zero out of four stars, saying "Insidious: Chapter 3 is simply not scary. Not a bit, not a whit. Except that the audience will be terrified of the next stabbing of their eardrums, at generally predictable intervals." Michael O'Sullivan of The Washington Post gave the film one-and-a-half stars out of four, saying "The Insidious franchise, after three attempts to exorcise its real demons, still can't seem to shake what really haunts it: the ghost of B-movies past." Peter Howell of the Toronto Star gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four, saying "This prequel to the shriek hell, directed and scripted by series writer/actor Leigh Whannell, manages to avoid the Curse of the Triple Cash Grab." Kerry Lengel of The Arizona Republic gave the film three out of five stars, saying "Insidious: Chapter 3 is almost more a spoof of a classic like The Exorcist than it is an homage. It's not scary horror, it's silly horror, and the audience is in on the joke." Stephen Whitty of the Newark Star-Ledger gave the film two-and-a-half stars, saying "You need more than a few sudden noises and scary shocks to make a good horror movie. But Insidious: Chapter Three is at least an OK horror movie." James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film two-and-a-half out of four stars, saying "They say the third time's the charm. Not with the Insidious series, it isn't. Admittedly, installment #3 is an improvement over #2, but it fails to reach the highs of the chilling-but-uneven original." Tim Robey of The Telegraph gave the film four out of five stars, saying "It manages the all-important jump scares with the finesse of a skilled stage illusionist, but it’s the surprisingly sincere emotional core that makes it the pick of the series." Katie Rife of The A.V. Club gave the film a B−, saying "The motif of grief runs throughout Insidious: Chapter 3, which is surprisingly thematically rich for the third installment of a horror franchise. This emotional undercurrent informs the fright scenes, which otherwise lean rather heavily on jump scares." Bilge Ebiri of New York magazine gave the film a negative review, saying "This is so often the problem with this genre—scary setups, followed by dopey resolutions—that you sort of want to give the movie a pass. But given its distinguished forebears, Insidious: Chapter 3 doesn’t quite live up to expectations." Sequel In an interview Leigh Whannell