Movie Review: The Conjuring 2

The Conjuring goes cockney in the follow up to 2013’s surprise hit, with London calling for paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga).

It probably sounds like an insult to say a picture’s opening title card is its best part, but a giddy thrill came to this writer as the Gothic, vomit-green font reading ‘The Conjuring 2’ crawled onto the screen.

In one artful act of kerning, Aussie director James Wan (aided by composer Joseph Bishara, with his droning score) sets up the audience to expect old-fashioned jump scares, heavy Christian undertones and ‘70s haircuts.

The Conjuring 2 delivers all three; especially that last one, courtesy of Wilson, fresh from the set of Fargo, probably.

The way Wan’s films tell it, real-life ghost hunters (if you believe in that sort of thing) Ed and Lorraine have a habit of seeking out houses with too many children and an above-average number of spirits.

In the first flick, the Warrens freed a family of seven from a long-dead would-be witch who continued to lay claim to their Rhode Island farmhouse. Here, Peggy Hodgson (Frances O’Connor) and her four kids are tormented by the spirit of an old man who once lived in their modest council flat in Enfield, North London. (What is it with demons and real estate? Don’t they know squatters' rights don’t extend to the dead?)

The Hodgsons go through hell at the hands of their unwelcome guest, with youngest daughter Janet (Madison Wolfe) suffering the occasional possession and the rest of the kids tormented by their haunted playthings. True believers and sceptics alike are drawn to the house, with some, like hopeful Maurice Grosse (Simon McBurney), eager to prove life beyond the grave. Debunker Anita Gregory (Franka Potente), however, reckons Janet is faking, and has her camera ready to prove it.

The Church, not wanting to get embroiled in a scandal – pause for effect – summon the reliably even-handed Warrens to investigate the supernatural goings-on at Enfield and report if it’s a hoax or not. Trouble is, they’re still reeling from the recent Amityville case (yes, that Amityville), where Lorraine believes she might have accidentally picked up a blasphemous spirit that has since followed her home. And you thought walking dog poop onto the bedroom carpet was inconvenient.

Evoking the standard-bearing ‘haunted family’ classics - think The Exorcist, Poltergeist and The Changeling – Wan’s latest maintains a steady aura of dread, punctuated like clockwork with garish horror imagery. (Wan, beginning with Saw, through to Insidious and now this, has always known the ingredients for nightmare fuel, what with his creepy dolls, devil-faced fiends and seven-foot monster-nuns.)

You might think that Farmiga’s immense talents are not tested by The Conjuring 2, and you would mostly be right, though she still does fine work as Lorraine, struck by a crisis of faith in the wake of her new visions. (It’s fascinating to watch supernatural movies wrestle with religion, given it’s the rare genre to take place in a world where God is irrefutably real; the other major genre being ‘Coen Brothers movies’.)

Wilson and McBurney, too, are friendly, calming presences in the chaos. Wolfe, meanwhile, is valiant in her attempt to seek new shades to the kind of performance already perfected by Linda Blair in 1973.

The Conjuring 2 does, however, stretch past the point at which a viewer can reasonably be expected to remain thrilled, at a weighty 134 minutes. Where to cut? There are plenty of options, including one eyebrow-raising rendition of “Can’t Help Falling In Love” by a guitar-toting Wilson. It’s lovely, but what are Wan and his screenwriters trying to say? Fools rush in and demons overstay their welcome? So does The Conjuring 2.

3.5/5

Rated MA15+ for strong supernatural themes and violence.