Insidious: Chapter 2

Only two months after he brought us the effectively creepy haunted house thriller, The Conjuring, director James Wan is back with an effectively silly one, Insidious: Chapter 2.  I imagine that Wan and screenwriter Leigh Whannell had big, goofy smiles on their faces as they were dreaming up this sequel to their surprise 2011 hit film.  The movie does have a sense of humor about itself, though I don't know if some of it was intentional or not.  That being said, it still carries on Wan's tradition of getting some effectively creepy moments out of a minimal budget, with no distracting CG or special effects.

The sequel picks up mere moments after the first, with family man, Josh Lambert (once again played by Patrick Wilson), having returned from the spirit world (known in this movie as "The Further") to rescue his son who was trapped there in the first movie.  However, has he truly come back, or is there some dark spirit residing within him now?  That's the question his wife Renai (Rose Byrne) would like to know.  You would think the fact that Patrick happened to strangle and murder the kindly old hypnotist, Elise (Lin Shaye), as soon as he came back from the spirit world would be a clue that something is very wrong, but the seemingly-possessed Patrick somehow convinces Renai that everything's fine, and that they can be a family again.  You can call Renai a lot of things, but you certainly can't accuse her of not being an optimist.

With the police investigating their home, the family moves in with Josh's mother (Barbara Hershey), only to discover that the paranormal activity has followed them to their new house.  The menacing apparition, which takes the form of an old woman in a black wedding gown and veil, is still lurking about, and seems to be targeting Patrick and Renai's youngest child this time around.  Then there's the fact that Josh just hasn't been acting like himself ever since he came back from his adventure in the spirit world. (He doesn't recognize the song on the piano that his wife wrote for him.) It is Josh's mother who finally decides to take some initiative, and do a little bit of investigating of her own about the spirits.  She teams up with a psychic (Steve Coulter), and the two comic relief ghost hunters from the first film (Angus Sampson and screenwriter Whannell) to search through some spooky abandoned hospitals and houses in order to learn the backstory of the evil entity that is constantly threatening them.

Insidious: Chapter 2 is not a bad sequel by any stretch of the imagination, especially for a forced one that exists simply because the first movie was an unexpected box office smash.  It mainly fulfills the need to fill in the holes that the first movie left open, and at that, it does an admirable job.  We learn more about the entity itself, without completely giving away all the mystery behind it, as well as Josh's childhood connection with it.  The movie even pulls off a few successful jolts that actually made me jump from time to time.  There is also a nice subtlety to Wan's directing style.  For the most part (at least until the third act), he doesn't seem to be hitting us over the head with the terror, and even pulls off a few shots where we'll notice something ominous in the background, but the movie doesn't call our attention to it. (Was that a shadowy figure sitting in that chair in the other room?) And if anything, he's become even better at creating an effective atmosphere on a very small budget.

If there is a weakness, it is Whannell's script, which seems to be all over the place at times.  It's constantly jumping back and forth between the past and the present, and between the real world and the spirit world.  And just like the first film, the build up is better than the pay off, with the third act owing more than a little to The Shining.  And yet, I have to wonder just how seriously Whannell intended his audience to take this story.  There are some moments of humor scattered throughout, and even more moments that got laughs, but I'm not sure if they were intentional or not.  This is a very silly movie, and the filmmakers must have known this, as they go all out.  I enjoyed myself for the most part.  I got tense at the right moments, and was laughing a lot of the time.  No matter how ridiculous the plot got, the performances and Wan's direction kept me from getting lost.

According to interviews, this will be the last horror film for James Wan for a little while, as he turns to directing the next Fast and Furious movie.  The Conjuring would certainly have been a stronger note to end on (it's the better of his two haunted house movies this year), but there's still fun to be had here.  I have no doubt that this movie will win big at the box office, as the audience I saw it with last night seemed to be eating it up.  However, I don't know if there's enough material for the third installment that the ending hints at.  I guess we'll find out soon enough, as I'm sure another sequel will be greenlighted shortly.

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