Does Dalton find a way to reconnect with his father?
Who is the mysterious man who knocks Josh into The Further?
We're here to break down the shocking conclusion of what's supposedly the final installment
in the "Insidious" franchise.
It's been nine years since Josh and Dalton had to fight their way out of The Further
— a shadowy dimension between heaven and hell where the most dangerous supernatural
demons live.
With Josh and Renai now divorced, the family is a bit broken.
Josh and Dalton have been living with a sense that there are secrets from their past they
can't quite grasp.
Remember that at the end of "Insidious Chapter 2", Josh and Dalton underwent hypnosis to
help repress their memories of astral projection, communing with the dead, and The Further.
"We're ready.
Read to forget, once and for all."
Being the only family member who remembers these events can't be easy for Renai.
As a result, Josh's relationship with his son is strained, and he desperately wants
to fix that.
He drives Dalton to college, hoping to connect with him, but the two are only pushed further apart.
With the help of an art class, Dalton starts to unlock that part of his memory Carl suppressed
in "Insidious Chapter 2".
At the same time, Josh starts to self-reflect and dig into his past, trying to get his head straight.
Both father and son accidentally open the Red Door and release the Red-Faced Demon who
tried to possess Dalton's body all those years ago.
Renai has been burdened with knowing the truth of Josh and Dalton's gifts and repressed memories
for years.
At the time, it seemed like the right thing to do.
After all, it was the only way to stop evil spirits from coming into the human realm and
possessing them — an easy choice to make, even if it proved to be only a temporary measure.
But at what cost?
With the cloud this has put over her family, she must question their choice.
As far as everyone other than Renai is concerned, Dalton suffered from meningitis and was in
a coma during that time.
Dalton's younger siblings, Foster and Kali, were too young to fully recall the events'
specifics, although Foster has a few confusing memories of his father's possession.
Since the divorce, Dalton feels resentment towards his father for leaving the family,
while Foster doesn't understand why he has night terrors of Josh trying to murder them all.
Josh has been feeling foggy for a few years, which concerns him enough to seek medical help.
Dalton thinks that his now-deceased grandmother was keeping secrets while she was alive.
Josh has no explanation for the wedge between him and his family, but he desperately wants
it gone.
On Dalton's first day of an art class, the teacher challenges the students to draw their
ugliest, most inner thoughts.
She counts down from 10 as a form of hypnosis, which undoes what had been done years earlier,
breaking through the psychic shield that had been protecting him all this time.
While in a trance-like state, Dalton sketches the Red Door.
The Red Door serves as an entryway to the darkest part of the Further, where its most
disturbing entities live.
Unbeknownst to him, the Red-Faced Demon, who tried to possess his body as a child, lives
behind this door.
The teacher asks if this door is meant to keep him in or out.
Dalton has no answer, but he becomes obsessed with finding one.
"I think these drawings could be clues from my past."
He draws the Door again, but this time a man stands in front with a hammer.
The face is distorted, so Dalton has yet to learn who it is supposed to be.
We later find out it's his dad, poised to murder Dalton with a hammer while possessed
by The Bride in Black.
On a different day in art class, the teacher tells them about 18th-century artist Francisco
Goya and his painting "Saturn Devouring His Son."
This painting was included in Goya's "Black Paintings," which all had haunting themes
of his fear of insanity and bleak outlook on humanity.
This artwork helps illustrate Josh's fear that he has some mental illness.
Dalton starts seeing things and people that he can't explain.
While he and his new friend Chris attend a frat party, Dalton encounters the spirit of
a dead frat boy, telling him to "close the door."
He eventually realizes that he must be referring to The Red Door.
Later that night, Dalton accidentally projects into an astral plane.
Something almost grabs him right before he returns to his body.
Not understanding this, he enlists the help of Chris.
She finds videos of Elise and her ghost hunters online that help explain astral projection
and The Further.
While Dalton is learning about his abilities, Josh is attacked by a spirit he doesn't know.
During the attack, he is briefly knocked into The Further and sees The Red Door.
It becomes clear to both father and son that the Door is the key to unlocking their memories.
Josh visits a neurologist to check if tumors are causing his mental fog.
While in the MRI scanner, Josh sees a man crawling towards him, with a raspy voice on
his medical walkie-talkie telling him, "The door is open" and "There's someone with you."
Although Josh doesn't know it at the time, this spirit is alerting him that Dalton has
opened the Red Door.
After his accidental trip to The Further, Josh finds an old box of photos that belonged
to his mother.
