Is Insidious: The Red Door Suitable for Kids? We discuss the anticipated horror movie and the reasons behind the age rating.
Insidious: The Red Door is the fifth installment in the Insidious franchise. Returning back to the Lambert family after two prequels focusing on the psychic Elise Rainier, it sees a grown-up Dalton Lambert begin to start his college years, only for it to quickly go sideways as demons start haunting both him and his dad Josh Lambert.
Insidious films have always sought to push the boundaries of horror, with some people considering them among the scariest horror films out there. This makes them unsuitable for children, despite their PG-13 ratings. We look at the rating of the latest film in the franchise and whether it’s suitable for children, along with its rating.
Is Insidious: The Red Door Suitable for Kids?
While Insidious: The Red Door is rated PG-13, unless the child is a horror superfan and is comfortable with the scary imagery being depicted, it’s unlikely the film will be a suitable watch for them.
This is because the film pushes really close to the boundaries of what is acceptable within a PG-13 film.
In the trailer, there are several suspenseful sequences set in the dark, demonic monsters slowly chasing and attacking the heroes, and several jumpscares too. While the film doesn’t look to be overly gory, there are a couple of graphic injuries.
Looking at the British Board of Film Classification website, there’s more detail of what can be expected in the film, with some very light spoilers to follow.
There are some body horror elements involved, with people puking up blood and vomit, characters attacking each other while they’re possessed, and while the language and sex references are kept quite low, there is a depiction of a character struggling with mental illness before taking their own life.
The creators know how much they can get away with the rating, as all the previous films in the Insidious franchise have been rated PG-13.
What’s the age rating of Insidious: The Red Door?
Insidious: The Red Door has an age rating of PG-13, which means that children who are under the age of 13 shouldn’t go see the film, as it’s likely to be unsuitable for them to watch.
In the UK, the film is rated as 15, which means that no one under the age of 15 should see it.
Why is Insidious: The Red Door rated PG-13?
The overwhelming reason why Insidious: The Red Door looks to be rated a PG-13 is because of the constant threat and scary elements in the film.
Characters are constantly put under threat by demons, and in the trailer, there are several jumpscares from terrifying creatures, but whenever the characters get injured, the gore and blood are kept very low. The worst it gets in the trailer is that Dalton causes a grey gash across his hand, but there is little blood. In one sequence, though, it does appear the monsters are eating flesh.
A PG-13 rating suggests that the horror elements won’t be overwhelmingly intense and that the gore will be kept to a minimum. But the Insidious franchise has always looked to push the boundaries of what a PG-13 horror can be and tries to be as scary as possible.
What is the plot of Insidious: The Red Door?
Insidious: The Red Door picks up ten years after Insidious: Chapter Two and sees Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson) dropping off his now college-aged son Dalton Lambert (Ty Simpkins) to a beautiful Ivy League university. But Dalton’s dream education quickly becomes a debilitating nightmare when the repressed demons of the past come to the present and haunt both Josh and Dalton.
They both return to the Further once again to hopefully end the demon plague on the Lambert family for good before it’s too late to stop the demons.
