Jacob Chase knows how to make familiar surroundings frightening. We are less convinced by his storytelling: Insidious: Out of the Further finds proper scares in ordinary discomfort, then stalls while explaining the supernatural.
Fi1m perspective
In Insidious: Out of the Further (2026), a pillow fort becomes a place with no apparent easy way out. Nick Bassett’s production design turns the cushions into a labyrinth, while Dave Garbett’s cinematography makes its cramped spaces oppressive. We felt trapped because the soft walls offered none of the protection they promised. Chase understands this sort of fear, and the sequence is considerably more persuasive than the explanations surrounding it.
His first feature was The Four-Faced Liar (2010), but the useful route into his horror is the short Larry (2017), expanded into Come Play (2020). That film brings a monster through technology and ties its horror to family and loneliness. His interest in monsters that seek friendship gives these stories a reason to look beyond the next attack. Television work on The Girl in the Woods (2021) preceded the move into franchise horror with Insidious: Out of the Further. Editor Gregory Plotkin has been a collaborator on two films.
Chase’s preference for practical effects and creature design alongside digital work fits that attention to what can frighten us at close quarters. In Insidious: Out of the Further, the dental scenes need little supernatural persuasion: the setting is uncomfortable before Chase adds anything. Sound design supplies the physical unpleasantness, and Joseph Bishara’s music helps the shocks land. These are useful skills for a horror director, and there is no need to pretend the film’s problems cancel them out.
The difficulty is getting from one scare to the next with the people still holding our attention. Amelia Eve brings feeling to Gemma Hall’s mother-and-daughter story, but Chase’s screenplay leaves the link between inherited trauma and the haunting underdeveloped. The family material occasionally makes the danger personal, which makes it more frustrating when another explanation interrupts it. Too much time goes on establishing what the Further can do, and too little on making these people matter. A little longer with the family would do more for his horror than another supernatural rule.
Biography
Jacob Chase is an American film director and writer. He directed, wrote the screenplay for and co-wrote the story of the 2026 horror film Insidious: Out of the Further.
Chase directed and wrote the 2020 supernatural horror film Come Play, which he adapted from his own short film Larry. His feature directorial debut was the 2010 comedy-drama The Four-Faced Liar, which premiered at Slamdance and won the HBO Audience Award for Best First Feature at Outfest. He has also directed episodes of the Peacock series The Girl in the Woods (2021).
Chase is an alumnus of the Sundance Labs. His short film Mr. Blur won the International Jury Award for Best Director at Fantasia in 2023. He won the 2016 Crash the Super Bowl contest with a commercial that aired during the Super Bowl.
