The Conjuring 2: Not for the Faint of Heart

Went ghost for a little while but now I'm back. What am I reviewing, you may be asking yourself (if you're bad at noticing titles)? Will it be the latest Avengers movie? Will it be a low-key indie film? Will it be Warcraft?!

Nay.

We're going to be discussing The Conjuring's amazing second installment, otherwise known as (wait for it)....The Conjuring 2.

Honestly, how they come up with these names for sequels

 I will never have any idea.

Let's get down to the plot: Ed and Lorraine Warren (graciously played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) are back slaying evil in this amazing sequel to The Conjuring. After gaining some insight into Lorraine's personal demons (like, literally) at the beginning of the movie, we're whisked away to London, where a family is experiencing some disturbances in their home. Young Janet, eleven years old, thinks she's being tormented by an evil spirit with a sinister agenda. It throws her from her bed, trashes her family's house, and frequently uses her as a host through which to speak. After the church gets wind of the disturbances, they send Ed and Lorraine out to London to assess the situation and see if the claims have any depth. It's then up to them to tell whether the whole thing is a hoax or whether they're putting themselves in extreme danger.

The fantastic thing about this sequel is (despite it's horrendous title) its originality and how it plays with your head -- and this is why James Wan is a goddamn horror master. You enter the theater expecting a straightforward scary story: there's a definite evil presence, you have a sympathetic view of the main character, and then the presence either wins or is vanquished. But the movie takes it a little further than that. This movie is a bit long, setting itself up (most horror movies run about an hour and a half -- this one is two and a quarter), but it weaves an intricate question throughout itself: "Is this girl actually possessed?" The audience's trust of the Warrens and their doubt in the girl's situation make you legitimately wonder despite the overwhelming evidence. But it's the ending that really pays off here, explaining everything. This movie's also a great example of how directors can get creative with the paranormal and make up their own rules.

Moving onto the most important part of any horror movie: was it actually scary?

Honestly, this movie was way scarier than I had anticipated. And thank god I saw this in a theater of like-minded scaredy cats and we all screamed in unison.

How do you outdo an evil, 16th-century witch? 

Oh, just make a demonic nun, totally cool.

So often horror sequels (and even originals) rely on a series of repetitive pop-ups to frighten you, and the effect turns cheesy -- especially with a subpar cast. But in The Conjuring 2, the characters aren't stupid, and the forms that the spirit takes are really frighteningly and surprisingly diverse. This is another way that Wan really stirs up some amazing horror: The "monster" is never redundant. Fear is based on the unknown, and he does a brilliant job of letting evil be unpredictable. Is it in the house? Is it outside? Is it possessing the girl again? Is it walking around on its own? Is it an old man? A nun? The crooked man?

(Spoiler alert: I screamed embarrassingly loud whenever the crooked man showed up. 

Prepare yourself.)

Really, I can't divulge too much without giving everything away, but suffice it to say that this is one sequel that is done incredibly well. The suspense sustains itself, the questions keep on popping up, and the acting is great. Wan knows what scares people, and he creates movies that get under your skin, creating an atmosphere where everything is unpredictably terrifying.

9 outa 10. Excellent classic horror movie.

Omg, even this trailer tho...

Insidious Chapter 2: Because Apparently the First One was Chapter 1

In preparation for the newest Insidious movie, Nick and I turned on the first one as a refresher before our 10:40 screening of the sequel. Now, the first time I saw Insidious, I had been warned that it was some really freakin' scary stuff. And I got really scared. And it may have colored the movie for me. Maybe a little bit. But the thing that I like about this franchise (as, let's be honest, it will probably become after breaking the box office this weekend) is the element of the unknown. That being said, I think that the newest one is a little more conventionally scary than the last one was. But we'll get to that later.

YE BE WARNED: SINCE THIS MOVIE IS ENTIRELY BUILT ON THE FIRST INSTALLMENT, THERE WILL BE INSIDIOUS SPOILERS ALL OVER THIS THING. IT HAS BEEN SAID.

First off, plot:

The second film starts off right where the first one left off. That is, right after Elyse has been murdered. They even give you a convenient little recap of all of the events that happen in the last scene of the first one. So you see, once again, the wife looking, horrified, at the camera and finding Elyse dead. But after being questioned by the police, things seem to go pretty much back to normal for the family. For, like, a day. After both Renai and Lorraine start seeing entities in the house again, questions start to arise about Josh's personality. Is he being dismissive because he wants to move on? Or is there something in him that has a more INSIDIOUS agenda? (See what I did there?) After her suspicions are enforced by her worried son, Dalton, who can also sense that something is wrong with his father, they join forces with Lorraine, Elyse's team from the original film, and a new character named  to get to the bottom of what is haunting Josh and, more importantly, how they can stop it.

