Six entries in, and audience expectation for this series should be a given. To reuse a ‘comfort food’ analogy, viewers are not about to enjoy anything revelatory or exceptional, but they will be fed. There are no surprises or shocks, and to be fair, the new director understands the assignment: turning the keys over to a new protagonist without being beholden to the original framework and a decade’s worth of mythology. The studio intention is clearly to milk this series indefinitely, as it has been a proven and consistent cash cow. They want new viewers whose expectations are unfettered from continuity and lore and likely they will succeed.
Amelia Eve plays an engaging protagonist, and capably conveys the character’s pain, trauma and fears in her expressions and nonverbal shorthand. There are direction and atmospheric elements that are excellently crafted, and a few jolts that are on par with the earliest entries in the franchise. The sound design alone is the best feature of this film, building audible tension and dread and also serving as cues to which dimension we are experiencing. There are some effectively creepy moments, but the franchise is still far too enamoured with jump scares which are eye-rollingly predictable at this point. The designs for the dead and demonic are decent, with plenty of callbacks to early entries, which look good but are just empty calories. There’s not a lot of meat to the scares, but the budget and presentation are some of the best the series has offered in years.
Unfortunately, whenever the director allows things to settle and the dread to build, it’s immediately undermined by the need to over-explain things. The first half of this film is superior, where it offers the viewers some delicious creepiness, and at least one inspired set-piece before getting bogged down in its revised mythology. The film gets worse the more characters speak, and the script is doing them no favors. There are constant exposition dumps of new rules and capabilities, including an entire sequence involving a fruit-based puppet show in order to explain things very slowly in case people are scrolling their phones. The ending goes outrageous and raises serious questions, but this isn't a serious enough movie to explore them. The new lore allows the franchise to go in interesting directions, but there’s a feeling these rules will also change at convenience, or when the next sequel is due.
Despite trying new things, the franchise is stale and devoid of any of the freshness present in the current horror landscape. It's the same meal on new plates presented by an overly verbose waiter, and there’s far better fare out there to devour.