Patrick Wilson returns in – and directs – 'Insidious: The Red Door'

With Friday’s all-new theatrical horror show “Insidious: The Red Door” Patrick Wilson gets to reprise his demon-beset father Josh Lambert.

Alongside returning cast members, the “Conjuring” and “Aquaman” star makes his directing debut.

James Wan’s 2010 “Insidious” was a surprise smash and is now known as the first monster hit that elevated Blumhouse Films as Hollywood’s go-to horror house.

“Insidious: The Red Door” is a direct sequel to the 2012 “Insidious: Chapter 2” and the fifth film in the franchise.

Here, Josh takes his surly teenage son Dalton (again Ty Simpkins) to a New England college where, once again, malevolent demons haunt both Lamberts.  Also returning, Rose Byrne as Josh’s wife.

In a Zoom interview, Wilson, who turned 50 on Monday, explained that it was his agent’s idea to make this his directing debut.

Wilson came up with new characters and ingeniously had Dalton be an aspiring artist whose painting becomes a portal. “Once I basically said, Listen, this is a story that I’d like to go into, I put Dalton in an art school. Because I went to a theater school and I knew what that relationship was like.

“In an art college you’re asked to tap into your own truth. As an artist, you’re asked to strip away the layers and get to the core of who you are.

“I thought it was a great metaphor for this movie.”

As for his biggest surprise as director, it wasn’t anything demonic. “It’s going to sound silly but it was the amount of compromise that you’re consistently asked to do.  These are my friends and it’s not even a knock on the system – well, it actually is probably a knock on the system.  But it’s not a knock on my friends and coworkers.

“You wake up and you’re constantly asked questions all day long. Every minute. There was nothing really technical that surprised me but you need to make sure that you know exactly the story that you want to tell.

“While you feel like, ‘OK, we’ve got a good script,’ you assume people can schedule it to fit the script. Only you find yourself in pre-production, then production and you’re not particularly going slow but the amount of ‘Hey, can you do this?’ ‘Can you do this quicker?’ ‘Can we change this location because this actor is unavailable?’ ‘Can you deal with this?’

“Having to stay the course and be focused on the movie that you want to make while everything is shifting around you? That was a little boost.”