time will tell.
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