The Conjuring 2 review: A louder, overlong carbon copy of the original

Miss Alone

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The Conjuring 2
Director - James Wan
Cast - Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Frances O’Connor, Simon McBurney, Madison Wolfe
Rating - 1.5/5
Fun fact: The house The Conjuring 2 opens in, 112 Ocean Avenue - one of the most iconic locations in horror movies (it’s where the Amityville killings took place), went up for sale only a couple of days before this movie premiered. Sadly, this little tidbit, and the opening few minutes that reminded me of it, is the only part of this film that can realistically be described as ‘fun.’ The rest of it is a lazy, clichéd, soulless, inferior, unnecessary, indifferent, muddled, plodding, overlong carbon copy of the original.
You’d be surprised, but the first movie that came to mind while watching this was The Hangover Part II, followed almost immediately by Home Alone 2. Both were shoddier, near-identical sequels to their originals. And such are the similarities between The Conjuring 2 and its predecessor; it basically qualifies as a rainier, mistier and more thinly written remake. Only this time, the accents are British.

Just like the original, this movie too stubbornly continues to insist that it is based on truth. Ed and Lorraine Warren, the intrepid paranormal investigators from the first film return, haunted by their own demons this time, as they hop, skip and jump across the pond straight into a kitchen sink drama. There’s another house, another family plagued by a haunting, and another mother whose horrible parenting skills deserve their own place in a textbook or something.

What baffles me the most about this movie is that it doesn’t even take the easy way out and dish out jump scares as an excuse for its lack of script. James Wan is an immensely talented horror filmmaker, and there’s no way he didn’t know that this movie’s screenplay was in a terrible state. None of his trademark flashy camerawork can distract from some of the most clichéd dialogue you’ll ever hear in a mainstream horror movie, and honestly, a lot of it is of the calibre of a cheap, straight-to-DVD skin flick. It doesn’t look like his heart was in it this time.


What baffles me the most about this movie is that it doesn’t even take the easy way out and dish out jump scares as an excuse for its lack of script. James Wan is an immensely talented horror filmmaker, and there’s no way he didn’t know that this movie’s screenplay was in a terrible state. None of his trademark flashy camerawork can distract from some of the most clichéd dialogue you’ll ever hear in a mainstream horror movie, and honestly, a lot of it is of the calibre of a cheap, straight-to-DVD skin flick. It doesn’t look like his heart was in it this time.
 
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