Patrick Wilson, one of the main stars of the franchise, will direct Insidious 5, which will serve as a direct sequel to Insidious and Insidious: Chapter 2. The new installment is said to take place ten years after the second film, around the time the main couple deals with their son going off to college. The Insidious franchise has been popular and commercially successful since 2011, though it hasn’t always been as critically successful. The cast is rounded out by Rose Byrne, Lin Shaye, Angus Sampson, and Ty Simpkins, though it's filled with new faces and even creepier demons and spirits every installment.

While Wilson has no previous directorial experience, he has been wading shoulder-deep in the horror genre for around ten years. Besides the Insidious films, he has been a co-lead alongside Vera Farmiga in most films for the paranormal-horror franchise The Conjuring. He has also had roles in the western-horror Bone Tomahawk and Stephen King’s supernatural-horror In the Tall Grass. Wilson has starred in other fan-favorite films, like Prometheus, Aquaman, and Zack Snyder’s Watchmen as the Nite Owl II.

According to Bloody Disgusting, Wilson was excited to announce that he would finally be in the director’s chair of the long-running film series, stating during the virtual BlumFest:

“I’m honored and thrilled to be at the helm of the next Insidious installment, which will provide an amazing chance to unpack everything the Lamberts went through a decade ago, as well as deal with the consequences of their choices. Directing the movie is both professionally and personally a full-circle moment for me, and I am extremely grateful to be entrusted in continuing to tell this frightening and haunting story. Into the further we go…”

In the first installment of the series, Insidious, Wilson and Byrne's Josh and Renai Lambert watch their son Dalton, played by Simpkins, fall into a coma-like sleep; he soon begins to travel through dark areas of the astral plane. Dalton then becomes a doorway for spirits to enter the world of the living, making their house a haunted and dangerous hellscape for them all. In the second film, Insidious: Chapter 2, the Lambert family deals with their choices and the aftermath of Dalton becoming a vessel for evil spirits coming out of the “Further,” the purgatory realm in which they previously lived. Since Insidious 5 is meant to be a direct sequel to Chapter 2, Wilson's comment about the "Further" is pretty spot on.

The Insidious franchise has become a staple of modern horror, revamping the haunted house trope and giving characters more nuanced, sometimes disturbing, roles in these films instead of focusing solely on the entities and spirits. With Wilson leading Insidious 5, the franchise seems to be introducing fresh blood to keep audiences on its toes and allowing a fresh-faced director to carve out the story's next steps and its characters. Though many horror franchises lose a step or two, the longer they continue, like A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th, the Insidious team seems aware of this common flaw and aims to get ahead of it.