Passionate horror fans will sometimes discredit a film based purely on its MPAA rating, assuming that a film lacking gore or nudity isn’t as effective as one rated R. These fans might have to plan on skipping Insidious: The Last Key, as it has earned a PG-13 rating.
Dread Central reports that the latest film in the franchise earned its rating due to “disturbing thematic content, violence and terror, and brief strong language.”
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The somewhat tame rating might deter some horror fans from checking the film out, but as anyone who’s seen the previous three installments in the franchise knows, Insidious can accomplish a lot without needing to rely on gruesome effects or sex to create an entertaining, PG-13 movie.
In the film, parapsychologist Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye) and her team travel to Five Keys, N.M., to investigate a man’s claim of a haunting. Terror soon strikes when Rainier realizes that the house he lives in was her family’s old home.
Originally titled “Insidious: Chapter 4,” this new film actually takes place before the events of the first two installments and after the events of Chapter 3. In a surprise twist, Chapter 3 ended with an appearance by Elise Rainier early in her career, allowing the title to serve as a bit of misdirection. Potentially to avoid confusion, this new film opted to drop the numeric title.
When speaking earlier this year to Daily Dead about the latest chapter, star Lin Shaye explained, “It takes place right after the end of Chapter 3 when she walks off with Specs and Tucker and they’re starting their company, Spectral Sightings, and they are now living at her home. They’re like her two sons, her two bad sons.”
The new mission is the most personal case for Elise yet, which Shaye pointed out, “You meet my family, my mother, my father. We go back to my hometown, which is in New Mexico, and so that’s where this takes place and her quest to find the bad guy that’s been haunting her.”
Insidious: The Last Key hits theaters January 4, 2018.
