Review #1,109: 'The Conjuring 2' (2016)

With The Conjuring leaving theatres in 2013 as one of the highest-grossing horror movies of all time, it was of no surprise when director James Wan announced that he was going to helm a sequel, despite claiming to be done with the genre. The first movie was a stylish alternative to the blood-spattered torture porn and CGI-laden exorcism drivel that grace our screens every year (although it featured quite a bit of the latter), and a loving wink to the creepier, more slow-burning supernatural tales of the 1970's. The sequel keeps the 70's aesthetic, but sadly everything else too. And this time it's longer, duller and far less frightening.

It's London, 1977, and the Hodgson family move into a ramshackle council house in Enfield and quickly start experiencing paranormal occurrences. Janet (Madison Wolfe), one of two daughters, is tormented by the apparition of an old man, and furniture regularly flies across the room. The events quickly attract the attention of the police, reporters and sceptics, and word eventually travels across the pond to paranormal investigators Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) and Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson). Lorraine is battling against her own visions of a ghostly nun and the death of her husband, but the couple decide to investigate nonetheless. Soon enough, the Warrens uncover sinister forces at work at the Hodgson's home.

The first film was such an astounding success that it would seem that Wan and his four writers were simply terrified to change the formula, while bending to the fact that the audience will no doubt be expecting the ante to be upped significantly. So we are again hampered by a distracting side-story involving a previous investigation by the Warrens,as the film begins in Amityville, a story which the 2005 version starring Ryan Renyolds should have ensured wouldn't litter our screens again for at least two decades. A troubling seance seems to unleash a pissed-off, creepy nun onto Lorraine, and this story thread is shoe-horned into the central plot. Much of the first third is spent switching between continents as the Hodgsons and Warrens go about their business oblivious to the other's existence in a clunky style that doesn't really gel.

On the spooky side, it's obvious that Wan has a real knack for sculpting a set-piece, He understands the effect that a creaking floorboard, a dark corner of a room, or just plain silence can have on an audience, but Wan doesn't seem to have the discipline he had first time around. Chilling slow walks across a darkened landing soon give way to jump-scares you can spot a mile away, a spirit with a daft Cockney accent, and most inexplicably, a giant CGI 'Crooked Man'. There's a limit to how many you can be asked to watch a character make the same daft mistakes (why doesn't somebody just turn a light on at least?) or watch the so-called experts deny what is right in front of their eyes despite years of experience. And at 134 minutes, it asks you to do this for a long time. I must be missing something, as The Conjuring 2 has been another huge financial success, but I see little here that I haven't seen a hundred times before.


Directed by: James Wan
Starring: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Madison Wolfe, Frances O'Connor, Simon McBurney
Country: Canada/USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie