After the 2013 box office hit THE CONJURING garnered $318 million on a budget of $20 million, a sequel was no doubt coming. In fact, New Line had already ordered the sequel before the film was released. Three years later it’s finally here: THE CONJURING 2, now with twice the conjurings! With most of the production team back, including FURIOUS 7 director James Wan, the film shows promise, as the first installment managed to use nothing but the basics of horror movie tropes, yet still deliver a frightfully good horror movie.
The new film follows a new family, this time a poor single mother of four living in a London borough. It doesn’t take long for all of the family members to start experiencing strange occurrences, mostly focusing on middle daughter Janet (Madison Wolfe). However it also doesn’t take long for the mother and even the police (thank The Lord) to see the incidents and get involved, along with a reporter. Having been first introduced to horror movies by Paranormal Activity (yes, I’m young) and never really liking the experience, I am extremely glad with how quickly this happens. The movie does not waste too much of our time watching boards mysteriously creek or pictures fall. There are also very few red herrings, where suspense build for minutes only to have nothing come out of it. These tropes can be used effectively, as they were in THE CONJURING, but I have become extremely bored by them as it seems James Wan has. His frenetic FURIOUS 7-style directing shines through in the production, as things are constantly going on making the two-hour and 14 minute film seem not bad at all.
As for the narrative, there is a separate story of the first film’s star investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) touring the world telling the story of Amityville and trying to educate others. Throughout these times, Lorraine is continuously haunted by a being dressed as a monstrous nun, infiltrating her dreams and telling of her husband’s destined death. When they are contacted about the London family’s situation, they come to help but are hesitant over their own safety of what is going on. As the situation escalates and Janet starts becoming more and more possessed, they begin realize everything is not how it seems.
Madison Wolfe, who I would argue has the true “leading role” over Vera Farmiga, turns in an amazing performance in the film. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson do a fine job, but it’s nothing too exciting. The young boy playing Billy does his best to have a stutter, but fails somewhat miserably and is one of the aspects that really detracts from the film. Others being some of the tropes James Wan did not get bored off. There is plenty, and I mean plenty of the standard horror movie triple play – strange occurrence, character investigating, huge scare. All the while the violins are going crazy. The music can get very distracting throughout the running time. All in all the sequel does succeed, supported by a climax that ends up being a thriller most of the way through. More than scares, the intrigue of the film pulls in those not even bothered by the scares up until that point.
