‘Insidious: Out of the Further’ Writer-Director Jacob Chase Knows the Audience Is Asking, ‘Why Are We Still Making These Movies?’ So He Was Determined to Make a ‘Fresh Start’
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- "Insidious: Out of the Further" is the sixth film in the franchise, opening Friday via Sony Pictures Entertainment, with writer-director Jacob Chase positioning it as a soft reboot and "original film that happens to have 'Insidious' in the title."
- Jacob Chase acknowledged audience fatigue going in — "there's also been five movies, and that's a lot" — and built his pitch around making the entry feel like a "fresh start" rather than just another sequel.
- Chase previously built and operated Bigworm Sherwood Scare, an 1,800-foot charitable haunted maze in Northridge, Calif. from 2012-2014 that raised money for cystic fibrosis research, and credits that live-attraction experience with teaching him the mechanics of misdirection and fear he now applies to filmmaking.
- Chase structured the film so that every jump scare carries narrative stakes that "fundamentally change the story," tying protagonist Gemma's unraveling to those scare moments rather than using them as hollow jolts.
- The film stars Amelia Eve as Gemma, who can astral project and physically bring demons from The Further into the real world; Chase drew on his own first-time-father anxieties about "desperately trying to outrun" his parents to shape the character's emotional backbone.
- Chase is next directing an unannounced horror film at Blumhouse for Universal, with franchise producer Jason Blum producing — a vote of confidence, per the source, that places him among the rising class of genre filmmakers.
- The film's standout setpiece finds Gemma lost in an endless pillow fort of baddies, a scene Chase conceived after fearing 'Backrooms' would beat him to it and inspired by the claustrophobic tunnels in 'The Descent.'
Why it matters: 'Insidious' now sits in the hands of a filmmaker whose approach to fear was forged running an 1,800-foot charitable haunted maze, not in a writers' room — meaning the sixth entry leans on jump scares built to carry narrative weight, not just jolts. Chase's upcoming Blumhouse project signals Sony and Blumhouse are betting on this new generation of horror directors with their own scars to mine.
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