THE CONJURING 2; A Professional Scotsman Review #10

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“They’re here."

I haven’t seen the first Conjuring. Did that matter? No, it did not. While The Conjuring 2 - The Enfield Poltergeist has one foot in the classier side of horror movies, it knows that many people coming to see it won’t have a clue what transpired before and wisely doesn’t try to tie much into the last film. And if you’re a lazy... uh, I mean busy reviewer like myself and don’t want to watch the first one (I’ve seen half of it actually but as a purist I won’t give it a review unless I watched it all… thought the fact I only watched half of it should tell you something) I was very pleased about this.

"Tell her to go to the light!"

So, it’s the late 70s and we’re in Enfield, North London. And Man O Man you should have bought property then because by the looks of things we’re in Dickensian Britain and you could have picked up a two bedroom semi-attached with a nice garden front and back for peanuts. Accents too seem to be from 100 years ago - we're talking the “Gaw blimey Guv’nr!” school of dialect but I’m not gonna rag on this aspect too much as it didn’t bother me - mostly because the acting overall is decent. Couple of shaky moments from the kids (every kid in every film ever is terrible except for that kid in The Shining, that wee lassie in The Poltergeist trilogy and obviously Chunk from The Goonies) and it’s clear that the main girl is posh yet playing a little rough. But what they hey - it’s fine and good enough to slightly elevate the material. So, first things first… the litmus test - is it scary?

"You moved the cemetery, but you left the bodies, didn't you? You son of a bitch, you left the bodies and you only moved the headstones! You only moved the headstones! Why! Why!"

Yes, I’d say so. I certainly jumped a few times (the person who I was with who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent was absolutely petrified) so I think it does what it says on the tin. Other horror films clearly referenced are Tobe Hooper/Spielberg's Poltergeist and The Exorcist along with the director James Wan's own Insidious trilogy and his lesser known but effective film; Dead Silence. It sets out to be a relatively straight forward scary horror movie - more interested in frights than gore - which is still refreshing post Saw - ironically James Wan created the torture porn genre and has fought ever since to dismantle it. My own personal issue, as with all films of this ilk is the it-is-real, is-it-a-hoax? aspect. And in this regard the film does a terrible job. Even a brief glance at the real-life characters the film is based on - Elaine and Ed Warren’s demonologist careers - shows their story to be laden with controversy. Effectively there is absolutely no proof whatsoever that suggests they ever dealt with a genuine spook or spectre. And almost all the cases they were involved in (The Amityville Horror, The Enfield Poltergeist et al) are almost certainly hoaxes - and have been confirmed by the perpetrators to have at least been hoaxed in part. So, my main bug bear is that you have a glorious chance to play on this aspect in a serious way, to create something that would leave audience members debating what really happened long after the film had ended. Instead the film doesn’t do this at all - it’s quite explicit in showing us incredible things that are clearly from another plane of dimension. It's actually a monster movie deep down. The real question is - does this make a good movie?

"This house has many hearts."

Yup. It actually does. Screw it - I went with it. There are a couple of wonderful inventive and well executed visual shots. Particularly one involving a dog which is obviously a blatant homage to John Carpenter’s The Thing (listen for the sound effects used here - it’s a clear reference) which are, in the cold light of day ridiculous things to see in a supposed “true story”, but in the movie context are fairly effective. There’s a scary Nun - which sounds ridiculous - she has no back story at all (but that’s actually how I like my monsters - did Jaws have a backstory? No, he didn’t) but she did enough to now warrant her own spin-off movie. In this regard the film struggles to mesh its two central stories together - that of the Warren’s in America and that of the London based poltergeist material. And it never really succeeds - but it doesn’t matter - the film is a relentless, bludgeoning carnival ride of scare after scare and if you go with it it’s actually quite enjoyable even if, like me, you find it all pretty darned silly.

"It LIES to her, it tells her things only a child could understand. It has been using her to restrain the others. To her, it simply IS another child. To us, it is the BEAST. Now, let's go get your daughter.”

FINAL ANALYSIS: I am not a religious man - I'm sure I will be when I finally end up in that fox hole - and technically this film requires a leap of faith to go with it - in fact it explicitly says this several times. Yet it won me over - just - though I'd have loved to have seen a little more restraint and lots more reality. I think if you hated the (imo) superior Babadook but want to be frightened by something more visceral then you'll love this.

“This house is clean.”

SCORE: I'm giving it a solid 7. Highly effective in it's limited scope.

ALTERNATE TITLE: Bad Grandpa