The 156th review!
I'm glad it's October; cooler weather, hoodies, Halloween, and of course horror movies. Today was a good day, picked out six movies from Family Video (yes, that's still a thing), went to Detroit for THE Anderson's annual surprise party, then I came home and watched...
The Conjuring 2 (2016).
I don't understand how James Wan can make such good horror movies The Conjuring, the first Saw and Dead Silence, but then make Insidious. But I digress, the movie follows around the Warrens again after dropping us into their investigation of the Amityville murders. While she's astroprojecting Lorraine sees a demonic nun and a premonition of her husband's murder. Needless to say it freaks her out and her and the husband agree to take a break from investigating.
Later that day they hear about a haunting going on in London and they head across the pond to do some investigating. If I sound like I'm being critical, let me get some things out of the way early. For awhile, everyone is too brave for a long time. It's one of those movies for like the first hour, you're practically begging the people to stop investigating the creepy noises, but once shit really hits the fan, everyone is a lot more realistic. Plus for awhile I didn't like the haunter.
Those are my only complaints. I loved the first Conjuring, it scared the crap out of me at times. This one, not quite as scary, but damn is it effective. James Wan is a master of building up moments where the tension is so thick, the slightest thing will make you jump out of your chair. There's nothing like the clapping scene from the first one, but damn there are some terrifying moments. They have a monster called "The Crooked Man" who is from the child's zoetrope, he looks fake as shit, but it's actually a real actor and played by the same dude who played Mama in Mama. And while he's only there for about 3 minutes of screen time, he's probably the scariest creature the movie throws at you, even scarier than the demon nun.
The story is your typical demon story/haunting story, but it does something slightly different. It throws a bit of a curve ball at you, when you finally realize what's haunting the family and I think the movie benefits greatly because of it. I didn't particularly care for Annabelle, although it's a Wan movie. I think the one thing that movie was missing were the Warrens played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga. There's a warmth and heart to the Conjuring movies (I don't care what you say, I stand by that statement) that's not there in the spin offs. In the others you're just waiting for the monster to start monstering, but Wilson and Farmiga are good characters, and you actually care about happens to them.
Starting off October with a bang...
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