The Conjuring 2

The Conjuring was a shocking horror film. It combined every creepy trope you can think of (ghosts, dolls, music boxes, mirrors, you name it), and it actually worked thanks to a genre-savvy director behind the curtains. James Wan has proved himself a capable producer on projects such as Saw and Insidious, and with The Conjuring, he cemented himself as a master of the genre. It had the perfect amalgam of horror tropes crafted in such a way that felt as fresh and spine-tingling as classic haunted house movies did in the '80s. The Conjuring 2 is another "based on true events" tale that has us follow expert paranormal investigators, the Warrens, this time solving the mystery of the Enfield Haunting.

Similar to the Amityville Haunting, the Enfield Haunting sees an English family plagued with a poltergeist that doesn't seem to enjoy the presence of anyone in the house. What The Conjuring 2 succeeds at is giving us both character development and another great story, which is exactly what a good sequel should do. The acting is uniformly great, but the true star of the film is James Wan. His shots are designed in a way to imbue dread and stir it around our heads for a while before hitting us with the scare. That's what true horror lacks these days, patience. The longer the anticipation is built and the more atmosphere is created, the more unsettling the situation becomes until it's like a ticking time bomb that you anxiously wait to go off. It uses familiar tropes, such as self-starting children's toys, slamming doors, and smashing furniture, but they're used as tools to mask the truly frightening fact that this family is up against something utterly beyond their control - they're hopeless, and we can feel it.

Mind you, The Conjuring 2 isn't without its faults. The runtime is a blatant offender. Pushing the 2-hour mark is never a good idea for a horror film, and some fat definitely could have been trimmed. There are a handful of cheap scares, audio scares to be precise - when the music gets extremely loud all of a sudden and you find yourself more annoyed than scared, quickly reaching for the remote to turn the volume down at the risk of enduring another ear drum shattering noise. It also doesn't feel as unique as its predecessor, understandably due to the very nature of sequels, but there are moments that drag on long enough to remind you that the first Conjuring didn't have these plodding plot points. For example, it takes about an hour for the Warrens to even get to England. Also, while in the haunted house, they're able to sleep through some horrifying sounds that would snap a bear right out of hibernation. But these dull spots and plot inconsistencies are few and far between.

The Conjuring 2 is how a horror sequel should be done. It's slick, stylish, fun, and at times, quite terrifying. When a horror movie makes me want to turn on the lights as I go roaming around the house at night, I consider that a job well done. The Conjuring 2, well done.

The Conjuring 2 (2016)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga) are coming off the Amityville case when they decide to take a break. This break doesn't last too long as Ed has a vision of a possessed nun, which is the same person Lorraine previously saw. Meanwhile over in London a mother and her four children are being haunted by an evil spirit, which appears to be attached to an elderly man.

THE CONJURING came out of nowhere and become a huge hit among critics and horror fans. The box office numbers meant a sequel was bound to follow since the number one rule with horror films is that if one makes money you rush another into production. Thankfully this film wasn't rushed into production and it's great that they actually took their time to deliver a good screenplay. I must admit that I'm quite shocked but I thought the film was much better and much creepier than the first film.

Director James Wan is really becoming an expert at these types of films and this here is certainly among the best that has been made. I thought the first film was quite good due to its performances and a nice story but I didn't find a single thing creepy. That certainly wasn't the case here as the movie had my blood turning cold several times including the before mentioned nun, which was downright creepy at times. I also thought the first hour was perfectly done as the director slowly builds up the suspense and once it hits he just keeps it going with one sequence after another. I will say that the "crooked man" didn't work and the finale wasn't as great as I was hoping but these are just small issues.

Once again the film really benefits from the two great leads performances. Both Wilson and Farmiga are perfectly believable in their roles and they certainly sell the viewer that everything you're watching is actually happening. Madison Wolfe and Frances O'Connor are also very good in their supporting roles as is Simon McBurney. The film also benefits from some terrific cinematography and a very eerie music score. On a technical level the film is very impressive and this here helps build up the atmosphere.

