[yasr_overall_rating]
Lorraine and Ed Warren travel to north London to help a single mother raising four children alone in a house plagued by malicious spirits.
Scary movies have been a part of my life since I was a child. When my mother was out at work, I’d get an older friend of mine to rent some scary movies and sit and watch them. Of course, I sat with my eyes closed through the scary parts but gradually, I figured out that if I froze an image, just before something scary was going to transpire, if I advanced the movie, one frame at a time, it looked fake. And so began my journey into the supernatural, the outlandish, the freaky, the slashers behind the masks and the knife-fingered dream monster. I love horror films in general but I have a genuine affection for movies that deal with the supernatural, films that are not afraid to push the envelope and that don’t rely on an over-abundance of blood and gore, just to frighten its audience. The best horror movies are those that scare you not by what you see onscreen, but rather, what is implied.
James Wan has made a name for himself directing scary movies that are exactly that: scary. Starting out with “Saw,” he then progressed onto “Insidious,” “Insidious: Chapter 2,” “The Conjuring” and now its sequel. The movie far surpasses its predecessor in every possible way: tone, style, scares, and director James Wan achieves them all skillfully and effectively. While the first film was genuinely suspenseful, it took its time getting off the ground, this time out however, we start out on a high note as the movie begins inside the Amityville house and then gradually moves across the Atlantic to Enfield in England, where the next chapter unfolds.
A young girl, Janet (Madison Wolfe), lives with her three siblings and her mother Peggy (Frances O’Connor) in an old house in Brimsdown, Enfield. As Peggy struggles to pay bills after her husband leaves her and their kids for a younger woman, Janet begins to experience strange goings-on. The rocking chair in the living room begins to move by itself and at night, she sometimes sees the silhouette of an old man sitting in the chair. Things progressively get worse when it appears that Janet is being possessed by an entity and at this point, the Catholic church reaches out to Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson & Vera Farmiga), paranormal investigators that work on their behalf and who investigate supposed hauntings to determine if they are legitimate or a hoax. Wanting to discontinue these assessments for fear of her own sanity, Lorraine initially balks at the thought of having to leave the U.S. to travel so far away but after listening to some voice recordings, she and her husband are convinced that what they are listening to, is real.
Once in England, Ed and Lorraine observe Janet from a distance, trying not to get too close but they are inevitably drawn in once they realize that the haunting of the house and the possession of Janet is for real. Culminating in a showdown with a truly malevolent spirit, one that has haunted Lorraine’s nightmares since the events of the first movie, she must put all of her doubts aside in order to save not just Janet and her family, but that of her own too.
Director James Wan skillfully executes frightening scares and thrills throughout his movies and he does so by going against the norm. When most horror films announce, using musical cues and sound effects, that something is about to happen, we become accustomed to it and can pretty much guess when the monster is going to jump out. With Mr. Wan though, he continues to surprise and amaze with his technical prowess and competency over this particular genre, choosing instead to fade out the music and ambient background noises that typically warn us of what is to come, leaving the viewer in uncharted territory, unaware of exactly what will happen next. As someone who grew up on scary movies my whole life and for the most part, has grown tired of the constant remakes and drivel coming out of Hollywood, I find it refreshing that I can still go into one of Mr. Wan’s films, and not know what he has planned. As a lover of everything horror, that’s all I can ask for.
In theaters June 10th