You ain't my daddy!

This movie was pretty scary. I was afraid to open doors when I got home because of all the freakin' jumps and random spirits that keep popping up everywhere. The cool thing about Insidious 2, is that you're already a little primed for the action that you're going to get because of the first movie. But don't get me wrong, there are a lot of twists and turns in this one that the original doesn't have. For instance, instead of "it's not your house that's haunted, it's your son," as the big shocker, there are a dozen little things that are going on in this one that almost make it seem more "thriller" than the first film felt. While there is undeniably something wrong with Josh, it takes almost the entire film to sort out the fine details and try to solve the problem.

"Are you really Josh? You can tell me. I promise I won't say anything."

Insidious 2 was, on the whole, pretty good. The only complaint that I would have is the ghosts. With the slight genre change, there also seems to be a different way that these ghosts interact with the living than in the first one. While we see agression and yelling from the creepy things in the first movie, the ghosts in this second installment seem to be a bit more articulate, and with more meaningful plot lines. I can't decide whether this helps or hurts the movie. It's almost more terrifying to have to deal with spirits that can't remember how to reason than with ones that are mercilessly messing with you on purpose. At the same time, it makes the mystery all that much more personal once they finally figure it out.

PS it has to do something with this person.

Bottom line: the way the plot unfolds is an improvement over the first one, but the main haunters in this movie are not as scary as the ones in the original.

7 outa 10. Pretty good horror movie, especially for a sequel.

DON'T FORGET TO ENTER FOR THE $25 FANDANGO GIFT CARD, GIVEAWAY ENTRY IN THE LAST POST! 

The Conjuring: If You Think Witches Are Obsolete, You Are Wrong.

As a teenager I was pretty religious. Not in a weird person way (at least I don't think so), but let it be known that I regularly went to church and still have the books of the Old Testament memorized thanks to a song I learned when I was nine.

See? No hoodless sweatshirt with bright white tennis shoes.

(Does anyone else picture religious fanatics this way? Just me?

On a separate note, remember when digital cameras were still a new thing?)

But my background has made me a little...sensitive to movies about demons.

Enter: The Conjuring.

Plot: A husband, wife, and their five daughters move into a house that they've recently bought from a bank auction. The house is very old and needs some work, but they seem cheerful enough to move in.

But then (of course) weird things start to happen. During a game, the mother confuses the claps of her child with those of a resident child ghost. Pictures fall off the walls. All of the clocks stop at 3:07 a.m. Children's feet are grabbed while they're sleeping in the night. One of the daughters begins sleep-walking. One sees someone in her room and smells rotting meat. And during one terrifying night, the mother is dragged down to the basement and tormented by a demon, while her two daughters are locked in their room and attacked by the ghost of a witch. People are hurled across the room and the family is reduced to all sleeping in the living room.

See? Dragged to the basement.

While this plot line is moving along, we are also introduced to Ed and Lorraine Warren, experts in the paranormal field. Not frauds, these two are dedicated to helping people debunk their "ghost stories" and help solve any that happen to be real. When approached by the mother of five, they decide to help her. Lorraine, a psychic, sees the demon latched onto them all as soon as she enters the house (giving a reason, in this instance, why they can't all just "RUN!!"). She also gives insight as to why there are so many ghosts in the house: a child and his mother from the turn of the century, a maid, another woman, and the demonic presence of a witch that had been hanged on the property during the 19th century.

After the Warrens come to help, things gets cray. That's all I'm going to say. Prepare to be scared.

Yes. That is a woman wrapped in a sheet, sitting in a chair.

Upside down on the ceiling.

I would say that The Conjuring did give me some trouble sleeping. If it hadn't added the quotation before the credits from the real Warrens on the reality of God and the devil I probably could've put it out of my mind a little bit more easily. Seeing the picture of the real family during the end credits didn't help much either. If you'd like to learn more about the real story behind The Conjuring (which, let's be honest, could be a load of crap), check out www.chasingthefrog.com, a site which examines the verity of various Hollywood films "based on a true story."

The only thing that bugged me about this movie (which, in hindsight, I should probably be grateful for), is that they didn't make the witch look all that scary. After looking at IMDB, the witch's role is apparently played by a man (not unlike the role of Zelda in Pet Sematary). However, it's clear that there's something a bit...off. She looks a little too weird to be true, and it diminishes the thing that makes the movie so scary: its basis on fact.

With the exception of this scene. During which I nearly peed my pants.

So, in conclusion, The Conjuring I found to be pretty frightening. Like so many other modern demon movies, the fact that there is a malevolent spirit latching onto people rather than their properties is terrifying. We're not dealing with a poltergeist. We're dealing with evil. And that makes the movie especially scary.

8 out of 10. If you're looking for a scare, you won't be disappointed.