THE CONJURING 2 (2016) Review
Directed by James Wan
Following 2013’s hit horror film The Conjuring, James Wan actually announced that he wanted to take a rest from directing horror films after Insidious Chapter 2. But thankfully, Warner Bros. waited for him to helm the sequel.
The Conjuring 2 has less scary scenes than the first one. That might be disappointing for some but while there are fewer scares, they are still effective. But the scares aren’t the film’s best part. It’s the characters, the story and the actors.
The film, like the first one, started with a plot that will be tackled in its main story. Director James Wan is good in story build ups especially putting tense the story, frame by frame, sequence by sequence, even the ridiculous Insidious Chapter 2 was developed great from start to finish. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga returns as Ed and Lorraine Warren, famous for exorcising and investigating supernatural anomalies. While they may be the stars of the film, they’re just part of the story. Not in a way that they don’t matter but that the film is more than their characters, there are more characters that needs emphasis in the film so the story needs to be focused and to have a clear path on where it will go.
We have Ed and Lorraine Warren, but we also have Janet, Peggy and the rest of the Hodgson family.And all their performances are tremendous if I might add. The Conjuring 2 is The Avengers of the horror genre. It’s multicharacter but what made the film stand out is that each character has a clear motivation. And that settles everything as comprehensible as it can, not confusing much the audience while watching. The audience are well-guided by the adventures of the characters, every sequence is directed in an unmistakable and effective route to build a story that’s more than its characters.
There are some elements of Insidious here but the film stays to its identity. You can still feel that it is a Conjuring film all throughout. It‘s quite a rare feat for a horror film to have an identity, one that the audience would keep after watching the film and The Conjuring 1 & 2 definitely has that. And for a horror film, how it wants to have a light In spite of all the trouble and the darkness these characters experience is commendable because hope is the most important thing in a horror film. That they keep fighting, they still have this glimmer of light or some of them gives that light for them to realize what they have in the middle of what they are experiencing.
It’s well-written and well-staged. The scares are not as many as the first one but they’re still effective, even the jump scares. Wan even has these prolonged shots that are meant to build tense for the audience, and even though they’re just ruse, they work every time. The Conjuring 2 is one of the best horror films out there because it gives more than just the scares, it gives a story of love, of a family, of fear and of hope. It’s more than what you want from it and it’s entertaining, inconvenient for the faint of heart but the story is well-orchestrated that the climax will give you goosebumps.
4.5 OUT OF 5 STARS
“The Conjuring 2” opens June 9, 2016 in Philippine cinemas nationwide from Warner Bros. Pictures. Rated R-13 by the MTRCB.