The Conjuring 2

Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson are back as Lorraine and Ed Warren - the renowned demon fighters about to face their biggest challenge ever!

It’s 1977, and, as they have become more famous after the Amityville Horror stories, the church has asked the couple to investigate a possible haunting and demonic possession in Enfield, England.

An 11-year old girl, Janet (Madison Wolfe), and her family are being terrorized by some sort of ghost or demonic presence. While several people have witnessed unexplainable activity within the house, the greater public is not so sure if the family is telling the truth, or trying to cash in on a sensational story.

Of course, we know it’s real, and The Warrens are about to go toe-to-toe with evil.

I won’t go so far as to say The Conjuring 2 is as good as The Conjuring (which is one of the best horror movies of the century), but it is extremely frightening, entertaining and worthy of being a sequel.

Director James Wan is a master at the slow burning eeriness, random noises, the use of the dark to manipulate your emotions and anticipation to always keep you on the edge of your seat (or covering your eyes) waiting for the big revelation.

He doesn’t fill the movie with all sorts of cheap shocks (even though he knows just when to drop in the right ones). Wan is making the audience dance around like his own personal puppet as your emotions and fear ebb and flow with each tease, each slight resolve, and each moment building on top of each other one-by-one to a crescendo of release.

Wan only faces a challenge as he tries to balance two stories within one movie.

On the one hand, this is a traditional horror movie as we follow the family’s plight.

On the other hand, Wan also is trying to tell a story about the love between Lorraine and Ed, along with the challenges they face as demonologists.

Farmiga and Wilson obviously are glad to expand on those characters and attempt to make them the central players in this drama. However, you might find yourself longing for more information about the case and less about these two.

That’s because Wolfe is the standout actor in The Conjuring 2. She gives such an amazing, soulful portrayal of this 11-year old facing scary forces beyond anything she could have ever imagined and we feel her pain as her family is ripped apart and put in harm’s way.

In the end, you see The Conjuring 2 because it will scare you out of your underpants.

The Conjuring 2 is rated R for terror and horror violence.

133 Minutes