Still creepy and scary, and remarkably, a decent follow-up to the first one

Rating: 7/10 (12 June 2016)

Watching the first "Conjuring" movie on DVD was driven by the motivation to scare a friend, who is known to be entertainingly frightened. I am not a fun of horror movies because of their usual shallow story-lines and cheap tricks. Plus, the hype that surrounds them annoys me since a lot of them are just plain cash-making machines, e.g. "The Blair Witch Project". So I was surprised that "The Conjuring" movie has this interesting story-line and lingering creepiness, which was achieved without relying much on visual effects. Indeed, "old-school" darkness and shadows are scarier than trying-hard CGI monsters. And after the movie, we ended up scaring each other with that brilliant "clap scene". So I think this time, it's not bad after all to watch the sequel, "The Conjuring 2", in a movie theater (given that we have the same director, and of course, the same people who portrayed the Warrens).
The second movie started with the controversial Amityville Horror case, in which the Warrens were also involved (their most widely known case). In these kind of supernatural cases, people are divided between those who considered the case a hoax and those who believed it to be true, aside from being don't care or neutral. In this case, the film takes the side of the Warrens who considered that something demonic was behind the killings. In our case, as an audience, we are more on the neutral side, just plain listeners to one side of the investigation while seeking entertainment value; somewhat akin to watching a cultural film and being immersed with the cultural point of view in question.
For the Warrens, it seems that the Amityville Horror case has greatly affected them, especially Lorraine, who saw premonitions of her husband's death. Then, after that, the film moved to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, where something paranormal is happening in a public housing unit in London. This is where the film developed the Hodgson family (and it did well enough to make us care about their struggles). This is set in the late 1970's, and remarkably the production values are high because the setting really looked like we are really in the 1970's (and they showed photographs when the end credits rolled) and the camera work is successful most of the time to create tension and suspense. However, what's missing in this film when compared to the first one is an iconic scare scene, e.g. the "clap scene". We practically saw nothing new except a more stylish camera work, more masterful suspense, and a different story-line. The good thing was that most of the scares are effective enough to elicit reaction from the audience (in many occasions, I laughed at the reaction in many false alarms and unexpected scare moments, and that was fun), and the high point of the film was particularly intense (but quite short for our taste). Moreover, we get to see a good attempt at combining horror and comedy, e.g. when the Hodgsons ran away from their house after a disturbing poltergeist activity. James Wan, indeed, improved in his skills as a director, although not much in mixing sentimentality (but I think that Elvis Presley tribute as a way of cheering up the Hodgsons is OK).
Another good stuff is the performance of the whole cast, with the special mention of Madison Wolfe, as Janet - the main target of the poltergeist(s) for possession - and Frances O'Connor, as Peggy Hodgson - the struggling mother of four, who was at her wits end to provide for her children. Then, as usual, we got good performances from Vera Farmiga, as Lorraine Warren, and Patrick Wilson, as Ed Warren. Even though we more or less saw related scare scenes before from other movies, e.g. The Exorcist, many of the scares are still effective. However, it is during the time when it attempts to use more CGI that the film loses its effectivity, e.g. the Crooked Man scene. In contrast, we experienced more chills when a shadow was employed, e.g. the nun scene where the demonic, in a form of a nun's shadow, slowly reaches for an eerie nun portrait, and places itself behind it. It is in the "old-school" style where Wan's technique is most effective, and in this manner, I find the first "Conjuring" film to be more creepy than this one. And also, the big difference is that in the first one we don't have much idea about the villain until the climax, but in this one, we more or less have a good idea about the villain's identity and how it looked like given Lorraine's premonitions and an image from one of Ed's dreams. And finally, we find a haunted farmhouse, with centuries-old tale and more ominous villain, to be more creepy than a suburban tale with a less compelling villain background story. However, given the suburban setting, the feat is remarkable, and we had fun watching it.