The Conjuring 2 - A Roller Coaster Ride of Scares

Review by Steve D. Stones

The Conjuring 2 may not be the great classic of the original film, but as sequels go - it is a well-made, well-directed effort in the series that puts the viewer on a wild roller coaster ride of scares and chills. Prepare yourself to be even more jolted out of your seat than the first film.  This film comes in at 133 minutes.

Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson reprise their roles as paranormal researchers Lorraine and Ed Warren. Early in the film, Lorraine expresses to Ed her desire to not get involved with any more paranormal investigations, at least not for a little while. Ed makes her a promise that they will lay off the investigations for a while.

This of course changes when the Warrens are approached by a priest of the Catholic church to look into a home possession in Northern England. Ed promises Lorraine that they will go to England only to observe. Lorraine fears that Ed will be killed in their next investigation based on dreams she has had.

Peggy Hodgson, played by Frances O'Connor, is a single mother of four children whose home in Enfield, England is plagued with spirits and strange paranormal activity. Her youngest daughter, Janet, played by Madison Wolfe, has become possessed by Bill Wilkins, the former owner of the home - a seventy-two year old man who died of a brain hemorrhage while sitting in his lounge chair watching TV. The Hodgson family kept Wilkins' chair and other possessions after the home was sold following his death.

There's lots of smashing glass, slamming doors, loud pounding sounds and furniture flying across the room, which continually jolts the viewer out of their seat.  Like the first Conjuring film, many of the scare tactics employed are from vague outlinings of a figure standing off in the distance of a dark room while a main actor stands or sits in front of the ominous figure.

One particularly scary sequence shows a strange painting Ed Warren has created of an evil nun he has seen in his dreams. Lorraine enters Ed's study to look at the painting as the shadow of the nun walks up to the painting and aligns her shadow with the shape of the figure in the painting. Creepy stuff indeed.

In a scene reminiscent of The Exorcist (1973), Ed Warren tries to communicate with the spirit of Bill Wilkins through the body of little Janet Hodgson. Janet sits in the old, worn-out chair of Wilkins while he communicates through Janet. Ed later reviews two tape recordings of Wilkins and discovers that Wilkins himself is possessed by the evil nun in his painting.

Most horror movie fans are in agreement that sequels to box office hits are often stinkers and not worthy of their predecessors. The Conjuring 2, however, will not disappoint. The scares in this film are ten times what was seen in the first film. Director James Wan always intensifies the scare level when he creates a new film in any of his series, such as the Saw and Insidious films

Strap yourselves in and hold on tight for one wild ride in The Conjuring 2. Happy viewing!

The Conjuring – Familiar, But Scary Horror Story

By Steve D. Stones

If you’re familiar with classic haunted house movies such as The Haunting, Burnt Offerings, Poltergeist and The Amityville Horror – The Conjuring may not have anything new to offer. However, director James Wan manages to create a retro 1970s atmosphere without trying to rehash too much of these old classics. There are enough scares in this film to fill an entire mansion.

World renowned paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, are contacted by Carolyn Perron, played by Lili Taylor, to investigate her farmhouse in Harrisville, Road Island. The farmhouse was once the scene of an accused witch named Bathsheba who hanged herself from a tree in the 1863 after having sacrificed her week old child to the devil. Her spirit possesses Perron to try and murder her children.

The first sign that something is wrong with the house comes when the clocks in the house have stopped at 3:07 am - the time the mother hanged herself. The family dog Sadie is also found dead outside the house.  Perron finds bruises on her body, and her children smell a foul odor in their rooms while being touched by something in their beds at night.

The Warrens keep items in their home that come from possessed places they have investigated. The items are blessed by a priest to keep them from becoming active again.

While doing research on the Harrisville farmhouse, the Warrens discover that the property was once over 200 acres and later subdivided and sold. A number of murders and suicides have occurred in homes built on the divided properties.

Ed Warren suggests to the Perron family that the house should have a cleansing - an exorcism. The Catholic Church has to first grant permission to Warren for an exorcism after evidence of a possession is presented. A priest and friend of the Warren’s, father Gordon, tries to push through the request to have the house exorcised.

The Perron family leaves the house to stay in a motel. Carolyn kidnaps two of her children to take them back to the house for a sacrifice. Carolyn’s transformation into a possessed witch is not nearly as effective as Linda Blair’s in The Exorcist, but it still manages to scare the viewer intensely.

Ed Warren performs an exorcism in front of Carolyn as thousands of birds hit the house – a scene straight out of Hitchcock’s The Birds. Carolyn returns to normal.

Many sequences in The Conjuring have a documentary feel to them, as if they are really happening at the moment.  The film manages to scare without any use of extreme violence and gore. The most effective scare is when Loraine sees an illusion of her daughter Judy moving in the water near where Bathsheba hung herself.

The Conjuring cost only 20 million to produce, and has gone on to gross 318 million worldwide – making it one of the highest grossing horror films of all time.  The film is based on a “true story.”

The only “true” aspect of the film may be the characters. They are all based on real life people. The end sequence shows actual photographs of the Perron family and Ed and Lorraine Warren.

For genuine scares and thrills, see The Conjuring. Happy viewing!