INSIDIOUS CHAPTER 2 – The Review

Oh, oh. It’s Friday the thirteenth once again. So, of course there’s going to be a brand spankin’ new chiller thriller in the multiplexes starting today. And it’s a sequel. But Jason not donning that battered old hockey mask again. It’s a follow-up to the 2010 supernatural spooker from director James Wan. Yes, he’s the same director behind this past Summer’s big surprise box-office smash THE CONJURING. While that flick was set in the far distant 1970’s, the new one is nearly all modern-day (except for a couple of flashbacks and a pre-title scene in the mid 1980’s). And this too is about an average family tormented by malevolent spirits (I’m reminded of the commercial bumpers from a classic TV cartoon “Are they friendly spirits?” no Rock, they certainly are not) and the paranormal investigators trying to send the spooks back. I missed the first one, but hopefully I’ll be brought quickly up to speed in INSIDIOUS CHAPTER 2.

As mentioned above, this installment begins back in the 1980’s as a worried single mother and a researcher call in young Elise Rainier to rescue a grade school aged boy from otherworldly forces. After the opening titles we flash to, I’m assuming, the finale’ of the 2010 original. The older Elise (Lin Shaye) has died after helping the son of the now adult Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson). She sits upright in a chair, face frozen in mid-scream with several nasty gashes on her throat. The skeptical local police investigate and Josh’s wife Renai (Rose Byrne) is interrogated. While the police inquiries continue, the family moves in with Josh’s mother Lorraine (Barbara Hershey). But the weird stuff doesn’t end. Renai hears strange noises and sees an eerie woman in white who targets the children: the boys Dalton and Foster and particularly the baby Kelly. Meanwhile Elise’s research assistants Specs (Leigh Wannell) and Tucker (Angus Sampson) decide to look into her mysterious death with the help of her old assistant from 1980’s, Carl (Steve Coulter) and Lorrairne. Their journey takes them into the past, exploring deserted houses and a shuttered  hospital, in an effort to stop the spirit of a vicious killer from destroying the Lambert family.

The cast plugs along best they can saddled with a script riddled every “ghost chaser” cliché imaginable. Wilson is the “is or isn’t he the perp” until the second half until he’s doing a “Jack Torrance” Shining riff with a two-story suburban replacing the Overlook (“Here’s Joh..er..Josh!”). Byrne tries to bring something new to the doubting wife/damsel in distress with little success. Luckily Hershey is still a radiant screen presence even when burdened with the strained comedy of Wannell and Sampson (like Scooby and Shaggy without the “munchies” and with better gadgets). I had a hard time accepting that this was the same James Wan that made THE CONJURING such a fun, almost giddy popcorn ride. Perhaps that 70’s setting helped. Maybe he felt to obligated to reference the prior flick. Sure there were standard spook situations in this past Summer’s chiller, but there’s no real energy to these proceedings. The pace isn’t helped by the constant cutting between the hunters and the family. And then there’s the scenes in the netherworld lit in glowing blue while fog hovers inches above the ground. Those spirits we do see mug as if they’re on an auditorium stage. The woman in white screeches as her eyes bulge out of her head like an over-caffeinated mime while another ghost bears more than a passing resemblance to the late, great St. Louis comedienne Phyllis Diller. One particular distraction was the odd choice to overdub the actress playing young Elise with the very mature Shaye’s voice. Wan later tries to goose things up with audio explosions and crashes (has there ever been a toddler’s roller/stroller that was that loud and obnoxious?). Fans of the first chapter will enjoy the nods to it with several trips through time. For the rest of us…well, that first screen case of the Warrens should be out on DVD  fairly soon. Oh, and that pre-end credit sequence…really? What a cheap, tacky tease! Sweet dreams, Lamberts!

2 Out of 5