Insidious: The Complete Timeline, Explained
Chronologically, the Insidious franchise is a tricky one to get your head around, but there is a way to watch the series in timeline order.
Watching the Insidious movies in release order can be pretty confusing. After two films spent with the Lambert family as they uncover the dangerous realm of the Further, the third and fourth films were prequels. The fifth film returned to the Lamberts, and a sixth has been released focusing on new characters. It can be a minefield to piece together the full story, so watching the franchise in timeline order can make a lot more sense.
If you don’t want to end up trapped in the Further, here’s how to watch the Insidious series in linear order.
To fully understand the Insidious timeline, you have to start with the third film in the series, Insidious Chapter 3.
Set in the year 2007, three years before the first movie, Insidious Chapter 3 sees psychic Elise come out of retirement to help teenage girl Quinn, who is being plagued by an entity within the Further known as the Man Who Can’t Breathe.
Although Quinn has no bearing on the later movies, this third film does explain how Elise and her Spectral Sightings sidekicks, Specs and Tucker, came to work together. During a conversation with her friend Carl, her 1986 case involving a boy called Josh Lambert is referenced, and he is an extremely important character in the timeline.
Insidious Chapter 3 also gives the timeline its first glimpse of the infamous Lipstick Demon and the Bride in Black.
Whereas the third film sets up the trio of Elise, Specs, and Tucker, Insidious: The Last Key dives deeper into Elise’s past. While technically all of her flashbacks, which take place in the late 1950s when Elise is a young girl, could be viewed as the entry point into the timeline, the events in the present day of 2010 bridge the third and next film.
A truly dedicated Insidious fan would pick out the flashbacks and play them first, then watch the third film, before coming back to the main strand of The Last Key, but honestly, who has time for that? Instead, just watch The Last Key and enjoy Elise's character being fleshed out more as she returns to her own family home to put some demons to rest.
Watching to the very end is vital, as The Last Key ends with Elise getting a call from a former client, Lorraine, asking for help with her grandson, Dalton.
If you want the full timeline experience, technically the first part of Insidious should be watched in tandem with The Last Key.
If you time it just right, Elise should receive that phone call from Lorraine just before she arrives to help the Lambert family. Alternatively, you can just view that phone call as a tease, and instead watch the harrowing events that lead to Lorraine calling in reinforcements.
Like Elise, the Lamberts are key components to the Insidious timeline. Josh is the boy Elise helped back in the ‘80s, and now his son Dalton is suffering a similar ordeal. With Josh and Dalton both capable of travelling into the Further, they have caught the attention of some very bad demons.
The film ends with Josh being possessed by one of those demons, who then uses Josh’s body to attack Elise.
Insidious Chapter 2 picks up in the immediate aftermath of the first film. Elise is sadly proclaimed dead, but she is still on hand to help thanks to Carl. In addition to playing out the story of Josh’s possession, Insidious Chapter 2 fills in the blanks as to what happened to Josh the first time around, the final treatment being to wipe Josh’s memory to help keep him safe.
This method is employed once again after Josh is exorcised of the dastardly Bride in Black, who has been urging him to murder his family.
Set in the year 2019, Insidious: The Red Door rejoins the Lambert family as Dalton leaves for college.
The memory wipe conducted on both him and his father has caused massive problems within the family, most notably the separation of Josh and his wife, Renai. Father and son become distant from one another too, but as Dalton starts to obsessively paint a red door from within the Further, both begin to remember their troubled past.
That the original Dalton actor returns for The Red Door really helps sell the timeline, and the reappearance of that Lipstick Demon brings the Lamberts story full circle. At the very end, Elise appears to give Josh some words of comfort. It is clear that this is the end of the Lamberts’ arc, but the Further has much more story left to tell.
Insidious: Out of the Further is the latest film in the franchise. It follows single mother Gemma as she discovers that not only can she travel into the Further, but she can bring things out of it too. This makes her very appealing to those that dwell there, but luckily for Gemma, Elise is on hand as her spirit guide and helps stop those in the Further from returning to the land of the living.
In terms of its place in the timeline, Out of the Further is set after The Red Door. During an early conversation, Elise mentions that after years, the Lamberts finally overcame their troubles only a couple of weeks previously. This would mean that Out of the Further also unfolds in 2019.
