After the successful clearing of the haunted Amityville house, now world renown exorcists Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) are invited to assist in a British haunting that is gaining notoriety.
We say, “It starts strong, but drags on and might not finish as well.”
TAYLOR: I thought the first Conjuring was a great movie. I looked online at our review of it and both of us were fawning. Oddly, I complained about the ending, much as I will again, but we loved the first and gave it 8.5/10.
This second instalment is in some ways better and in some ways worse.
HOWE: I really enjoyed the first one. The way it was made and filmed felt old, like a ‘70s/‘80s-style horror flick but with modern-day makeup and special effects.
In Conjuring 2, it just amps it up a little more and I loved it. The techniques used to shoot this film are the same: dark, eerie and sometimes downright scary. It had me jumping in my seat a few times. Some were cheap scares, others just pure scary. Hopefully, director James Wan brings on part three.
TAYLOR: Wan has a devil’s playground to work with and knows what he’s doing.
The film is best when we are in scare mode, not story mode. Every frame becomes a dark painting, a perfect marriage of lighting and cinematography.
In a horror film, where action and story are secondary to sound and light, cinema is more easily visceral. Do not distract yourself with the common accoutrements of the theatre-goer. Look, listen, pay attention to the things you do not want to see. Then, after about an hour, start to be disappointed by the real world.
HOWE: It feels like the script was written for Wilson and Farmiga. It really was a stroke of genius to use these two because they pull off the role of the Warrens fantastically, but the great acting doesn’t stop there.
In a movie, if you are using young children in main roles, they have to be good and all four of these kids stepped up and held their own against the more seasoned actors.
TAYLOR: I didn’t think it was very cheap, specifically it didn’t use a lot of fake-outs. Often parents in these films charge into their screaming kids’ bedrooms to be met by nothing. In The Conjuring 2, the evil kicks down the door and introduces himself. Good thing there’s a simple trick to defeating demons! It’s too bad that we couldn’t have learned this lesson within a tidy 90 minutes.
Still, James Wan continues to grow, improve and impress.
– Taylor gives The Conjuring 2 four knocks on the door out of five.
– Howe gives it 4.5 digestive biscuits before bed out of 5.
– Reel Reviews with Brian Taylor and Peter Howe appears in The Morning Star every Friday.
