**Spoiler Alert**
Director: James Wan/Starring: Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Frances O' Connor, Franka Potente, Madison Wolfe, Lauren Esposito, Simon McBurney and Maria Doyle Kennedy
From the case files of the ghostbusting couple Ed and Lorraine Warren comes The Conjuring 2; director James Wan's follow-up to his frightening first film in what will most likely be a small franchise or at least a trilogy. The 2nd installment is a worthy successor to The Conjuring. Based on "real" events, Wan's film tells the story of one of the Warren's more famous investigations, which took place in Enfield, England in 1977. Though the film has its missteps, it nevertheless dispenses effective doses terror and chills. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga reprise their roles as Ed and Lorraine; characters they've settled into nicely and play with affecting ease.
When the story begins in Enfield in the late 1970s', a young girl named Janet Hodgson (Madison Wolfe) and a friend are caught smoking in a school stairwell. Shortly before they are called to the Headmaster's office, Janet's friend returns a makeshift Ouija board to her (not that thing again), which provides the story dark portent. At home, we get a sense of Janet's home-life as the shabby family abode is conspicuously absent a father. The mother; Peggy (played by rarely seen Frances O'Connor), is a single parent trying to hold her family together with meager finances. Her troubles include her young son Billy's (Benjamin Haigh) speech impediment and Janet herself, whose school life is less than happy.
During one evening at home, Janet shows her older sister Margaret (Lauren Esposito) her Ouija board, which they use to contact spirits, only to experience failure. The board is subsequently cast aside.
Meanwhile, in Long Island, NY, the Warrens investigate the infamous Amityville house after the owners complain of a hostile spiritual presence. During a seance, Lorraine places herself in a trance-like state in an attempt to experience the grisly murders that preceded the house's haunting. The sequence is creepy but less so than what takes place at the Warren's Connecticut home thereafter. Lorraine begins to dream of an entity with a ghostly pallor, dressed in a nun's habit. The malevolent spirit leads her to a basement, where it points to a figure standing in the shadows. The figure is revealed in a later dream as her husband. Lorraine interprets the dream as a threat from something malevolent in the spirit world though she knows not what. The next morning she finds Ed painting a figure from a dream he had the night before--the nun from Lorraine's dream. Convinced of the danger posed by said spirit, Lorraine asks that they suspend their investigations for the time being.
Back at the Hodgson household, eerie noises and strange incidents begin to unnerve the family. Janet begins to sleepwalk, which prompts her to tie herself to the bed. When the creepy occurrences become too much for the family to bear, the police are called to investigate. The police's cursory search of the house turns up little, until the officers see a chair move by itself across the floor. Spooked, the police refuse to get involved but refer the matter to paranormal expert, Maurice Grosse (Simon McBurney), who discovers he too is at loss to help the Hodgsons. When the situation becomes desperate, the Warrens are inevitably contacted and though they are on hiatus, they are persuaded to visit the Hodgsons in England to hear their case. Assured by Grosse their participation will be limited, they are nonetheless fully drawn into the nightmare. Having determined that Janet may be possessed by a spirit, the Warrens, Peggy, Grosse and an academic named Anita Gregory (Franka Potente) investigate the haunting further, needing proof of possession for the Catholic church to consent to an exorcism.
What is particularly interesting about the film is Anita Gregory, who brings unanticipated skepticism to the proceedings--and the film. Convinced Janet and Hodgsons are perpetrating a hoax, Gregory chides the Warrens and Grosse for being taken in though they, Grosse and Peggy insist the haunting is real. Of course the audience knows Janet and Hodgsons are on the up and up but I really thought for a moment the film might actually debunk all the claims of the haunting and possession. I was pleased the movie accepted everything at face value because who goes to a horror movie to be convinced the supernatural is hokum?