THE CONJURING 2 is a very rare sequel that actually manages to be much better than the first film. It also shows why sequels shouldn't be rushed into production and that if you take your time with them something as good as this can be made.

For the most part, I came out with a positive vibe with the film. Production-wise, I thought it was exceptionally well done, and coming off the original one I can definitely say this held its own very well. Sequels have this innate ability to overdo what the previous installment did, and one might say this did it in some sense, but for the most part it played with a dialed-back approach. I mean look, what am I supposed to say about a film that is supposedly based on a true story? Sure, they will take their liberties here and there regarding what to make happen and how, but if they say it happened what am I to do in telling them they're doing what happened wrong or overly much? It was the right amount of "more done."

In my opinion alone (which will not be consistent with everybody here), the first hour was terrifying (depends on what one considers scary). The crowd interacted with the film appropriately, and the actors on screen did their due diligence to make you fearful for their well-being. Pacing-wise, the second hour took a strange turn. I was fine with what they did by creating more of a slow-burn effect to build up to a large climax, but considering there wasn't much to be considered scary in the second hour, it kind of felt like we got slow-burn for nothing (the end punch was fine, just not nearly as frightening as anything in the first hour is all). I can't really explain it. That's okay I guess, but I'm sure this film ran over two hours long, and I think the most appropriate cut would have been about right at two hours. I was only slightly fatigued by the end of it all.

James Wan has a terrific eye for the horror genre, and likes to display an array of emotions in his films, especially comedy where needed. Nothing slapstick at all, just the perfect blend of realism like "This is how a person acts in real life," something that Christopher Nolan has never been able to do himself. The characters aren't just pieces to tell a larger story, they are the story. Patrick Wilson is silently one of my favorite actors, often taking the non-blockbuster role but still holding his own in a natural way. I have only seen Vera Farmiga in a few films now (The Departed, Orphan, Up in the Air, Source Code, Safe House, and The Conjuring), and with every scene she is in, she just encapsulates me. I would love to sit down and have a dinner conversation with her, if you know what I mean.

Compared to the first film I'd say this resorted with a few more jump scares, but I'm going to credit Wan for not cheapening them and doing them where they fit (no kids scaring each other, etc). This film did not play with the "less is more" mantra as much as the first film though, but like I said I'll go with that in a sequel. The first one also had much more even pacing and left with the right amount of questions unanswered; not to be unfair with this, but I also "believe" the story of the first film more than this one (only regarding what was seen on the screen). However, in The Conjuring 2 I cared more about this family, and I think the tension was equally as good in this film, save the night scenes being just a little too well-lit for my taste. I'd say I might like the first one just a little bit more, at least in that I own the first one on Blu-ray and I don't know if I need this one immediately.

Oh, and just be aware that the official trailer reveals way too much. I'm not even talking about jump scare material (which it does overdo), but I mean story material. Avoid please! Watch the teaser trailer instead, that one is perfect and reveals nothing substantial. Also make sure you stay for the first billing credits sequence at the end of the movie just because of how well it is crafted, as was the film itself! If only they cut out 10 minutes and maybe even $10 million in the budget, I think it would have served its purpose a little more appropriately. Unlike Sinister 2 though, this film didn't disappoint in the slightest.

The Conjuring felt so grounded, making it all the more terrifying. I was expecting the same from this sequel, but the over-the-top scenes with the Nun and Crooked Man really made me hesitant to finish watching (forced additions by the studio to push The Conjuring "universe"?).

I'm glad that I continued watching, though, because Ed Warren's first interaction with the demon speaking through Janet was masterfully done... aaaaand of course they had to bring the Nun and Crooked Man back... and the hanging on to the curtains for dear life... I... I just can't.

I wanted The Conjuring 2 to be so much more considering the director AND writers returned, but it just ended up feeling like another cash-grab sequel to push a "cinematic universe." James Wan is one of my favorite horror directors and I remember Insidious: Chapter 2 being pretty good, so this was unfortunately a huge disappointment.

