When it comes to the most successful horror film franchises of the last decade, the Insidious franchise stands out as one of the scariest, producing nightmare-inducing films one after the other. These films will undoubtedly terrify you to the point where you will be concerned about going to sleep and the horrors that await you in your nightmares. The first film in the trilogy highlights the horrific challenges faced by parents attempting to protect their son from hostile paranormal beings infiltrating their house.
The long-running franchise follows the Lambert family and paranormal investigator Elise Rainer through ethereal worlds, psychic visions, and a non-traditional franchise timeline, devised by James Wan and Leigh Whannell. The second film is a sequel to the first, while the third and fourth are prequels that take place before the first.
The world known as The Further is one of the key areas in which this film takes place. The Further is a vast, dark, and empty realm located halfway between Heaven, Earth, and Hell. The realm is ruled by and haunted by countless demons. According to Elise, the Further is a horrific place where many people have been cursed to live forever, and where time does not work as it does in the normal world.
It pervades every inch of the tangible dimension, although being immeasurably far from it. In The Further, there is no substantial source of light. Although distances are difficult to gauge, it reflects the physical world. In the Afterlife, the deceased’s memories can also alter reality.
We are going to look at the deadliest monsters from The Further and the Insidious movies today, so be cautious!
The Red Face Demon [Red Face Demon is the antagonist in all 4 movies]
Have you ever seen a blood-red face in your dream and woken up in a cold sweat? Well, you might have encountered this horrible entity. The Man with the Fire in His Face, also known as The Red Face Demon, is the main antagonist of the Insidious film series. He first featured as the series’ main adversary in the first film, and he subsequently re-appears as a key antagonist in Insidious: Chapter 2, Insidious: Chapter 3, and The Last Key.
It was the creature in the Further in the first film, over which he rules with an iron fist, and it was the one closest to seizing Dalton’s corporeal body. Behind a blood-red door in Lambert’s attic, the demon lives in a big, red-lit, demonically-decorated lair.
The Red Face Demon is a grotesque and menacing creature with a black humanoid appearance that is tall and emaciated. He has long spider-like claws, hooves, and a long forked tail, and most of his body is black as coal. Except for long tufts of hair around his ears, he is mostly hairless.
Despite the fact that he is naked, he frequently wears silvery metallic claws over his own fingers. His most distinguishing feature is his blood-red face, which contrasts sharply with the rest of his physique. With a broad aquiline nose, sparkling yellow eyes, crooked teeth, and a long forked tongue, his face has a powerful presence.
After the fall of the Angels, he ruled the Further, a location halfway between Heaven and Hell. He is a malevolent and violent entity, according to what is known about him. Only his victims and minions are ever seen in his lair, therefore he appears to be rather territorial.
According to Elise, devils like him are just interested in possessing a body in order to inflict suffering on others. He is far more powerful as a natural demon than other ordinary human souls. He is in charge of his own section of the Further. With a crushing backhand hit, he can send grown adults flying, and he also possesses incredible telekinetic abilities.
He can channel a larger degree of power than other typical souls in the physical world when he possesses corporeal bodies, even if only partially, blasting people seated around a table by just slamming his conduit’s palm on it or thrashing adult men with little apparent effort.
Being the closest to possessing Dalton’s body demonstrates his greater strength over other human seekers. Renai first notices the demon when she hears it talking over the baby monitor. We witness this entity reappear as an evil being in every film, allowing us to get a closer look at it while seeing its desire to cause mayhem.
Wheezing Demon – The Man Who Can’t Breathe [From Insidious: Chapter 3]
The second demon we have for you is a terrifying one, don’t let the name fool you. The Wheezing Demon, also known as the Man Who Can’t Breathe, is the main enemy of Insidious Chapter 3 and is a very dangerous and wicked demon from the Further. A breathing mask and a filthy, ruffled medical gown are worn by the Wheezing Demon. With a wiry and deceptively weak-looking frame, he’s lean and malnourished, practically bald.
His eyes are pale blue, his skin is decaying, and his feet appear to be covered in a thick layer of tar, which, along with the black footsteps he leaves behind, firmly verifies his existence. He has a lipless mouth that appears to be a gaping hole under his breathing mask.
Despite his terrifying look, he has the ability to transform into a human-like appearance. He’s also notorious for producing wheezing noises, which explains his alternate moniker. His look shows that he died as a result of respiratory disease, hence the breathing mask and hospital gown.
The Wheezing Demon is a violent and corrupted demon that controls a portion of The Further, notably The Further version of The Brenner family’s apartment complex. The Wheezing Demon prefers to drag living souls into The Further for him to toy with and feed on as a threat to many spirits in The Further that wish to return to the land of the living. He is powerful, as seen by his ability to easily throw Quinn out of her bed, scale walls, shape-shift, remove objects from people’s bodies invisibly, infiltrate brains, and create illusions in the living world.
