There might not be an “Insidious: Out of the Further” without franchise star Lin Shaye. Before creatives confirmed production of the now-released film, a sixth installment of the horror franchise was in the early stages of development at Sony. But after a behind-the-scenes regime change, the movie was scrapped from Sony’s upcoming slate.
Eager to still bring the story to the big screen, Shaye wrote a letter to Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group chairman and CEO Tom Rothman, whom she’d met while filming 1998’s “There’s Something About Mary,” pleading for the sixth movie to be made. It wasn’t necessarily an act for herself, the 82-year-old scream queen says, but for the franchise’s passionate fanbase. Shaye’s bold move worked: Rothman agreed to greenlight the project.
I think speaking up must never, ever stop. Don’t ever stop.” Championing “Insidious” marked a pivotal moment for Shaye after spending more than five decades in an industry where she often felt she was taken less seriously as a woman. Despite making significant contributions to the film business across her diverse filmography — ranging from “Dead End” to “Dumb and Dumber” — there was still a lingering sense of powerlessness.
I’m the happiest I’ve ever been,” Shaye says. Shaye plays Elise Rainer, a dimension-traveling psychic who helps people fight off demons, even from the afterlife. Although Elise was killed in the first movie, Shaye has appeared in all five subsequent films, becoming one of the franchise’s most beloved characters.
But in between the jump scares and supernatural horrors is a story of motherhood and confronting the past. When Elise hears Gemma’s screams for help in the Further, she doesn’t hesitate to rush to the stranger’s side and guides Gemma as she learns new truths behind the trauma passed down from her mother (Laura Gordon), while vowing to protect her own daughter (Island Austin). Like Gemma, Shaye cites motherhood as an important storyline in her own life, particularly when it came to having this movie made.
Her letter to Rothman was inspired by moments from Shaye’s childhood, when she watched her mother, Dorothy Shaye, unabashedly speak up for herself. Her father, supermarket owner and artist Max Shaye, told bedtime stories of a white horse flying Lin to faraway Candyland. (“There’d always be pastrami trees and bushes because my dad loved deli food,” she recalls, laughing.) Her brother, Robert Shaye, began making movies as a teen and went on to found New Line Cinema. And Shaye isn’t looking to stop telling stories anytime soon, especially Elise’s.
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