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Insidious is one of the greatest horror movie franchises because of its many fascinating elements, fully developed characters, and genuinely scary monsters and worlds. The series’ heroes and villains often find themselves in the ominous Further. It’s an Insidious constant.
The best of these movies place The Further at the forefront and allow us to immerse ourselves in this dark world’s rich history and possibilities. It holds some of the scariest demons and most tortured souls. If you end up in The Further, you’re about to have a traumatic experience that might last for an eternity.
The Insidious films have shown some of the depth of this vast and empty darkness, but so much remains a mystery surrounding it, which hopefully gets uncovered in future films. However, let’s discuss what we already know and understand about Insidious’ The Further.
What Is The Further
Insidious’ most resourceful character, Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye) often described The Further as a place beyond our world. It doesn’t play with the same rules of time as Earth. It’s also somewhere between the light and the dark place, but a vast world that often mirrors our own.
Souls are trapped here for one reason or another, but it’s not supposed to be the end place. It’s sort of a purgatory or limbo stop for souls that haven’t crossed over to Insidious‘ version of Heaven or Hell. The Further is just one of many realms that can be accidentally stumbled upon by traveling too far away from one’s body.
How To Travel To The Further
A soul can find The Further in several ways. The most known one is through sleep or a trance state. In Insidious, Dalton (Ty Simpkins) would go there while he slept. He can only achieve this type of traveling because of his astral projection abilities. He inherited this gift and curse from his father, Josh (Patrick Wilson), who inherited it from his father.
The Insidious films show that people with astral projection abilities can travel there, but it’s not limited to them. In Insidious: Chapter 3, Quinn Brenner (Stefanie Scott) ends up in The Further because she tries to communicate with her deceased mother.
This allows a demon to lure her into the realm. It’s never confirmed that Quinn also possesses astral projection abilities, so we must assume that opening the door to spirits can lead to The Further if an entity with malicious intent latches on to someone and pulls them in.
In Insidious: Chapter 2, Elise reveals that she is in The Further by choice. She has been to the “better place” but returned to the Further because she heard Josh calling her. Elise also reveals that every soul goes through The Further before entering Heaven or Hell.
It’s like a waiting area for souls. Some just never leave it. Despite knowing that many souls eventually do leave, the franchise hasn’t revealed what keeps them from leaving. For Elise, she chose to return, therefore it could be a choice for some, but it’s not a choice for all. This is known because many souls are fighting to leave.
They want an empty vessel to possess to escape and live again. In CZsWorld’s video on The Bride in Black, it’s theorized that some souls may remain in The Further due to unresolved issues.
The Further’s Aesthetic
The Further is very dark and doesn’t show signs of light easily. It’s a place where only a lamplight can illuminate it. It looks different to different souls and entities. For some, it’s a place that resembles their last moments on Earth, or their personal hell. Sometimes, it becomes a mirrored image of places on Earth. We see this in how it sometimes becomes an upside-down replica of people’s homes. The Further looks like a basement at times by design and because of filming choices.
Creatures That Live In The Further
Many tortured souls inhabit The Further. These individuals are unable to escape their haunted past or the last moments of their lives, or are simply stuck there for some reason or another. The entities of this place make the Insidious films some of the most memorable ghost movies. The Bride in Black, also known as Parker Crane, is one of the series’ best-known ghouls.
Crane plays a major role in the first two films and is one of Elise’s biggest foes throughout the franchise. The Bride in Black has a tragic backstory that leads to her becoming this infamous serial killer and one of the souls trapped in The Further. However, The Bride eventually leaves and goes to Heaven or Hell.
The main goal of many of those trapped is to possess the living. They’re drawn to life because they crave it. It’s why so many spirits end up in the Lambert residence. With Dalton now walking around The Further, they want to try to take control of his body or anyone with an empty vessel near him. The longer someone leaves their body through astral projection, the more vulnerable they become to possession. However, the process of possessing someone is difficult and prolonged.
Elise (Lindsay Seim) and Josh’s mother, Lorraine (Jocelin Donahue), eventually stop The Bride from taking over Josh as a child because the process takes long enough for them to prevent his possession.
Demons also live in The Further. The Lipstick-Face Demon is one of Insidious’ main demons, and it almost succeeds at possessing Dalton’s body. The first image of this creature is one of the most memorable moments of the first film and is now a scene that still haunts us decades later. Unlike the many other franchise monsters, this demon isn’t trying to possess Dalton to get another chance at life. It’s a creature that just enjoys harming and torturing people.
It wants to take this twisted agenda outside The Further by living within and amongst humans. Some of these demonic creatures can also influence people. We see this in Insidious: The Last Key. The KeyFace Demon influences Elise’s father, Gerald Rainier (Josh Stewart), to kill. Decades later, it repeated this method with Ted Garza (Kirk Acevedo). The monster feeds on hate and that’s what empowers it.
Most of the spirits we see in The Further are evildoers with insidious intent, but those aren’t all who reside there, as evidenced by Elise’s presence. Additionally, we know that everyone who goes to Heaven or Hell must pass through The Further first.
Insidious’ Timeline With The Further
The Insidious films present a very complex and complicated timeline of the main characters’ involvement with The Further. However, it starts around the 1950s, with Elise entering as a child as seen in The Last Key. She then has other encounters with throughout her childhood and adulthood, but her next big trip there is shown in Chapter 2. In the 1980s, she meets Lorraine and saves Josh from The Bride in Black. The third and fourth movies happen before the events of Insidious.
The events of Insidious happen in 2010. Insidious: Chapter 2 also takes place in the same year. Some of the events of Chapter 3 and The Last Key happen a few years before the first film, so in the mid-2000s. The Red Door is set nine years after the events of Insidious and Chapter 2, so probably around 2019 and 2020. So, we see stories of The Further from the 1950s to the 2020s.
The rich history of The Further is one reason why the Insidious movies are such great haunted house films, despite it not technically falling into that category.