Elise Rainier: The Medium of the Insidious Films

Elise Rainier is a psychic medium who helps families whose homes are haunted, and Lin Shaye plays her in all six Insidious films. She first appears in insidious 2011, directed by James Wan, where Lorraine Lambert calls her in after being troubled by a vision of a red faced demon. Elise arrives with her two assistants, Specs and Tucker, and she is the one who explains that Dalton Lambert is not in a coma at all: his spirit has wandered into a dark realm called the Further, and restless ghosts there want his empty body.

The credits use more than one version of her name. "Elise Rainier" is the standard credit. "Elise Rainier (adult)" is the 1986 version played by Lindsay Seim in insidious chapter 2, and "Elise Rainier (young)" is the child version played by Ava Kolker in insidious the last key. Lin Shaye is the face of Elise in every other appearance, which is a big part of why she feels like the spine of the series. You can see the rest of the ensemble on the insidious characters page, and the full credits on insidious cast.

Is Elise Rainier based on a real person? No studio or trade source says so. Leigh Whannell wrote and co-created the series, and the films present Elise as a fictional character, so any claim of a real life Elise is unsupported.

How old is she? No film gives a single age. The Last Key shows her as a girl in 1953, and Chapter 3 places her in 2007 as a retired medium, so her age depends entirely on which film you are watching.

Elise is closest to Specs and Tucker, the two assistants who work with her in Insidious (2011) and stay with her through Chapter 3 and The Last Key. They are covered on the specs and tucker page. Carl, her friend, is the one who talks her into helping Quinn Brenner in Chapter 3, and he later hypnotizes Josh and Dalton in Chapter 2 so that they forget the spirit world.

Her ties to the Lambert family run through Lorraine, who calls her in for young Josh in 1986 and again for Dalton in the first film. That makes josh lambert insidious the person whose life she changes twice, first by suppressing his ability and memories, and later by guiding him into the Further. Dalton is the second Lambert she saves, and dalton insidious is where his side of that story sits. Renai Lambert is the one who finds Elise's body, and her page is renai lambert.

In Chapter 3, she builds a bond with quinn brenner and her father, Sean, and ends up leaving them with a message from Lily. Her own family appears in The Last Key: her brother Christian, her niece Imogen, her niece Melissa, her mother Audrey and her father Gerald.

Her enemies are just as consistent. The Bride in Black hunts her in Chapter 3, KeyFace is the demon she frees as a child, and the red faced demon watches her from behind at the end of Chapter 3. The lipstick face demon page covers that last one, and the further insidious explains the place where most of these fights happen.

In my opinion, the camera scene in Insidious (2011) is still her best moment, because a medium reaching for a camera after the haunting is supposedly over tells you the film is not finished with the audience. It also gives her death a rule, rather than just a shock: she is killed because she was right.

The second pick is the Further sequence in Chapter 3, where she faces a figure that looks like her late husband and then demands that the spirit free Quinn. It could be argued that this is Lin Shaye at her most commanding, and it is also the film's best use of the idea that Elise cannot win alone, since the finish depends on Lily reaching her daughter.

Third, The Last Key gives Elise her origin through a basement door, a demon with keys for fingers and a house she knows as a child. Having her walk through the red door and glimpse Dalton is a neat retcon in the best sense, because it ties the prequel back to the first film without needing an explanation. The closing phone call from Lorraine does the same job in one line.

Finally, the small moment in Chapter 2 where her ghost helps Dalton is a good example of how the series treats death as a job change rather than an ending. A dead medium who still turns up for the family is dark, and also a little funny, which suits the saga well. If you are new to her, start with Insidious (2011) and then read insidious movies ranked for where each of her films sits.