Review of The Conjuring 2 (2016) by Steven L — 07 Sep 2017

Personally, I found this movie incredibly boring. Nothing truly frightening even happens and the movie takes too long to accomplish anything. The "spooky" scenes we get shown are mostly just minor inconveniences mixed with jump scares. And even with the ridiculous 2+ hour run time, many scenes that would be more frightening than a moving remote control and toy fire engine are only mentioned via pictures.

The sub plot with the American demon ghost controlling the British ghost also made no sense at all. Why control a ghost, who's been dead for over 10 years, across the ocean to haunt a girl for her body. It really seems that this girl was chosen purely for the sake of shooting the movie in England. And then after completely possessing the girl, the ghost tries to throw her on to a sharp tree. WHY! Did the ghost spend all that time in England trying to possess a girl just to kill her? What was the ghost even trying to accomplish? Spook the girl until she gets possessed and then kill her?

Nothing in this movie, however, is more pointless than the "Crooked Man". He only shows up twice in the movie with the magic of bad CGI and he does absolutely nothing. He first appears from the dog, walks towards a child, and gets revealed as the haunted girl. The second time, he pops up from the tent, climbs into the ceiling, cracks the walls, and disappears from the movie. The crooked man could've easily been cut and the plot would not have changed. It would've at least made the movie shorter.

All in all, this movie is pointless. The movie takes too long setting up the scares. The movie is generally not frightening, relying on mostly jump scares and poltergeist shenanigans. And the demon ghost, the only scary aspect of the movie, has a really stupid motivation and goal. Some of the camera work was pretty interesting though.