Bride in Black

The Bride in Black or the Old Woman, are the aliases of a serial killer currently residing in the Further whose real name is Parker Crane. He was the secondary antagonist of Insidious and the main antagonist of Insidious Chapter 2.

As a Human
Parker was born to Michelle Crane and an unknown father on May 19th, 1920 in Hollister, California(this is verfied by his hosptial chart in Insidious Chapter 2). His mother despises the name Parker, as it was given to him by his father, and demands that he never mentions that name in her presence, preferring to call her son 'Marylin' instead. Due to her hate for the name and it's relation to Parker's father, it can be assumed he had a poor relationship with Michelle, which most likely ended in divorce or possibly in murder.

Being raised as a girl and heavily tormented by his insane mother, Parker's emotional and mental stability decayed over the years and his darkside would eventually manifest in the form of a mysterious elderly woman, draped in a black funeral dress. He would use this disguise to lure many women to their doom and escape detection from the authorities.

Parker's rampage eventually came to an end as he was hospitalized after attempting to castrate himself. After a meeting with a young Josh he committed suicide by jumping from the roof of the hospital. However, shortly after his death he was seen by Lorraine as a ghost and he would form a malignant spiritual bond with the boy for years to come.

Insidious
During the opening scene, the Old Woman is seen outside the window holding a candle. Later Lorraine visits Josh, Renai and Elise and tells Josh about the Old Woman. She recounts that Josh used to suffer night terrors as a child due to an 'old woman' visiting him at night. Dismissing his fears as superstition, as well as telling Josh to grow up and shrug away the bizarre dreams, Lorraine became aware of the malevolent being's existence when she witnessed her presence in photos with Josh in them. Disturbingly, in a chronological span, the Old Woman seemingly moves in closer to Josh as he ages, nearly touching him in one photo.

Elise explains that the Old Woman is a 'parasite' who befriended Josh's astral form in an attempt to possess his physical body. The only way to stop her from doing so was to repress Josh's memory of her and cease taking photos of him. However, Josh developed a subconscious fear of having his photo taken.

Towards the end of the film, the Old Woman reappears to Josh by standing outside a window. Josh, filled with anger and fear, lashes out at her, shouting to leave him alone. She seemingly retreats back into the darkness while it appears that both Josh and Dalton escape the Further together.

The Lambert family celebrates that the nightmare is over, but Elise feels something wrong. Taking a quick picture of Josh, Elise sees, much to her horror, that his image is replaced by the Old Woman. In retaliation, the Old Woman strangles Elise with Josh's body and the movie ends with seemingly leaving the fate of Josh ambiguous.

The films ends with the Old Woman blowing out the candle into complete darkness.

Insidious: Chapter 2
In the Chapter 2, Parker, still in the body of Josh, is arrested for the murder of Elise Reiner, but is released through lack of evidence. When the family moved into the house of Josh's mother, Renai begins to witness strange happenings throughout the house. Parker, aware that these events are actually caused by the real Josh trying to contact his family, tells her not to worry and that from now on everything will be fine.

Initially, Parker tried to integrate into the Lambert family by replacing Josh, but his lack of knowledge about Josh's personal life made Renai suspicious at first and later Lorraine, the latter going to seek help from Specs and Tucker.

Subsequently, the group, who were joined by Carl, is conducted by "Elise" in the house where Parker lived, where the two assistants are threatened by a younger version of Parker. They eventually find a secret room with numerous corpses in it as well as a black wedding dress with a veil and several clippings newspaper about a man called "The Bride In Black", who kidnapped and killed several people while wearing the dress.

Lorraine realizes that her son is possessed, and comes home to warn Renai that she and the boys have to get away from "Josh", who has since been repeatedly urged by his mother to kill Josh's family if he wants to keep his youth (the man is pale , unkempt and begins to lose his teeth. ). Once in the car , Lorraine speaks to the daughter of the history of "the bride in black" and the theory that the real Josh is trapped in the elsewhere.

At the same time Carl arrives at the house where 'Josh' is with a syringe of sedative in his pocket while Specs and Tucker control the situation from their van parked outside. After a brief discussion, the plan fails to quell Josh, and the three, despite the numerical superiority, are overwhelmed (Specs is knocked out, Tucker gets tranquilized and Carl, who was nearly choked to death, passes out and inadvertantly travels to the Further). After receiving a fake text message from "Tucker", who tells her that everything was fine, Lorraine and Renai return home, falling into the ambush of Parker. After locking Lorraine in the closet, the man tries to suffocate Renai, but Dalton, who just got home with Foster, hits him in the head with a bat. Taking advantage of the occasion, Renai and children run downstairs and barricade themselves in the laundry room.

After recovering, Parker begins to break into the room while hammering the wall. Meanwhile, in the Further, Carl finds the real Josh and the two eventually meet up with Elise. They then travel to Parker's house where a flashback of Parker's abusive childhood, with his mother yelling at him is seen. However, the spirit of Michelle eventually notices the intruders and flings Elise and Carl outside the bedroom and warps the bedroom of a child into the den of darkness, filled with the corpses of Parker's past victims (with herself being one of them).

At the climax of the film, Parker is on the verge of killing Josh's family and becoming the sole owner of the body, while the ghost of Michelle Crane overpowers Josh in a physical confrontation. But thanks to young Parker's spirit and Elise's timely intervention, Michelle Crane, the Woman in White, is banished and Parker's miserable spirit is finally put to rest.

Personality and Traits
Parker Crane is an old man who was abused by his mother as a child. By forcing him to dress as a girl under the name "Marilyn" which soon begun his descent into madness and later became a mass murderer under the alias "The Bride in Black" and later after his death, formed a connection with Josh Lambert who knew him only as a frightening figure of an old lady since his childhood.

Parker wears a black wedding dress, which led to his naming by the press during his lifetime as the Bride in Black. He wears a veil over his face and this appearance led viewers into initially assuming that he was an elderly woman. Parker may have been around the age of 66 years old at the time of death according to his record in Insidious 2. He was also of the Catholic religion, according to his record in insidious 2.



At the ending of Chapter 1, he took over Josh's body and killed Elise. With its new, young body Parker has gained the possibility of a second life, however, Parker's soul was deteriorating Josh's body due to him being physically dead. He was then convinced by his mother's memory that he needed to kill Josh's family to save his new body.

It is possible his meeting with the young Josh pushed the elderly Parker over the edge, feeling envious at what he perceived was a stable love between Joshua and his mother. Parker's envy and desire of a chance of living a normal life is what could have caused him to pursue Josh's body, in hopes that he would be able to experience the same affection that a loved person could feel.

The presence of young Parker's spirit in the Further could suggest that there was enough good left in him to help free his spirit from Michelle's malicious grip and in doing so, would destroy the evil in Parker's spirit and set Joshua free as well.

Trivia

 * Parker Crane holds multiple similarities to Norman Bates, the serial killer from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho . His name may also be a reference to Marion Crane, the girl killed in the infamous shower scene in the same film.