Focus Features recently moved Insidious: Chapter 3's releae date back a few months, so that the supernatural horror/thriller will now serve as counter-programming to the big blockbusters arriving in May 2015 (Avengers: Age of Ultron, and so forth). The third Insidious movie installment isn't just changing up things behind the camera; series writer Leigh Whannell, who is taking over directing from Insidious 1 & 2 helmsman James Wan for Chapter 3, will be working alongside a cast that include a handful of newcomers to the franchise.

Insidious: Chapter 3 has officially begun production, which means that Whannell and Angus Sampson are now confirmed by the studio to reprise their roles as ghost hunters Specs and Tucker from the first two Insidious films for Chapter 3 - with Lin Shaye also back, again playing the paranormal activity specialist, Elise Rainier. New additions for this round of haunting include Dermot Mulroney (August: Osage County) and Stefanie Scott (A.N.T. Farm).

It had already been confirmed (via Whannell and Sampson) that Insidious: Chapter 3 doesn't focus on the Lambert clan from previous installments, but instead shifts its attention to a different family being terrorized by demons from The Further. However, a newly-released logline from Focus Features - see below - also reveals that Chapter 3 takes place before the previous movies (though, that doesn't mean it'll directly foreshadow or tie into events in the first two films).

Insidious: Chapter 3, a twisted new tale of terror begins for a teenage girl and her family, predating the haunting of the Lambert family in the earlier movies and revealing more mysteries of the otherworldly realm The Further.

Check out the first official behind the scenes image from Insidious: Chapter 3 below, with Whannell and the film's main cast.

Insidious: Chapter 3 Behind the Scenes Image

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SPOILERS for Insidious: Chapter 2 ahead.

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Whannell's script for Insidious: Chapter 3 takes place before the first two movies, so that means Elise is still alive in this film. It might've been interesting to follow the ghost Elise and Specs/Tucker on a future adventure set after Chapter 2, but winding back the clock does, in theory, raises the narrative stakes in Chapter 3 - as even though we'll now know that Elise can't be killed in the film, it also means she'll be less able to protect the new human characters from creatures that reside in The Further (unlike the seemingly invulnerable specter that she'd become in Chapter 2).

Likewise, it should be fun to explore the "otherworldly realm" of the Further, away from the woes of the Lambert family in Chapter 3 - but will Whannell's directorial work in his debut be up to scratch? After all, the general moviegoing public seemed to have rather mixed feelings about the overall effectiveness of Chapter 2, so the pressure will be on for Chapter 3 to be both interesting and scarier than the second installment.

Insidious: Chapter 3 opens in U.S. theaters on May 29th, 2015.

Source: Focus Features