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The Conjuring 2 (2016) - DIrected by James Wan
"Your name gives me dominion over you, demon, and I do know your name!"
When I originally reviewed James Wan's haunted house classic The Conjuring, I had given it a 9/10 for certain issues pertaining to the focus of the film and character development. The scare factor, however, has overtaken some of that and I now give it the minimum on a 0-100 scale needed for a 5-star rating. That lead me to further explore the horror director himself, which lead to a re-evaluation of Saw and a venture towards The Conjuring 2. Checking the reviews, I was hoping to love it. While it was certainly fun, I didn't love it.
Having been scarred by visions seen while in the infamous Amityville house, clairvoyant Lorraine Warren feels that demons are warning her to stay away from exorcisms for a while. Unfortunately, the Amityville cased has skyrocketed Lorraine and her husband Ed to international fame, and they're needed again in a demonic case that looks more like a hoax than a haunting. Will the truth be discovered?
The tension and the character development of Ed and Lorraine are there at full force. The little hints given to the audience as to what's going on drive the movie when necessary and when build-up isn't happening. And the ending of the film was spot on. I'd give the third act a whole star over the first two acts just for it's exciting way of putting all the plot points together in a satisfying ending as well as any horror movie should. And the religious theme that helped me re-evaluate The Conjuring as a better movie than The Exorcist continues with a whole new look at how fame can affect the church in positive and negative ways.
On top of that, it was a much more typical haunted house movie. The scares and build-up were very familiar, so the edge lost its edge. The family seems to be just another family of victims with little to no character development, which annoyed me about the first movie. And the nun needed to show up more. Honestly, this really disappointed me considering how creative the original film was.
Well, The Conjuring 2 is certainly not a benchmark for how a franchise can turn bad too quickly (we'll leave that to Annabelle), but it's significantly worse than the first film. Having said that, as a story it's a properly-written and properly exciting continuation of a classic haunted house movie that I think did it's job well enough for the horror fan to check out.
"Your name gives me dominion over you, demon, and I do know your name!"
When I originally reviewed James Wan's haunted house classic The Conjuring, I had given it a 9/10 for certain issues pertaining to the focus of the film and character development. The scare factor, however, has overtaken some of that and I now give it the minimum on a 0-100 scale needed for a 5-star rating. That lead me to further explore the horror director himself, which lead to a re-evaluation of Saw and a venture towards The Conjuring 2. Checking the reviews, I was hoping to love it. While it was certainly fun, I didn't love it.
Having been scarred by visions seen while in the infamous Amityville house, clairvoyant Lorraine Warren feels that demons are warning her to stay away from exorcisms for a while. Unfortunately, the Amityville cased has skyrocketed Lorraine and her husband Ed to international fame, and they're needed again in a demonic case that looks more like a hoax than a haunting. Will the truth be discovered?
The tension and the character development of Ed and Lorraine are there at full force. The little hints given to the audience as to what's going on drive the movie when necessary and when build-up isn't happening. And the ending of the film was spot on. I'd give the third act a whole star over the first two acts just for it's exciting way of putting all the plot points together in a satisfying ending as well as any horror movie should. And the religious theme that helped me re-evaluate The Conjuring as a better movie than The Exorcist continues with a whole new look at how fame can affect the church in positive and negative ways.
On top of that, it was a much more typical haunted house movie. The scares and build-up were very familiar, so the edge lost its edge. The family seems to be just another family of victims with little to no character development, which annoyed me about the first movie. And the nun needed to show up more. Honestly, this really disappointed me considering how creative the original film was.
Well, The Conjuring 2 is certainly not a benchmark for how a franchise can turn bad too quickly (we'll leave that to Annabelle), but it's significantly worse than the first film. Having said that, as a story it's a properly-written and properly exciting continuation of a classic haunted house movie that I think did it's job well enough for the horror fan to check out.