Warner Bros. Pictures
Director James Wan knows how to do horror films. After his big break with the original Saw, he followed that up with the not-well-received Dead Silence, the pretty good Insidious, and the excellent The Conjuring which harkened back to the classic haunted house movies where visual scares were more important than overly loud music cues and sound effects. Wan applied what he learned to Insidious 2, and made a sequel superior to the original. Wanting to expand his horizons, Wan took a detour with Furious 7 in 2015, and is now back with Ed and Lorraine Warren in The Conjuring 2.
The Warrens are the (in)famous demonologists (played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) who become media stars and pariahs after their involvement with a haunting case in Amityville, NY. They insist the haunting was real, but many others insist it was all a hoax. As The Conjuring ended with the Warrens being told about the Amityville case, The Conjuring 2 opens with that investigation in progress although this is not the film’s major haunting. After a harrowing experience at the Amityville house where Lorraine saw a vision of Ed’s death, she begs him to not take on any more new cases.
But fate has more in store for them as their contact from a local church approaches them with a new, urgent case in England (known now as the Enfield Haunting) which became “their most celebrated case of all.” (Reality check: The Warrens had absolutely nothing to do with the Enfield case except recommend a local expert who they felt could help.) At a small home in northern England, a mother and her four children become terrorized by something in their home, something that is focused specifically on young Janet Hodgson (Madison Wolfe), second oldest of the children. Janet finds herself being transported to different rooms of the house while she sleeps and becomes possessed by what sounds to be a 72 year old man (and he’s either a very heavy smoker or a demon or a combination of both). The Warrens arrive to try to find an answer so the church can get involved, but others question the motives of the mother Peggy (Frances O’Connor) and if she put her child up to pretending to be possessed in order to get government assistance for their family.
Warner Bros. Pictures
After the opening scenes in Amityville and right after some family time with the Warrens, the story moves to England to set up the Enfield haunting and it’s quite some time before we see the Warrens again. Wan does a terrific job of letting us get to know the Hodgson family, Peggy and Janet in particular. When the Warrens arrive it’s nice to see how caring they are with the family, and each other, and how closely they bond but even when they see and hear things happening in the house, Lorraine just cannot detect any real malicious spirit at work. We’re left wondering at one point if it was indeed a hoax all along.
Farmiga and Wilson give terrific performances once again. The actors have genuine chemistry together and because we can see and feel that on screen, it helps show the strong love and devotion the pair have for each other. Even when being put through the wringer by a demonic spirit, the two still have each others’ back no matter what.
Warner Bros. Pictures
O’Connor is also good as Peggy, having to go from skeptic to believer over the course of the story, and Franka Potente is the true skeptic out to prove Janet is faking the whole episode. She’s so good at being so callous that you keep wishing for the demon to manifest itself and give her a what for. The standout, however, is Wolfe, who has to go from a normal little girl getting in trouble at school for having a cigarette to channeling the most evil of spirits. Aided by an appropriately demonic voice, Wilde’s facial expressions and tics really help sell the possession. She gives Linda Blair a run for her money in the demonic child category.
As always with Wan’s horror films, the CGI is kept to a minimum with the scares sold by actors in makeup, sound effects and clever camera work that builds the tension. Many times Wan’s camera moves around from one place to another and you’re just waiting for that scare that never comes. And when it does … well, Wan seems to have slipped back into some old, bad habits by allowing EXTRA LOUD music cues dictate when you should jump instead of allowing the visuals to do all the work. The sound wasn’t as out of control as it was in the first Insidious movie, but there are some occasions in the movie when it’s totally uncalled for. The Conjuring was a huge step forward for Wan and his use of subtlety, and here he’s taken a couple of steps back (and, who knows, it could have been something the studio bigwigs forced on him). It’s fine to use a bit of music or sound effects to help sell a scare, but it doesn’t have to assault the auditory senses while doing so. It just cheapens the effect of the scare.
That being said, The Conjuring 2 is still better, and classier, than most of the low-budget horror fare out there today, and for that it should be applauded. Hopefully we’ll get to see more of the Warren’s cases on the big screen, and more of that Wilson/Farmiga chemistry at work whether Wan continues with the franchise or not.
Share this post
I want