Like the first film, the case in The Conjuring 2 is loosely based on a real-life paranormal case from Ed and Lorraine’s “case files,” although just as the Warrens themselves have been heavily fictionalized for cinematic purposes, the case is expanded and elaborated on in ways that align it with generic expectations. The haunting the Warrens investigate is based on the infamous Enfield Poltergeist case of 1977, which is considered one of the most well-documented paranormal cases in modern history, although it has more than its share of detractors. While Wan and his screenwriters borrow plenty of details from the real-life case, which involves a months-long haunting endured by a single mother in London named Peggy Hodgson (Frances O’Connor) and her children, particularly her two daughters, 13-year-old Margaret (Lauren Esposito) and 11-year-old Janet (Madison Wolfe), they also add in quite a bit, particularly the presence of a demonic figure that looks like nothing more than late-1990s Marilyn Manson draped in a nun’s habit. The presence of a demonic force connects the horrors of The Conjuring 2 with its predecessor (which worked its way from being a haunted house movie to a possession movie), but it is also one of its weakest and least inspired elements.

This is not to say that Wan hasn’t put together a crackling horror flick; quite to the contrary, The Conjuring 2 again demonstrates that few filmmakers are better at orchestrating dread, suspense, and sudden terror. He has his timing and camera moves down to a fine art, if not a science, although he perhaps overdoes it at times, giving us a few more scary “what’s hiding in that make-shift tent at the end of the hallway?” moments than he needs. He also piles on the horrifying imagery, adding to the demonic nun both the ghost of a grizzled old man who supposedly died in the house and begins speaking through Janet and the “crooked man,” a giant incarnation of the creepy animation inside a zoetrope the kids like to play with (he comes complete with his own unsettling sing-song rhyme, which is infinitely scarier than his larger-than-life presence). When Wan sticks to the basics, The Conjuring 2 delivers the kinds of drawn-out suspense and moments of horrifying surprise that fans of the genre have come to expect (there is one particularly clever, goosey sequence involving a painting of the demon that we barely see through the dark over Lorraine’s shoulder in such a way that we’re not sure if it’s the painting, the demon itself, or some freaky combination). Beyond that, though, he continues to build on the Warrens’ relationship and experience, putting it in contrast with the horrors being visited upon the already strained Hodgson family (the fact that Peggy is a single mother struggling to make ends meet makes their spiritual torment seem all the more cruel).

Frances O’Connor, who was so good 15 years ago as the conflicted mother in Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), is excellent as Peggy, who is pushed to her limits and then some as she suffers both the anguish of her children and her own helplessness in the face of the otherworldly. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farminga are also both very good in their returning roles, as they invest the Warrens with a real sense of familial connection and spiritual depth; the sequel seems slightly less invested in their Christian faith as a means of spiritual protection, although they frequently invoke God as their source of strength and understanding for why things happen the way they do. The Conjuring 2 isn’t quite as good as the first film, but it works well enough on multiple levels that it’s hard to begrudge Wan for taking the characters on another paranormal go-round. I expect we’ll see them again in a few years.

Copyright ©2016 James Kendrick

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