disappointing

Rating: 5/10 (12 September 2013)

James Wan is hot right now. After establishing himself in The Saw Series and than bludgeoning that franchise into the ground he made a huge return with Insidious establishing that he was great at setting a suspenseful mood enhanced with nightmarish imagery. He solidified those talents with this year's genre masterpiece The Conjuring, the scariest movie I've ever seen and an absolute instant classic. With hopes raised so high it's hard for Insidious Chapter 2 to not be a disappointment. I just never thought it would be this big of a disappointment. Following the events of the original movie we once again find ourselves with the Lambert clan as the mystery is enhanced and unraveled concerning the demonic presence that wanted to get into Josh's body. I really loved the first film. The first half is absolutely terrifying in an expected sort of way but when the plot veers into astral projection it lost a lot of people but not me it was so bizarre and twisted I found myself even more freaked out. People who had a huge problem with the film's second half will have an even harder time with this film because it mostly takes place in that bizarre universe. There are some clever goods here not to spoil anything for those intent on suffering through it. But despite the cleverness it's feels overly gimmicky, a lot of it just doesn't make any sense and the attempts at juvenile humor are only partially funny because of their forced absurdity and not that they are breaking any of the film's tension like in the first film. As for that heavy dread induced atmosphere he has become such a master at. it's not existent here we are instead punished with bouts of forced melodrama, insane campiness and one cheap scare after the next (I mean really this baby walker needs to go). Sadly there are some good ideas here. The only summation I could come up with especially with the vastly superior Conjuring and this film coming out so close together is that he spent all of his time executing that first movie and when approached about a sequel to Insidious he said awesome I have a great idea for that flick and than just kinda lost interest. Too sad because what could have been a unique spin on the haunted movie sub genre has instead become a by the numbers unintentional laugh fest. Not to say it's the worst film I've seen this year or the worst horror sequel (the grudge 2) but it's definitely a franchise killer. **.5/5