Review of The Conjuring 2 (2016) by Earl C — 16 Jul 2016

The Conjuring 2 picks off with the original Haunting and Occult investigators characters and married couple Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) and Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson) who are asked to travel to north London to help a single mother (Madison Wolfe) Peggy raising four children alone Janet, (Madison Wolfe) ...Margaret (Lauren Esposito) ...Billy (Benjamin Haigh) and johnny (Patrick McAuley) in a house that is haunted, and tormented by dark spirits of the underworld .

Much with the first Conjuring, we see very much the same script with the 2nd one, a family being terrorized by dark forces and paranormal investigators being asked to come to the rescue. What gives this Conjuring version a different twist was the precognition vision that Lorraine was receiving that involved the shocking death of her beloved husband and Han was giving every indication and build up that this death was indeed going to play out - and fans of the film adoring Ed Warren, didn't want to see this play out. To be continued.

What I continue to like about this creepy feature series, is that it always tries to get your viewing eyes into having to bear a very tippy-toe, slow- crawling moments and tension with its pace whi;e delivery the very dark, gloomy, sinister areas of rooms, hallways and corners, and flat out has the knack for keeping the ansy audiences tensed and on the edge of their toes with a number of build up false alarms and " jump- scenes".

I thought given that there were a large amount of child acting in the entire film, Madison Wolfe's (Janet) acting performance was excellent, of course not near on the level as Linda Blair's Regan character or performance from the Exorcist, but it was admirable to go from sweet and innocent to a wicked, dangerous wild fiend.

Though it may not fit the taste of some, I thought there was some bonding moments with the Elvis -sing a -longs and a romantic dance between the Warrens couple.

Speaking of the Warrens I liked that both Lorraine and Ed had their moments in aiding and engineering ritual sayones in one form of a way or another ....

There's some very good camera work between close ups and lighting and darkening as well as audio work between quiet silence and music score.

Ii thought there was a good twist in the plot cut between what was being developed as a ghost story with a past deceased that detoured into a demon story.

While we have the best part of the movie with the very eery demon-nun scene, I did have my peeves with the "Crooked Man" scenes, which I thought flat out brought a flat, horrific corny and unnecessary 'cartoonish' moment that took away the seriousness and creepiness of the movie. It made the movie turned to cheesiness that resembled a moment out of Sam Raimi's " Army of Darkness " or Krampus rather than the Exorcist. I wished James Han could have had that ball back to re-do that again.

Also I while I admit that I got into the demon-nun earlier in the film when the film's best moments creeping behind shadows,.. behind walls and dark, shady corners while with the eery silence and big jump- scare moments, I also admit that I didn't very much of care for it's looks and appearance in the final moments of the film, whereas CGI effects of it made it looked like very cheap, very ordinary.

There was the heightened moment where you wondered if Lorraine's vision was going to come to past, that made it suspenseful along with the mishaps that Ed was suffering as he made his rescue attempts.

I can't say Conjuring 2 is quite on the level of the original film, there are some things that were flawed ( see Crooked man) and it's cinematography, art direction and story line is a notched down from the first film. But when it comes to a sequel that still successfully puts you on the edge and give you the chills in the film that gives you a very entertaining thrill after the film, you have to consider that a success.

Just like the first Conjuring, I was determined to see this along side an anxious theater packed audience that was jeering, screaming and,chilling with every tensing moment . There won't be another haunting, scary movie to come around like this ... until Conjuring 3 eventually comes out in theaters. I can't wait..!!

On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd be giving Conjuring 2 an 8.0.