Katy Brown
Staff Writer
Being a horror movie fanatic, it was an understatement to say I was excited for the release of “Insidious: Chapter 2.”
Film producer James Wan, had a lot of proving to do with this film to live up to the fame his movie “The Conjuring” received.
Its Sept. 13 premiere date, playing into the infamous superstition of ‘Friday the 13th,’ actually brought in an impressive amount of $20.1 million according to Dateline Hollywood writer Nikki Finke.
The movie started off exactly where “Insidious” left off. The Lambert family is still haunted.
Josh Lambert’s body is now possessed by the spirit of a mysterious ‘bride-in-black’ woman.
His wife, Renai, doesn’t know this. She should know this, after previously seeing a photo revealing this entity, but I believe Wan incorporated Renai’s oblivion just to keep the plot going.
Renai and ‘possessed-Josh’ continue on to move into Josh’s childhood home.
Again, Renai’s oblivion strikes – she was told in both films that Josh was haunted as a child, but she moves to the site of a previous haunting to get rid of a present haunting.
Household items begin moving on their own, leading Renai to gather with a group of ghost busters, Spec and Tucker, and contact a medium, Carl, to help figure out what is going on.
The unexplained movement of household items to indicate a ghostly presence has been seen one too many times in horror movies.
I believe Wan could have incorporated something a bit spookier into the plot. Carl helps the team contact Elise, their former mentor, to get answers about her murder.
While doing so, they uncover the truth about Josh and the entities that are haunting him.
In the movie, Josh complains about having trouble reconnecting from the spirit world to his own body.
In “Insidious,” it’s evident that Josh is easily able to travel from realm to realm, he did so to save his son, so why is he now having trouble doing so?
The movie didn’t leave me sitting on the edge of my seat in anticipation. It felt more like I was simply just following the cast through a haunted house.
Many scenes had a fake sense of urgency which made the cast show fake emotion. Nobody wants to watch a movie where you can tell the actors are acting, especially a horror movie.
Details like this make me feel like there wasn’t enough careful analyzing that went into the production of this movie.
Overall, I thought the movie was decent. It definitely didn’t live up to “The Conjuring,” though.
Sequels, especially in the horror genre, stir up so much hype and enthusiasm – “Insidious: Chapter 2” was no exception.
I believe the hit at the box office wasn’t necessarily because the movie was good.
People went to see it just because it was the sequel of “Insidious” and would make a great tweet or Facebook post.
It’s not worth the $10 ticket price unless it’s a rainy day and you’re left with nothing else to do.
“Insidious: Chapter 2” will be Wan’s last horror flick for now. His focus will be shifting to the action genre as he directs “Fast & Furious 7.” Hopefully this movie will include just as many twists and turns as “The Conjuring,” but will be better planned out than “Insidious: Chapter 2.”
