In
2004, Director James Wan released Saw,
a film that used elements of the 1980s slasher craze in a unique way
and changed the entire direction of horror for years to come. Seven
years later, He released Insidious,
a haunting film similar to Poltergeist.
Insidious was a
visually muted film with a high creep factor and very positive
reaction from horror fans and critics. This led to a similar change
in thoughts about horror, inspiring such films as 2012's The
Woman in Black and 2013's The
Conjuring, also directed by
James Wan. The Conjuring
had a very similar style to Insidious
despite having a different writer and production studio, and many
viewers saw it as a spiritual successor to Insidious.
Fans looked forward to seeing Insidious Chapter 2
several months later, their expectations ramped up by the success of
the first film and The Conjuring.
Perhaps
it would have been better if The Conjuring
had held off – not for its own sake, but for the sake of Chapter
2. In fact, it would probably
be better if the audience had not seen the original. Insidious
Chapter 2 is not a terrible
movie, not by any means, but as a follow-up to Insidious
it falls terribly flat. Then again, anybody who watches Insidious
Chapter 2 without watching
Insidious is likely to
have little clue who any of the characters are, or why Josh doesn't
remember his past. So let's take a look: is Insidious
Chapter 2 better without any
knowledge of the original?
Let's
start with the visual style. To an even greater extent than The
Conjuring, Insidious
had a very muted color scheme. In fact, there were two distinct
colors that were not desaturated: blue, which represented Josh's son
Dalton, and red, which represented the evil spirits that were
haunting him. Here, the entire film is in full color with full
saturation. On top of this, red is in virtually every scene.
Knowing Insidious, I
found this incredibly distracting. This might be because there are a
pair of spirits that are essentially haunting every scene, but still,
there is such a thing as too much of an iconic color. We get it,
Bruce Willis is a ghost; we saw that at the end of the first film and
new viewers saw it at the beginning of this one. At times, there is
so much red lighting that I half expected Freddy Krueger to pop out
from around the corner with a one-liner.
Which
brings us to the script itself. The Bride in Black (which appeared
in the original film but was apparently not
the Darth Maul spirit) was actually this film's version of Angela
from Sleepaway Camp, who eventually reaches the point where he is
rampaging through the house with a bat and the audience expects him
to break through a door and yell “here's Johnny!” In other words,
the story is entirely unnecessary and reinforces that in every way.
There is not enough substance here to fill a film, and it feels as
though Leigh Whannell was desperate to have enough material to fill
the film, which led to several scenes that made absolutely no sense
and had absolutely no payoff. Would this film have been hurt in any
way if Josh hadn't spontaneously developed Donnie Darko-like time
travel capabilities? The characters are paler versions of their
original selves, with little actual character – even the spirit
that possesses Josh's body seems rather lost at times. Ultimately,
the connections between this film and the previous are rather
unnecessary. I mentioned earlier that the original film explains why
Josh has no memory of his past, but even knowing that the memories
were hypnotized out of him does not explain why they had to time
travel in order to access those memories. Wouldn't another session
of hypnosis been equally effective, and made a lot more sense?
How
about the scares? There are definitely some scares in the film,
which is the main reason why I think this might be a good film if it
could get some distance from the rest of James Wan's films. The
first appearance of Mother Mortis – or rather, the first group of
scenes leading up to her actual appearance – carry some genuine
suspense and fright. Several of the other scenes featuring her
without her son are effective as well. Unfortunately, these scenes
aren't enough to hold a candle to what we saw in the first film, and
there is just not enough of it amidst some of the confused writing in
which the script stumbles about, uncertain of whether or not the
audience is fully aware that there is an enemy in their midst.
Somehow, all of the tension and possibility for scares was cut out of
the possession plotline, which is extremely unfortunate when you
consider that plot is entirely the reason why this film got made.
In
the end, there are things to recommend Insidious Chapter 2
for, but it's hard to find an audience to recommend them to. I
wouldn't watch this after the first, nor would I watch the first
after this, but if for some reason you never plan to watch the first,
you might enjoy this as its own movie. Still, it's very hard to
recommend this with it standing next to The Conjuring
in theatres and with Insidious
so fresh in the public's memory. If anything, Chapter 2
feels like a sequel produced in the late '90s for a film from the
'70s, which is disappointing when you consider that the writer,
director and stars returned (even if Ty Simpkins barely appeared due
to aging two years). The bottom line is watch this film when it
comes out on Netflix, and buy a ticket to The Conjuring.
P.S. Check the epilogue for
more of Jimmy's dolls.
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