'Insidious 3' Will Introduce New Story and Characters; Ghost Hunters Will Return

Screen Rant

By Kofi Outlaw

Published Mar 11, 2014

Leigh Whannell talks about 'Insidious 3', which will introduce a new story and characters, but bring back ghost hunters Specs and Tucker.

James Wan and Leigh Whannell created the hit horror franchises Saw and Insidious, with the latter property raking in big box office dollars for its 2013 sequel chapter ($161 million worldwide on a $5 million budget). However, financial success isn't the only thing propelling the Insidious franchise forward; the ending of Chapter 2 blew the door wide open (no pun) for further stories of creatures from The Further and those who are haunted by and/or hunt them. Hence why Insidious 3 is coming to theaters in spring 2015.

As you can see from the video above, our correspondent Perri Nemiroff caught up with Insidious and Saw writer Leigh Whannell and Insidious co-star Angus "Tucker" Sampson at SXSW, where the pair are premiering their new drug-smuggling crime flick, The Mule. As far as Insidious 3 goes, we can confirm the following information:

A script for the film is complete.
Insidious 1 & 2 stars Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne are NOT returning.
Insidious 3 will focus on a new family and story.
That story is NOT connected to the last scene in Insidious 2.
Whannell and Sampson WILL returns as ghost hunters Specs and Tucker, respectively.

While Insidious: Chapter 2 (read our review) did some very interesting things with time travel in order to create a bigger and more cohesive narrative out of the first film's events, most fans would agree that two chapters of the Lambert family story was enough. The Specs and Tucker ghost hunters (and their living or ghostly medium guides) are a perfect through line to a new story and approach, so why not do just that?

Insidious part one was a throwback to old '70s and '80s horror films, while Part 2 was an obvious homage to psychological horror films like The Shining. Part 3 could indeed continue in the trend of giving new twists on classic horror genre tropes (slasher films, exorcism films, etc...) - one just hopes that, with James Wan having moved on to bigger projects like Fast and Furious 7, Insidious 3 at least ends up being something creative, rather than a cold and lifeless sequel cranked out on fumes of name-brand marketing hopes. Nobody needs another Last Exorcism 2.

For more on new horror flicks soon coming your way - including Oculus and Stretch - be sure to read our interview with Jason Blum from BlumHouse productions, the distributor behind films like Paranormal Acitivity, Sinister, The Purge and The Insidious franchise.

________________________________________________________________________