In the photos, posed with his mom, is Ben Burton, the man responsible for knocking him
into The Further in the first place.
After some digging, Josh discovers that this man is his father.
He's always assumed that his father abandoned them, but in reality, he died by suicide while
committed to a psychiatric hospital.
According to Ben's medical records, he had schizophrenia and spoke of his ability to
astral project.
He left a note that only read, "It ends with me."
In the first two chapters, we learned that astral projection is hereditary.
Therefore, Josh must have gotten it from his father.
Given the time when Ben was alive, he possibly thought the things he was seeing in the astral
plane suggested a mental illness.
He tried to save his son from whatever he thought was happening to him by ending his own life.
As he struggles to understand what he's learned about his father, Josh visits his ex-wife.
Renai, unable to keep these dark family secrets, explains everything to Josh.
"There's so much you don't know, and I was too scared to tell you the truth."
Yes, The Bride in Black was driving his body, but all his children saw was their father
trying to kill them.
They all agreed that removing that horrific episode from Josh and Dalton's memories was
for the best.
When Foster shows his parents a photo of Dalton's drawing of the Door, they know he's in danger.
Renai helps Josh go back into The Further.
Dalton, already in The Further, opens the Red Door to find The Red-Faced Demon waiting for him.
The demon captures Dalton as he enters his body, leaving Chris to deal with a possessed Dalton.
Once again, Dalton is trapped and needs his dad to help him escape.
They both get out of the demon's lair, but Josh has to hold the Red Door closed with
the demon ferociously trying to get Dalton.
At this point, Josh realizes he must keep this door closed.
He is ready to sacrifice himself to let Dalton escape.
Once Dalton returns to his physical body, he smothers his Red Door drawing in black paint.
This closes the door, allowing Josh to walk away.
Even though Josh is safe from the demon, he is still lost in The Further until Ben appears
with a lantern so that Josh can find his way back home.
One prominent theme in this chapter is the fractured relationship between father and
son: both Josh and Dalton, and Ben and Josh.
Ben made the ultimate sacrifice, thinking it would save his son from what he found to
be a curse.
Similarly, Josh was also ready to give his life to ensure his son's safety.
Despite years of resentment and misunderstanding, Josh and Dalton work together to defeat the demon.
Now that most of their memories have been restored, they should be able to work through
all of their issues productively.
There may be hope for them yet.
When Ben appears to Josh in The Further, Josh now realizes that his father just wanted to
protect him.
Ben disappears shortly after giving Josh the lantern.
Remember, tortured souls inhabit The Further.
Now that he has reconnected with Josh and helped him, his original mission is accomplished.
He has helped to protect his son, and now his soul can rest.
For his part, Josh can let go of his resentment toward his father.
As Josh leaves Renai's house, Elise appears to him on the street.
He recognizes her, but he doesn't know from where.
The memories of her must still be buried.
When she tells him that she's his mom's friend, he mentions there are so many things he wants
to tell her.
Elise assures him he will get the chance, tells him to "keep a steady stride," and disappears.
This doesn't scare or surprise Josh.
Elise seems happy during this interaction, but she could be warning Josh.
The family can now move towards healing, but work still needs to be done.
Not only must they focus on keeping the literal demons away, but they also have to watch out
for the more everyday struggles of rebuilding their family.
When we last see Dalton, he seems happier.
He has painted and prominently hung a portrait of his father carrying him from The Further
as he holds a lantern, a suppressed memory from his horrifying childhood experience that
he can finally access.
Having all the puzzle pieces, Dalton has forgiven Josh for years of what he mistook as neglect.
This installment has been advertised as the conclusion and the final chapter.
But is that really the case?
"When you awaken the dead, the further you travel, the riskier your journey will become."
This story does work quite nicely as a completion of The Lamberts' story.
It ties up most loose ends and gives a feeling that the family will be alright.
But let's be honest: Horror franchises are known to keep coming back for more.
Plenty of other franchises have announced a "final chapter," only to pull audiences
back in with another two or three films.
As "Insidious: Chapter 3" and "Insidious: The Last Key" showed us, The Lamberts aren't
the only ones tip-toeing through the tulips of The Further, and it's possible future movies
could feature different protagonists.
At the very least, we know that Mandy Moore and Kumail Nanjiani will be starring in the
"Insidious" franchise spin-off, "Thread: An Insidious Tale."
A brief post-credit scene of the Red Door, which is now black, has the light above flickering back on.
This tease for fans hints at more to come.
The Red-Faced demon is not done with you just yet.