The Conjuring 2 a solid, straight-up scare-fest

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This article was published 09/06/2016 (3743 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A horror sequel is rarely original, but in the hands of scare-meister James Wan, who mainstreamed torture-porn with the Saw franchise before turning to old-school, slow-burn spook stories, it can at least be eerily effective.

In this follow-up to his 2013 blockbuster The Conjuring, Wan goes light on the gore and heavy on the bumps in the night and creepy children’s toys. The results are uneven and overlong but still nicely crafted and satisfyingly scary.

Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga), a pair of devout Christian demonologists, return for this poltergeisty plot, along with the seemingly obligatory declaration, “Based on a True Story.” (You might want to Google this when you get home, possibly alongside the word “debunked.”)

This time out, the Warrens find themselves called to Enfield, a working-class borough in north London, to investigate one of Britain’s most notorious paranormal stories. It’s 1977 and Peggy Hodgson (Frances O’Connor), an exhausted and worried single mother, lives with her four children in a rundown council house. Her 12-year-old daughter Janet (Madison Wolfe) is being terrorized in the night. She sees things, she levitates, and sometimes she speaks in the rasping, rage-filled voice of an old man.

Some of the jump-scares are startling and macabre, while others are just giggly, suggesting a form of supernatural slapstick. A misfiring fright involving brother Billy’s old-timey magic lantern show seems like the kind of thing spoofed in the very meta movie The Cabin in the Woods. Horror-wise, there’s nothing to compare to the incredibly unsettling “clap game” in the first Conjuring movie.

The overall atmosphere works, though. The devil is in the details in The Conjuring series, and Wan gets terrific technical support. Production design is spot-on, the old house convincingly grotty and creaky and menaced by rising damp and dry rot. (Its walls are inhabited by black mould, if nothing else.) Sound design is skilful, and the camerawork is crackerjack, prowling through the house with smooth, sinister ease.

Farmiga and Wilson are strong actors who commit completely to their characters, the lady-like Lorraine and the wonderfully square Ed. They even commit to their characters’ crazy polyester-plaid wardrobes.

That sincerity is both beguiling and limiting. One of the weird charms of The Conjuring series is that it plays its paranormal storylines so straight. The Warrens are portrayed as lunch-bucket exorcists, just doing their job. (Ed, being a helpful guy, also fixes the Hodgsons’ leaky kitchen faucet and sticky closet door while he’s ridding their house of satanic influences.)

That matter-of-fact tone is also a weakness. The Warrens — and the filmmakers — take it for granted that demons bedevil hapless mortals, without thinking much about why or how. Questions are not welcomed; ambiguity is discouraged. Characters who wonder whether Janet is a hoaxer, or maybe a disturbed girl exploited by the tabloid media, are seen as exhibiting bad faith.

Wan and his three co-scripters are also supremely uninterested in subtext. There is no parallel meaning running alongside this possession story — no family dysfunction (beyond a few references to a useless, layabout ex-husband), no social breakdown (beyond a brief TV glimpse of the coming predations of Thatcherism).

In the end, The Conjuring 2 is a solid, straight-up scare-fest, but there is little lingering fear when the lights come up.

alison.gillmor@freepress.mb.ca