The Conjuring 2: The Endfield Experiment

Before we begin, a quick primer on the various single-word and definite-article horror movies that have proliferated over the last few years, in reverse order of release date:

Insidious (2010): Stars Patrick Wilson (remember that name) and Rose Byrne as the parents of a child who falls into a demonic coma that they must free him from.

Sinister (2012): Ethan Hawke plays a true-crime writer who discovers a box of scary super-8 movies that speak to the very case he's working on for his new book.

Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013): The same parents, similar goings-on, only a different house, as their first house is still being investigated.

The Conjuring (2013): The Warrens (played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga), a married pair of real life ghost-hunters and paranormal investigators employed by the Catholic Church to investigate cases to determine their validity, travel to Rhode Island to investigate the strange doings at a rural farmhouse whose family is being terrorized by satanic forces.

Annabelle (2014): An evil doll flick that has a young couple (Ward Horton and Annabelle Wallis) in terror of a group of satanic cultists, who unleash the doll's malevolence. Note that the doll comes from the private collection of the Warrens.

Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015): A prequel to the first two films, that finds the origin story of the psychic Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye), who tries to help a family in deep need of spiritual and paranormal intervention.

Sinister 2 (2015): A different family moves into a demonically possessed house, and it's up to the detective who witnessed the first film's events (played by James Ransome) to try and save them.

OK, we clear now? So this film (with the added suffixlike title of The Endfield Experiment) is the sequel to the one with the married paranormal investigators -- based again, on the Warrens, whose infamous case files have become an endless bounty of content for studios looking to make a quick horror flick. You may note that this list of films seems to follow along very similar lines: An innocent family is taken over by an evil demon spirit, and it's up to some outside force to come in and rid the area of its satanic blight.

This actual case, from 1976, centers on a single mother named Peggy Hodgson (Frances O'Connor) whose home in North London starts exhibiting signs of possession, mostly focused on her youngest daughter, 11-year-old Janet (Madison Wolfe), who is particularly tormented by a spirit who calls himself Bill Wilkins (Bob Adrian). This event coincides with Lorraine Warren (Farmiga), the renowned female psychic, becoming increasingly agitated by visitations from a particularly evil demon dressed as a nun (Bonnie Aarons), who threatens the life of Lorraine's beloved husband, Ed (Wilson). Nevertheless, they agree to help this poor family and fly to London on behalf of the church to look into the situation.

By this time, Bill Wilkins has made a habit of channeling himself through poor Janet, employing the scratchy, garbled voice that demons everywhere seem to prefer. The Warrens arrive, film crew in tow, and almost immediately experience a raft of disturbing hauntings. Still, they remain skeptical, along with a prissy psychology professor (Maria Doyle Kennedy), to the consternation of a true-believer researcher (Simon McBurny), who finds the story entirely plausible.

In the ensuing fracas, the Warrens make a startling discovery that more than suggests Janet is on the level, the demon's intentions become known, and it's up to the power of the cross -- and the church behind it -- to put an end to this family's possessed suffering.

Director James Wan, who has made more than a handful of the films cited above, has his horror style on lockdown by this point: Lots of long tracking shots with a slightly fish-eyed lens (a la Sam Raimi); very obvious placement of objects in scenes -- a ringing dog bell, a flickering Praxinoscope with an animated scary figure dancing, a tepee blanket fort, and so on -- that will go on to become significant scare props later on; levitating children with demonic smiles on their faces; ghoulish Catholic imagery including upside-down crosses and bloody-toothed nuns; you get the picture. As does everyone else. For a crowd as nervous and tittering as the one I screened the picture with, there were very few moments of sustained panic and anxiety (albeit except for the girls who sat behind me discussing the film's finer points in more or less their regular voices -- thanks for that!).

The problem with making a sequel of a horror film is it cuts against the very nature of what might have made the original terrifying. If you recognize the beats in the plot, you can pretty much anticipate every move the film tries to make, which reduces its power by about two-thirds. It doesn't help that the form of fright the demon employs is more or less that of a standard Scooby-Doo villain: Appear out of the shadows, hiss with their claws up in the air and make as if to grab the hapless victim as they clamber away in terror. Fans of this sort of thing have reason to rejoice: Reportedly, the Warrens investigated more than 10,000 such cases, or enough demon-possession content to last us through the next couple of decades.

As with the first film, Wan does at least inject genuine warmth and connection between the Warrens -- he, concerned for her psyche after enduring the evil all around her; she, so grateful to find someone to share her special powers with -- to keep them grounded, at least with each other. A scene midway through the (vastly elongated) running time has Ed picking up a guitar and playing a credible Elvis-version of "Can't Help Falling in Love" while looking at his wife directly in the eyes. An authentically middle-aged couple who show actual affection for each other? For youngsters, and those with emotional repression issues, that might be the single scariest moment in the film.

MovieStyle on 06/10/2016