He heard Quinn’s voice in the movie when she sought to contact her deceased mother. Quinn was then terrorized by him. Later, he takes her to the Further, where he feeds on her soul. Elise, Specs, Tucker, and Sean, Quinn’s father, all attempt to stop him and save Quinn. The Wheezing Demon is infamous for possessing his victims and compelling them to commit suicide so that he can suffocate them forever in the darkness.
Quinn is briefly possessed by him, and he attempts to murder herself with a box cutter. His purpose is to push people to suicide and keep them as his ‘pets’ in the dark. He tries to persuade Elise to commit suicide by posing as her late husband Jack, who committed suicide himself and inviting her to join him.
Elise, on the other hand, recognizes that Jack would never ask her to do such a thing and attacks the demon. Elise fights the Wheezing Demon valiantly and returns Quinn to her body. Quinn is apprehended by the demon just as she is about to return. Elise and the others join hands with Quinn in the physical realm to psychologically encourage her and aid her soul in overcoming the Wheezing Demon alone.
The Wheezing demon is defeated when Quinn’s mother, Lilith, appears in response to Elise’s pleas for help and assists her daughter in defeating the demon. Quinn regains her wits in The Further and rapidly takes the demon’s respirator from his lips, rendering him unable to breathe and slaying him for good.
KeyFace – The Man with the Keys [The main antagonist of Insidious: The Last Key]
This one arguably has the most grotesque face out of them all. The main antagonist of Insidious: The Last Key is KeyFace, also known as The Key Bearer or The Man with the Keys. His face is gaunt and skeleton-like, with sharp cheekbones, sunken eyes, and no lips or nose. He has long, dark, greasy hair on the sides of his head, but none on the top.
He’s tall, grey, and thin, but he has a swollen tummy that makes him look like a corpse. Long, translucent strands of flesh, almost like slime, appear to link his arms to the sides of his chest. His fingernails, which are metallic keys of various forms that he uses to lock individuals in The Further or to lock their voices in, are his most distinguishing feature.
The Key Bearer appears to enjoy inflicting agony on others. In his case, he does it- by keeping spirits as pets, which he then locks in his cave with his powers. He doesn’t appear to be doing it for a sadistic feeling of enjoyment, as he feeds on the bad emotions that pulsate from other people’s pain. In The Further, the Key Bearer also appears to be hell-bent on, ‘opening all doors.’
The Key Bearer’s two main skills are activated by ‘locking’ the victim in two different locations on the body. The first locking appears to silence its victims and, in some cases, causes a lock to appear around their necks in the actual world.
The second locking appears to ‘lock’ the victim within The Further, preventing them from escaping, and may also result in genuine physical harm, as Melissa experienced when she was locked twice. To survive, he must feed on negative emotions, which he obtains from people by inflicting pain and interfering with their lives. He also looks for those that have a lot of resentment or anger so he can use them. He possesses superhuman strength and the ability to teleport.
The Key Bearer haunted a young Elise Rainier before she fully realized her ability. The Key Bearer fools Elise into unlocking a door in The Further that he himself couldn’t open when her father sends her down to the basement as a punishment. Audrey Rainier, Elise’s mother, goes down to the basement and is strangled by The Key Bearer.
It then begins to feed on the wrath of Elise’s father, Gerald Rainier. The Key Bearer coerces Gerald into kidnapping nurses and keeping them in the basement to be tortured and killed before hiding their bodies and belongings in a ventilation shaft, using his powers to infiltrate Gerald’s psyche. In the end, he is defeated by Elise.
The Bride in Black [Was a minor antagonist of the first three-part of the movie]
The Bride in Black isn’t a bride. The Bride in Black and the Old Woman are the aliases of Parker Crane, a serial killer who used to dwell in the Further. He was a minor adversary in Insidious: Chapter 3 and the main antagonist in Insidious: Chapter 2. He was also a secondary antagonist in Insidious: Chapter 3 and the primary antagonist in Insidious: Chapter 2.
Parker Crane is an elderly guy who was abused as a child by his mother. He began his spiral into madness by being forced to dress as a girl and take the name ‘Marilyn.’ Later, under the alias “The Bride in Black,” Crane became a mass murderer. According to his medical records, Parker Crane was a tall, pale, balding man in his late 60s with brown eyes.
He wore a black bridal gown with a veil over his face and black gloves as The Bride in Black. Crane wore face paint and a blonde wig to imitate an elderly woman. He holds a candle during his first appearance in Insidious. Parker Crane was one of the most powerful forces in the Insidious series as a former serial killer and a terrible spirit.
He was known as the serial killer ‘The Bride in Black’ while he was a human, killing a total of 15 people. He had adequate strength to subdue his victims despite the fact that he was old when he committed most murders. He kept his physical strength and obtained eternal life as a spirit of The Further.