An elderly man's voice begins to emanate from Janet's mouth, making it necessary to conduct a test to determine who the spirit might be. While Janet sits on an old leather chair in the living room, Ed holds a question and answer session with the spirit. After the spirit vigorously resists Ed's questions, he identifies himself as Bill Wilkins; a former occupant who died while sitting in the same chair Janet occupies. Wilkins issues a forceful command to the Hodgsons to "leave his home." But as Bill furthers his reign of terror, Lorraine discovers the demonic entity haunting she and Ed's dreams is the very same nether-fiend manipulating Bill's spirit into menacing the family. I found this plot development to be original and very unusual. It's the first time, to my knowledge, that a demon has controlled a ghost for its own purposes in a horror film. In an attempt to stop the demon who is hell-bent (if you excuse the expression) on destroying Janet Hodgson and Ed, Lorraine realizes she must learn its name in order to control it.
The plot comes to a scorching boil when the spirit holds Janet hostage inside the Hodgson house. A desperate effort to gain entry into the Hodgson home by forceful means ensues. A unintentionally absurd moment where Peggy's neighbor tries to break down the basement door using an axe becomes a comically unrealistic, protracted affair. Come on; it's an old, wooden door; two whacks with an axe should have reduced the thing to splinters!
While Lorraine and said neighbor try to gain violent ingress, Ed manages to reach Janet by another route. When the demon tries to make Janet leap from the window onto a lethally pointed tree trunk (foreseen in one of Lorraine's dreams), Ed's life becomes imperiled too when he tries to stop her. Lorraine finally arrives to attempt an intervention.
There is much I found refreshing about Wan's film. Though it called upon some familiar horror tropes to tell its story, it was also eccentric in many ways most films in the genre are not. The aforementioned demon/ghost plot device is one. Another are the dual hauntings; the Warrens in Connecticut and Hodgsons in England, which ratchets up the tension nicely. There were also some moments that felt decidedly non-horror and more dramatic. I've always found it frustrating in horror films when person A tries to persuade person B of a frightening encounter with something supernatural, only for the entity to become silent or unobtrusive, which casts person A as a liar or crank. In Wan's film, this almost never happens.
The movie has its flaws. I find it puzzling that the Warrens, Peggy and Grosse conveniently forget very convincing evidence for the entity's existence--the chair moving on its own across the floor--for instance--when countering Anita Gregory's claims of fraud. How would one doubt what one has seen when the entire house shakes and the lights go out? How could Janet fake that? Billy's tent on the Hodgson house second floor also makes little sense (another of the film's slips; I've seen a similar tent in countless other horror films). Why doesn't he or the family tear down the damn thing after his toys begin to roll out of it?
Why does a demon go to all the trouble to frighten and bully? Why not just kill Ed Warren? And why would the Warrens be much of a threat to powerful forces from beyond? Bits and pieces of the The Exorcist can be found in the story, including a possessed young girl who speaks in male voice and the time-honored Ouija-as-culprit-for-possession angle. I guess there's no way around that film's influence on horror.
But all in all, I found the film to be done quite well and sufficiently scary. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga are slowly becoming an iconic presence in modern horror cinema. They are quite excellent (and certainly more glamorous than their real-life counterparts) as Ed and Lorraine Warren and never treat the material as a lark. Frances O'Connor is quite terrific, as are the young cast who make up the Hodgson brood.
Wan earned his horror bona fides long ago and continues to hone his craft. He knows how to coax the scares out of the story without resorting to cheap trickery or hackneyed scare devices (or at least not too many).
The Conjuring 2 is one of the few sequels that is worthy of the original. A third film would not be unwelcome. A word of caution to those who plan on seeing the flick. Do not read the case on which the film is based. The real story is more mundane and is most certainly a cheesy hoax. It doesn't bother me that Paul Bunyanesque-size liberties were taken with the real story--who really thinks any of the Warren's cases are authentic or real anyway? All I ask of a horror film is that it frightens me without becoming mired in a bog of cliches and tired scare tactics. Wan's film is made well and a fun experience to boot.
