The Conjuring 2 | Film Review

A haunted house is a terrifying concept. Just the thought that your own home, your one bastion of solace, could be compromised by a vindictive spirit or demon is a horrifying idea. All of your finances are tied into this building, making it impossible to abandon. Each corner reflects some measure of personal history, making the attachment to each wall far more difficult to separate one’s self from. Even worse is knowing your home is being invaded and – despite all of the self-defense classes and weapons a person can muster – you are utterly powerless to stop it.

“The Conjuring 2” invites the franchise into another haunted dwelling for yet another go-round with a harshly vengeful spirit. Peggy Hodgson (Francis O’Connor) is a single mom raising her brood in a London flat, when suddenly it is besieged by an evil entity. Several attempts to dissuade the demon on her own end in failure, so Peggy takes her case to the media. After her daughter Janet demonstrates what seems like demonic possession on national TV, the Catholic Church regrettably calls on Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) to investigate these claims of a supernatural disturbance. As required with any franchise, the stakes must be raised or the story should carve an alternate path, and this time director James Wan has crafted a film fraught with a modicum of doubt: Could the Hodgson clan ultimately be faking all of this?

I can’t remember the last time a filmmaker took a look at the flip-side of a house possession. As with the original “Conjuring”, most spiritually infested domains come with a healthy dose of legitimizing, leading us to inevitably conclude that ‘OF COURSE this is real’. We rarely even consider that these ghostly occupiers could be nothing but a ruse. For large sections this film, there is more than enough room to debate. Demons are real, but maybe we keep looking to the devil as the solution, when the real culprit – the more likely instigator – might instead be a mentally damaged pre-teen putting her family through the psychological wringer.

It’s a fun twist on the norm, and sorely needed as much of the rest of “The Conjuring 2” simply regurgitates the plot devices from the original, leaving us in a constant state of unearthly déjà vu. Thunderous banging on doors that open to no one, objects relocating on their own, sleepwalking children leading us to ominous relics leading to more banging doors – see where I’m going?

As talented a director as James Wan is – and make no mistake, Wan is easily the most spirited purveyor of horror in film today (minus the questionable design choice of ‘The Crooked Man’) – he cannot mask the eerie sensation of sequelitis that begins to seep into our bones midway through the film. For a filmmaker who stages scenarios of spine-tinglingly perfectionist glee, it is relatively shocking to witness cinematic doppelgangers of the previous film. More surprising are the inclusions of scenes steeped heartily in a Velveeta block of cheese and clichés that often yank us completely out of the mystical aura we were otherwise surrounded by.

Don’t read this review wrong, “The Conjuring 2” has numerous moments that will genuinely raise the hair on the back of your neck, while Wilson and Farmiga once again maintain a palpable chemistry that grounds the film each time it threatens to leave the earthly plain of realism. They simply aren’t enough to touch the frighteningly ambitioned brilliance of the original, leaving both the audience and the Warrens lost in the dark, still searching for a worthy successor.