Laughed a crooked laugh......

Rating: 7/10 (26 June 2016)

Since the advent of the first Paranormal Activity film, Hollywood, and in particular James Wan, have had an obsession with the Quiet.........Quiet...........Quiet.............Bang!!! Element of horror cinema.
And the cinemas have been infected with these films since 2009. The are seldom rarely scary, but they do have that irritating knack of making you jump, just because they turn up the scare shriek volume up to eleven and let the dark corners of rooms do the work.
Now, whilst The Conjuring 2 pretty much follows the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' laws of horror, it really reigns in the loud noises to make you jump, hence making it one of the more interesting horror movies to be released in cinemas for a very long time.
But there is still a lot of work to do, especially when you consider the Mini-Series 'The Enfield Haunting', which starred Timothy Spall.
In 1977, paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren travel to London, England, where single mother Peggy Hodgson believes that something evil is in her home.
When Peggy's youngest daughter starts showing signs of demonic possession, Ed and Lorraine attempt to help the besieged girl, and her family.
But they only vex the demon, and find themselves targeted by the malicious spirits.....
It's a pretty audacious move by the makers to have the opening ten minutes set in one of the most famous horror houses of all, Amityville, because they are potentially setting themselves up to fail, or setting themselves up for a third movie, to give us a taste of things to come, ala Insidious.
But once we are re-directed to London (which is pointed out to us by having The Clash's London Calling playing over the scene), the film becomes more intense, thanks to the performances of the children, particularly Janet.
The film has all your regular clichés which are found in these films, silly long corridors with a tent at one end, faces in mirrors, and best of all, a painting of a nun, that is so genuinely terrifying, it's garnered its own spin-off (again).
If you can get over the ri-Dick Van Dyke-ulous accents, and the fact that if you listen to the Radio 5 Film Programme, the demon sounds like Simon Mayos real voice, this is a pretty decent, if slightly overlong horror.
But pleas check out The Enfield Haunting too.