I often lie in bed at night thinking about a movie I just watched. I’ll think about the things I want to say about it and mentally compose a review. Normally, the next day I’ll sit down and actually write that review. Every now and again, I’ll wake up thinking that I actually did write the review instead of just thinking about it. This is one such occasion. I would have sworn I wrote and posted a review to The Conjuring 2, but no such luck. It has now been a couple of weeks since I watched the movie, so my memory of it has faded a bit. Normally, I’d just let it go and not write a review, but I made a promise that I’d review all the Conjuring films this scary season, so here goes (being that it is October 24 and I haven’t watched the two other films in the main series, I’m not sure I’ll actually be able to keep the promise, but I’ll try).
The first time I watched this sequel, I was disappointed. It wasn’t nearly as scary as the first one, and the family being haunted wasn’t nearly as interesting or well developed. But on this watch, my appreciation grew.
Plot-wise, this film is very similar to the first one. It begins with a story that is mostly unrelated to the main plot. This one begins with the haunting at Amityville. That’s an interesting choice, for before these films, the Warrens were best known for participating in The Amityville Horror. But that story has been told a couple of times before, and in truth, the Warrens didn’t show up until after the Lutz family had split. So here we get just a bit of a séance and indications that the horrors of that house are some of the most intense the Warrens have ever dealt with (that will be a recurring theme with these films, every story is the most crazy story they ever experienced.) Also, Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) gets a vision of an evil nun.
Later, Ed (Patrick Wilson) will get some visions of that same nun and will paint a horrifying picture of her (one that he’ll hang in his office for some reason). The Nun will, of course, be the antagonist of a series of sidequal films. We’ll see more of her in the Warrens’ part of this film before they meet up with our family.
That family is the Hodgsons, led by Peggy (Frances O’Connor ) and her four children. They live near London in a rundown house. The oldest girl, Janet (Madison Wolfe), plays with an Ouija board and accidentally summons a demon. We get the same sort of jump scares as in the first one, though they amp them up a bit here. There are a variety of demons at play in this one, including an old man, The Crooked Man, and something else. Like most sequels, everything gets jacked up a bit.
But this time I found the slower parts with the Hodgson family to be good. They are a kind, working-class family just trying to get by. The father left some time ago, and Peggy is struggling to keep everything afloat. There are some nice character moments with the children and we get a real sense of who they are as a family before all hell breaks loose. I was less enthused about what the Warrens are up to at home. The nun stuff has some good scares, but isn’t all that interesting (and definitely doesn’t make me want to watch those films). And I’m already growing tired of them wrestling with whether or not they should continue this line of work. Here, Lorraine has visions of Ed being killed, and so she doesn’t want to take the case, but of course they take the case because there wouldn’t be a movie otherwise. I don’t need that constant drama.
Once the two families get together, the scares get crazy. But like the first film, they are dolled out slowly at first. The two families get to know each other. WE once again see how kind and loving the Warrens are. Ed will help fix a leaking pipe, etc. All of that stuff works for me. I like the smaller scene and the smaller horror. Once things reach a fever pitch it starts to fell like so many other horror movies at the end.
It isn’t quite as good as the first film, but I’m still on board with this franchise.