Insidious: Chapter 3

Dads can have a tough time of it when their little girls turn into teenagers and start attracting the attention of the opposite sex. Or in the case of this largely fright-free horror flick, attracting the attention of a faceless demon that feeds on the life force of women.

Directed with not much flair by Leigh Whannell (who wrote the previous two installments), ‘Insidious: Chapter 3’ is being billed as a prequel. The franchise’s stars – Rose Byrne and Patrick Wilson – have bailed, replaced by Dermot Mulroney as widower Sean Brenner, and Stefanie Scott as his 17-year-old daughter Quinn, who live together in a spooky apartment block. Clanking pipes replace creaking doors as the first sign that something sinister is afoot, and when Quinn is involved in a car crash that puts her in a wheelchair, both legs in plaster, the evil spirits come out to play.

What ‘Insidious: Chapter 3’ has in common with the two earlier films is The Further, a netherworld of lost souls, and a place into which humans, illogically, can wander willy-nilly. Lin Shaye returns as Elise Rainier, a psychic with the manner of an Avon lady, bumblingly assisted by ghostbusting sidekick nerds Tucker (Angus Sampson) and Specs (played by director Whannell). With just a handful of jumps and one fingernails-on-a-blackboard scene in which a possessed Quinn walks on broken legs, don’t expect any spills or chills from this third outing. It is silly rather than scary, more insipid than insidious.