The latest chapter of the USD$740 million Insidious franchise – a terrifying universe known as The Further – took shape inside Stage 6 at Docklands Studios Melbourne.
From the film’s sprawling childhood home to a maze-like ‘pillow fort’ and a tattoo parlour, the production transformed the stage into a series of intricate environments where The Further escapes into the real world.
The film stars Amelia Eve as Gemma, a young mother raising her daughter in the house she grew up in who discovers she can travel into the realm of lost souls.
For Set Designer Michael Bell, the process began with going through the script and working out what could be shot on stage and what would be better filmed on location, collaborating closely with Production Designer Nick Bassett.
“The scale of Stage 6 meant we could fit in the house and the interiors and still be able to see out of the windows to a blue screen. Having that breathing space around everything was great.”
The house had to work across two different periods: in the 1990s, when Gemma was a child, it was a house of horrors; 25 years later, it has become a loving family home. As Bassett explains in the production notes, “the house itself is a character in the movie.”
Bell designed the house as a traditional New England-style American home, while a street in a leafy Melbourne suburb stood in for the film’s neighbourhood.
The house was given a sense of history, with different parts suggesting different periods of construction. The kitchen had an early-20th-century, Arts and Crafts feel, while the meals area at the rear was designed as a later addition.
Aside from Gemma’s house, some of the most terrifying scenes in the movie are set in the pillow fort the team designed.
This claustrophobic maze is where the entities of the Further attempt to ambush Gemma.
Bell describes it as “kind of cool, because it takes that you know what’s normally playful a space and turns it into something else.”
“I thought it would be simple. But it turned into quite an elaborate thing when we got all the special effects and people involved.”
Bassett recalls, “it took up a big footprint on the stage floor, with multiple moving parts and wire rigs. I think we had 250 cushions making up the thing.”
“It was bonkers,” says Eve. “Filming the pillow fort was one of the highlights of the whole movie—and it was the first thing we shot. It was baptism by fire!”
Bassett and his team also created the film’s tattoo parlour, where Gemma connects with Clare, a psychic tattoo artist.
For Bell, the success of the design came down to the strength of director Jacob Chase.
“He had a really good vision,” Bell says. “There was a lot of really specific things that he wanted to do.”
“Having really clear instructions from the start just helps so much because it does narrow down your design process so you’re not going in crazy directions from the get-go.”
Insidious: Out of the Further is directed and written by Jacob Chase based on characters created by Melbourne-born Leigh Whannell and produced by Jason Blum, Oren Peli, James Wan and Leigh Whannell, p.g.a..
It opened in cinemas on August 20, 2026.
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