First, the all-important question: Is The Conjuring 2 scary? Like, jump out of your seat, watch through your outstretched fingers scary? The answer to that is "yes." Under James Wan's direction, even the most clichéd haunted-house tropes (and this movie is bursting with them) are genuinely creepy, and although the movie isn't overly reliant on jump scares, the ones it does use—well, they work. On a lizard-brain level, The Conjuring 2 taps into the universal childhood fear of the dark, and some of its simplest moments—like a little girl hiding under the covers with a flashlight—are its most effective, bolstered by skillfully executed sound design and Don Burgess' gloomy cinematography.

Speaking of tropes, that's where the "based on a true story" bit comes in. The main plot of the film revolves around a real-life incident known as the Enfield Poltergeist, an extremely well-documented case of a supposed ghost who terrorized the Hodgson family of North London from 1977 to 1979 and was apparently a fan of the classics: knocking on walls, shaking beds, throwing furniture, and even the occasional haunted kid's toy. And as malevolent spirits often do, it picked on one of the children in particular, 11-year-old Janet Hodgson (Madison Wolfe). Call it a collective delusion, or a desperate cry for attention from a disturbed child. Or call it what the movie very explicitly calls it: The Devil.

With this installment, the Conjuring movies may have overtaken The Exorcist as the most Christian of horror franchises, taking place in a universe where the Catholic Church is the spiritual S.H.I.E.L.D. and demon hunters Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) its holy roller super-agents. The film opens with the Warrens investigating the famous Amityville case, during the course of which Lorraine first encounters the hellish presence that will haunt her for the next few years. Fearing for his life, she begs her husband to suspend any future paranormal investigations, to which he reluctantly agrees. Until, that is, a priest arrives to give them their next mission: Travel to London and confirm the veracity of reports of a demonically tinged haunting.

Both Farmiga and Wilson are given their chance to shine in spooky set pieces—Farmiga early on in the film, Wilson later. But while they're both convincing in spiritual warrior mode, Wan's decision to play up the romance between the two doesn't quite work. We knew that the Warrens were a happily married couple in the first movie, but having them each individually tell the story of their paranormal love and Ed make suggestive comments about the sleeping arrangements seems odd, maybe because they're flirting in front of a possessed pre-teen whose soul is currently in the process of being swallowed by the Pit. (On the other hand, this is just another day at the office for the Warrens.) The non-horror elements of the film are uneven in general: The score, so effective in the fright scenes, suddenly evokes eye rolls when things start to get sentimental, and there's one scene of unintentional comedy where the film's retro '70s setting—another element downplayed in the first film but foregrounded here—collides with its demonic imagery in an honestly pretty silly way. (The Conjuring 2 shares its predecessor's eye for period details, some of which seem out-and-out ridiculous until they're juxtaposed with photos of their real-life counterparts in the end credits. The on-the-nose pop music gets no such redemption.) That being said, there are also some truly funny moments, like a shot of the Hodgson family running from their haunted house after a particularly intense bout of psychokinetic activity that riffs on smartasses' favorite retort, "Why don't they just move?" (And, for the record, they don't move because it's public housing, and the local council, which is naturally quite skeptical of the whole "ghost" thing, has to approve the relocation.) It's also worth noting that The Conjuring 2 is more than two hours long, allowing for lots of escalation. And while each individual haunting scene can be white-knuckle intense, by the dozenth or so such shock, the film starts to lose momentum. So the final confrontation, when it does come, is a relief in more ways than one. The long running time also allows Wan to overthink his demonology: The main villain, an infernal nun, is appropriately nightmarish, if reminiscent of the veiled "Bride In Black" from Wan's own Insidious. What's less compelling is the insertion of the "Crooked Man," a storybook scarecrow monster that starts spreading Babadook-esque chaos about halfway through and is explained as the demon assuming a form that's familiar to the Hodgsons. Which would be fine, if it weren't for the two familiar forms that the spirit has taken already.

When The Conjuring 2 focuses its efforts on scaring the audience, it succeeds, wildly. And why wouldn't it? Wan's got his horror technique locked down at this point. It's the parts where it wanders away from the basics of creating and releasing tension that prevent it from outdoing its predecessor.