INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 3 (15)
3 stars
Grief-stricken 17-year-old Quinn Brenner (Stefanie Scott) reaches out to gifted psychic Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye) following the death of her mother (Ele Keats) from cancer.
“If you call out to the dead, all of them can hear you,” warns Elise.
Soon after, Quinn is involved in an accident and becomes housebound in the apartment she shares with her father Sean (Dermot Mulroney) and younger brother Alex (Tate Berney).
A demon with an insatiable hunger for human souls – known as The Man Who Can’t Breathe (Michael Reid MacKay) – latches on to Quinn and attempts to possess the teenager’s body and soul. Elise races to the Brenner residence to banish the evil by confronting the soul-sucking infestation in the netherworld, aided by quirky ghost hunters Tucker (Angus Sampson) and Specs (Leigh Whannell).
Set a few years before the Lambert haunting in the first Insidious, Chapter 3 is a sporadically scary prequel that reaches into the grab bag of old tricks to jolt viewers out of their seats. Floorboards creak, objects move of their own accord and demonic forces careen out of the dark to deafening bursts of staccato strings on the soundtrack composed by Joseph Bishara.
The script incorporates nods and winks to other films in the series including the reappearance of Elise’s spectral tormentor, the murderous Bride In Black (Tom Fitzpatrick), her fellow medium Carl (Steve Coulter) and the Lipstick-Face Demon.
Shaye and Scott deliver strong performances while Sampson and Whannell offer light comic relief to distract from Mulroney, who is as wooden as the furniture in the Brenner apartment.
A three-disc box set comprising Insidious and the two sequels is also available.
SAN ANDREAS (12)
3 stars
The San Andreas Fault, which runs for more than 800 miles through California, gives way, triggering a magnitude nine earthquake. Search and rescue helicopter pilot Chief Ray Gaines (Dwayne Johnson) hunts for survivors including his estranged wife Emma (Carla Gugino), who has filed for divorce so she can pursue a new relationship with wealthy real-estate developer Daniel Reddick (Ioan Gruffudd).
Reunited in tragedy, Ray and Emma head to San Francisco to save their daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario), who has joined forces with a handsome Brit called Ben (Hugo Johnstone-Burt) and his 11-year-old brother Ollie (Art Parkinson) to survive the devastation.
Just when it seems the worst is over for the Gaines family, a doom-saying professor (Paul Giamatti) at California Institute of Technology predicts a bigger earthquake and a massive tsunami from which there will be no escape.
San Andreas is a computer effects-heavy disaster movie which marries the hoary dialogue in Carlton Cuse’s script with increasingly outrageous action sequences including the implausible sight of a rescue helicopter weaving between skyscrapers as they tumble into one another like giant metallic dominoes. Digital effects vary wildly in quality and screenwriter Cuse short-changes us with characterisation, hastily sketching a fractured family that is destined to reunite in the eye of the digitally summoned storm.
Johnson looks physically pumped, taking to land, sea and air to reach his beloved daughter, while Gugino simpers with pride at his antics. In the parallel plot strand, Daddario and Johnstone-Burt play out a sweet, yet lukewarm romance to justify their continued survival while thousands around them perish.