Rated: R

Score: 5/10 stars

Friday, June 10, 2016 marked the opening of theaters for follow-up to director James Wan’ 2013 signature psychological thriller, The Conjuring. In classic chronological tradition, the sequel to the original movie was titled The Conjuring 2, despite it not being very much of a plot continuation of the first movie. Receiving a 80% Certified Fresh rating from Rotten Tomatoes and a score of 65/100 from review aggregrator Metacritic, the mostly favorable reviews seem to contrast with my opinion of The Conjuring 2 when I saw it in theaters.

Although I watched it nearly three months ago, I knew that I was going to have to write a review for this. This was pretty landmark for me seeing that it was the first horror movie I’d ever seen in theaters, and to be frank, the first actual “horror movie” I’ve seen at all. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen the classics on crappy cable channels- The Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre– and my Nigerian heritage has opened me to a new realm of film in cheaply-shot and edited West African movies, one popular genre including horror. However, both of these forms of horror movies are plagued with horrible effects and lightly laced together plots. I never felt the suspense or fear I was expected to sense. So, with modern Western horror movies, I had high hopes and anticipated a lot more. Like spine-chilling fear.

The narrative jumps off from its predecessor with the continued involvement of two key characters Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson’s Lorraine and Ed Warren, a married paranormal investigator couple that found fame for exploring the Amityville hauntings in the early 1970s. While I haven’t watched the first Conjuring movie, the Amityville horrors come off as a more fascinating story, by far. In fact, there’s a whole ‘nother series of movies based of the paranormal happenings in this New York town. The Conjuring 2 sees the Warrens cross the pond for their next big investigation in Enfield, England.

The setting of a lower-income British borough populated solely by public housing in the 1970s could have lent to some interesting cinematography (and it does sort of help out with the film as a whole, a lovely Elvis and Clash-inflected soundtrack was one of the high points), but director James Wan says bullpucky to authenticity! Let’s get to the ghosts, shall we? Yes, they do and there’s plenty of them, beginning in the comfort of the Warrens’ East Coast home in which Lorraine first comes across a demonic nun that she combats against using a prayer. Soon after that, the Warrens are called to England to deal with the haunting of 12 year old girl Janet Hodgson by the voice of a dead old man, living somewhat deficiently in an estate house with her older sister, younger brother and single mother. After consorting with other investigators, it is found that Janet is playing a nasty prank on the neighborhood. And so we all went home and talked about the wonderful conclusion, then? Of course not! What would a horror movie be without the doubters? The Warrens soon figure out Janet isn’t actually haunted by the old man, but is being controlled by the demon Lorraine witnessed in her vision. Somehow, the demon decided to appear in England. I would have assumed that demons would have been on the no-fly list here, but it was the seventies. Ed’s life is threatened by a conjured up image of a wooden stake stabbing him, Lorraine cries and prays a bunch, Janet throws dishes around in their kitchen, more demonic stuff occurs to fill up the 2 hours plus. In the finale, Lorraine has to ward off her fear of losing her religion to destroy Valak, the creature that has been haunting both the Warrens and the Hodgsons for years.

Most of the qualms that I found with The Conjuring 2 were the shock tactics that were integrated into the movie in order to scare viewers instead of fully developed plot twists. Riddled with jump scares, the fear factor in this film can get a bit too much, if you’re scared of that kind of thing. It starts to get insipid when the beleaguered mother/investigator/younger brother/[insert horror movie trope here] opens the door, despite the fact that it is completely obvious that there’s going to be a demonic creature there or perhaps your sister, who is cursed by the aforementioned demonic creature. With the awkward involvement of three supposedly interchangeable monsters, one of which included an anthropomorphic “Crooked Man” that spawns randomly out of Janet’s younger brother’s favorite toy, I’m not sure if James Wan was confused about whether he was ghostwriting a Tim Burton film or his own movie. There’s also a bit of continuity problem with the bilateral story line of Lorraine’s struggle with faith and the paranormal and oh, of course, the middle schooler that’s possessed by a demon within a demon.

The Conjuring 2 concedes back into the box that Wan’s earlier horror movies promised to break out of: predictability. The ending is quite positive and contains the suspense that rest of the film tried to leave out. Vera Farmiga does a wonderful character reprisal in a brilliant subplot that I think could have been played out a little more. Perhaps I wouldn’t have enjoyed this as much as I did- although I can’t say that I did enjoy it very much- if I had seen the acclaimed first movie. Altogether, I don’t regret going to the theater and experiencing my first real horror movie, but I hope the next one I watch gets me seeing red instead of drab, dull grey.