Who you gonna call?

Rating: 6/10 (6 August 2018)

Supernatural sequel The Conjuring 2 is a fictionalised account of the Enfield Poltergeist, which allegedly terrorised the occupants of a council house in Enfield, England in 1977. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga reprise their roles of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga), who, having decided to take a break from investigating ghosts and demons after the trauma of Amityville, agree to travel to England in a purely observational capacity. Of course, they become far more involved than they originally intended once they see the plight of the family involved, single mother Peggy Hodgson (Frances O'Connor), and her four children, Janet (Madison Wolfe), Margaret (Lauren Esposito), Billy (Benjamin Haigh) and Johnny (Patrick McAuley), all of whom have had enough of their unwanted ghostly house-guest.
At 134 minutes, The Conjuring 2 is about half an hour too long, and often feels like it is dragging its heels: there's only so many times that we need to see furniture being tossed around or the kids waking up to experience supernatural shenanigans. That said, the film is a serviceable sequel that should please fans of the original and those interested in the paranormal, partly because it is loosely based on fact (with the emphasis on 'loosely'), and partly because James Wan has had loads of practise when it comes to creepiness, the director conjuring up (pun intended) plenty of atmosphere and some well crafted scares. A solid cast also contribute to the film's effectiveness, with youngsters Wolfe and Esposito faring particularly well as the Hodgson sisters, who suffer the most from the haunted happenings.
At the end of the day, the film doesn't do anything to rewrite the rules of the genre, but it's a slight improvement over the original. I was entertained enough to want to see what further sequels and spin-offs might hold (the latest being the forthcoming The Nun, which is based on the demon that is causing all the trouble in this film).