Disappointing sequel

Rating: 4/10 (29 November 2017)

The 105-minute "Insidious: Chapter 2" is an American horror film from 2013, so this one will have its 5th anniversary next year. The title already gives away that this is a sequel and also what it follows up to. They got basically back all the key players from the first film in terms of cast, but also writer and director James Wan came back, which is no surprise as the first was really a big success and it was also a pretty good movie in my opinion. By the way, the gap between films 1 and 2 was 3 years and 2 years later, the third film followed. A 4th film seems in the making now, so the franchise is still going strong. Or somewhat strong I guess. But now back to this original sequel: I personally liked the first and I was pretty disappointed by how forgettable this one turned out. The atmospheric take was fairly shoddy, the actors are not given any material to shine either. Overall, the story-telling is extremely mediocre. There is not one point where this film is really on failure level, but it's also never above-average and the first was throughout its entirety. A horror films always defines itself through the scare factor and this one is packed with jump scares that honestly are more on the side of waking the audience up again than entertaining or frightening it, even if admittedly some of the creatures used during these jump scare moments didn't look too bad. Byrne's (still) amazing looks cannot make up for the films gigantic weaknesses in so many other areas of production. The series should have ended after this sequel, or even better before it as I am not too hopeful about the next movies being any better as the main cast seems gone. Anyway, what else can you say here. It's probably not an overrated film at all as the reception wasn't on a good level by any definition, but the curiosity about what happens next may turn this into the epitome of an overseen movie (don't mix this up with "overlooked") as in the sense of the opposite of underseen if I see how many rated this one here on IMDb, even got above the magical 100k ratings mark. Liking the first is not reason enough to watch this one. Loving maybe. Or just a huge interest in horror films in particular. But the different worlds/spheres scenes at the core of the film's plot are just so difficult to like and appreciate for me. I give this one a thumbs-down. A clear decline in quality is undeniable and you may wanna skip it.