THE CONJURING 2: A Troubling, Troubled Paranormal Epic

After a brief hiatus with Fast and Furious 7, mainstream horror’s prodigal son James Wan has returned to the Devil’s Church of Jump Scares with a sequel to his paranormal blockbuster, The Conjuring. The main lesson he seems to have learned on his franchise-hopping action excursion is how to make things feel absolutely massive, and in following the golden rule of sequels, he’s applied that bigger-is-better ethos to The Conjuring 2.

The ghostbusting duo of the first film – Ed and Lorraine Warren – are called to London to flush out some more housebound demons, but in an effort to raise the stakes over the first film, Lorraine is also faced with her own adversaries: a menacing hangover from the Amityville case.

That it all clocks in at 134 minutes, however, sends up warning signals. Horror films rarely exceed two hours in length, and when they do, the result is something like the director’s cut of Dawn of the Dead: an epic-length zombie flick with a very good 90-minute film buried somewhere in the middle of it. Tone is hard enough to balance as it is, and as an audience member, it can be excruciating to be faced with such desperate misery for longer than the material demands. Is Wan up for the challenge?

Yes

He is, and he largely matches the lofty ambitions he sets for himself. Flaws persist, however, and it’s worth addressing those first. After a cold open details part of the Amityville case, the story jumps straight to London. We know it’s London because there’s a Trainspotting-esque montage of such quintessentially British things as Big Ben, Queen Elizabeth, the Winter of Discontent, and, just in case you were still unsure, the Union Jack. It’s also soundtracked by The Clash’s “London Calling”, even though that song wouldn’t be released until a couple of years after the film’s 1977 setting.

We don’t particularly need any of that, especially because Wan’s version of 1970’s Britain is a place where the only things on television are the Queen and Margaret Thatcher (who, again, was years away from being in power). There’s an entire scene dedicated to children using such choice words as “wanker” and “lesbo”, and there’s even a character that is pathologically obsessed with McVities digestives. All it’s missing is Kenneth Wolstenholme dressed up as a Yorkshire pudding, drinking a pint of bitter in a working men’s club.

On paper, those are genuinely funny images, but Wan misses a trick by draping these scenes in the same morbid, humourless tone as the rest of the film. As much as he talks about comedy in interviews, there’s barely any to be found in his cinema whatsoever. Such an oppressively deathlike atmosphere means that The Conjuring 2 drags more than it should; it’s far too easy to lose interest around the mid-point of the film, especially as it begins to weave together its two main, ostensibly unrelated plotlines.

A Freewheeling, Financial Fear-Fest

But in the moments in which everything clicks – and there are plenty – The Conjuring 2 becomes one of the most viscerally terrifying films in recent years. Don Burgess’s exacting cinematography trains the viewer to be afraid of every cut and camera movement; it always feels as though he and Wan are holding something terrible just slightly outside of the frame. Even then, the scares have a horrible propensity for lunging out in jolting disregard of the careful rhythm editor Kirk M. Morri establishes.

The film also adds to the growing cycle of recession-inspired horror more effectively than the first Conjuring film, as it’s set in the years leading up to the Winter of Discontent of 1978-79, a time where the Labour government were capping pay rises in an attempt to control burgeoning inflation rates, leading to mass protests and widespread strikes.

The Hodgson residence, which makes the main location of the film, is filthy, savaged by damp, and filled with grotty, second-hand furniture that, like the family’s financial situation, has seen much better days. Worse still, one of the first things that matriarch Peggy does is forgo cigarettes so she can afford to buy her son his beloved McVities biscuits.

The Conjuring 2 would be scary regardless of its setting, but the theme of financial claustrophobia strongly supplements the film’s fear factor: when the demon’s attack is at its most distressing, the best the Hodgsons can do is seek refuge for a couple of nights in a neighbour’s house. Outstaying their welcome, they’re forced to move back into the danger zone (Kenny Loggins would not be happy), and, with no other option available to them, they’re forced to stay there. There are few things more dread inducing than a lack of an exit strategy.

Conclusion

As intermittently brilliant as The Conjuring 2 may be, however, it’s difficult to imagine James Wan doing something even this effective again, especially not within the confines of paranormal horror. After the relative failure of Dead Silence – his first attempt at jump-scare-o-rama – the haunted house flicks he’s been churning out since Insidious showcased a more mature director, one with the finesse to balance horrific quietness with the explosive brashness of his name-maker, Saw. But after Fast and Furious 7, he seems to have rediscovered his latent impulse to make everything very, very loud, and to have it all happen right this very second.

Experiencing a newfound drive for scope, too, means that The Conjuring 2 has extra building blocks where it doesn’t particularly need them, and as a whole, it becomes bogged down by the sheer ambition on hand. After six years in the haunted house subgenre – and with four films to show for it – it’d be nice to see Wan try something else for a change. He evidently has range beyond these types of films, so hopefully, The Conjuring 2 will prove to be a fitting conclusion to that era of his cinematic output, a return from action for one last stab at the genre that has earned him his fortune over the past few years.

The Conjuring 2 is a highly rewarding film in places, and it’s surprisingly epic for the subgenre it’s in, but the tiredness is beginning to show; as with the time and place in which it’s set, Wan‘s resources are running thin.

Can a horror flick ever really survive a two-hour-plus running time? Drop your thoughts in the comments!

The Conjuring 2 was released in the US on June 10; it landed in the UK on June 17. Find international release dates here.