Crane had remained in The Further since then, and, like all ghosts and demons in that domain, he had a strong desire to return to life. When a teenage Josh Lambert discovered his ability to Astral Project, Crane would have a chance to come back to life. Josh’s mother Lorraine could see the effects of Josh’ talent in many images, with Crane growing closer and closer to Josh in each one. Lorraine was so afraid that she sought out psychic Elise Rainier.
When Josh returned to The Further in the second film to save his son Dalton, he ran into Crane again, but this time he was successful in seizing Josh’s body. Outside The Further, Elise quickly found Crane by taking a snapshot of Josh and revealed it to be Crane.
The spirit of Crane does not die in the series thus far, only retreats, so maybe the Bride in Black will make a return in the fifth installment.
The Ghoul – Long-haired Demon [He was a secondary antagonist in the first two-part of the movie]
This entity will give you the creeps and make you nauseous at the same time. Its appearance is positively horrific and nightmare fuel and so are its activities.
The Long-Haired Fiend, also known as ‘The Ghoul’ or ‘The Long-Haired Demon,’ is the moniker given to the soul of a strange and aggressive man who lives in the Further and is a secondary enemy in Insidious Chapter 2 and a minor antagonist in Insidious Chapter 3. The Long-haired Fiend, unlike the other spirits in the house, is actively hostile and has assaulted the Lambert family several times.
His appearance and demeanor suggest that he was a criminal in a previous life and that he died in The Further. His face appears to have degraded as a ghost, which is why he is known as ‘the Long-haired Fiend.’ He has thin, cracking skin and wears a black leather trench coat. His hair and eyes are dark, and he has dark hair and eyes. His look shifts from that of a ghoul to that of a scary ‘Long-Haired Fiend.’
Throughout the Insidious film series, the Long-haired Fiend appears three times. In his initial appearance, he was spotted pacing outside Dalton’s room with other spirits. He was the only one in the room at the time, and he left before Josh came. When the Lipstick-Face Demon temporarily takes over Dalton’s body, the Fiend is seen attempting to sexually abuse Renai for the second time.
After Elise exorcises the Demon from Dalton’s body, he vanishes. He guards the door leading into the Demon’s lair for the third time, attempting to overwhelm Josh and capture his body. Josh almost succeeds, but thanks to Elise’s support, he is defeated and sent back into the darkness.
Doll Girl [The ghost of a teenage girl existing in the Further with her family.]
Dolls have been a favorite for ghosts and demons to inhabit and some of the best-known horror movies center around haunted dolls, but this one is something else altogether. The Doll Girl is a ghost of a teenage girl who lives with her family in The Further. In The Further, she and her family are doomed to relive their horrific deaths.
When you stare at her wide-eyed smile, you’ll undoubtedly get the creeps. Her clothing, as well as that of her family, suggests she was born in the 1950s. The family themselves promotes the ‘ideal family’ cliché of the time. After murdering her family, the Doll Girl wears an unnerving smirk. The Doll Girl’s motivations for killing her family may have been due to insanity, based on her facial expression.
Josh enters the Further and discovers a replica of his home, which he explores. In this realm, he comes face to face with the Doll Girl’s family in the living room. The mystery family appears to be active at first, but as Josh approaches, they come to a halt. Josh continues his inquiry by entering the dining room, where he discovers the Doll Girl seated at the table with a loaded revolver. Josh interrogates the spirit, but she does not.
Three gunshots ring out, and the Doll Girl vanishes from her perch, reappearing in the living room, having murdered her entire family, while the Doll Girl grins sinisterly at her work. Josh goes upstairs, but the Doll Girl and her family come to him one last time as he does so. They all smirk at Josh, as if they’ve found some form of amusement in their punishment. The Doll Girl and her family are never seen again after that – quite an unnerving interaction.
A fifth Instalment Has Already Been Confirmed Insidious 5 (2022)
Wanting to see more of these horrifying demons? Fear not, a fifth movie in the franchise has been announced! This fifth installment will take a fresh approach, with certain fan favorites returning. In addition, ‘Insidious 5’ will be Patrick Wilson’s directorial debut, which is exciting in and of itself given his connection to the series. According to Blumhouse’s Jason Blum, ‘Insidious 5’ will hit theatres sometime in 2022,’ and we’re very psyched!
The film will be a direct sequel to ‘Insidious: Chapter 2’ which ended with the Lambert brothers being hypnotized to make them forget about The Further and its demonic inhabitants. The new film picks up ten years after the events of the sequel, with a father and son combo dealing with the fallout.
The film will look at a grown-up, college-going Dalton and we can’t wait to see what sinister concoctions the creators have up their sleeves! This is a good time to sit and binge-watch all the movies in the series so that you’re prepped and ready for the horror fest that is about to come!