Day 3 - The Conjuring 2 - October Horror Movie Challenge

The Conjuring 2 (2016)

After everything we've seen, there isn't much that rattles either of us anymore...but this one...this one still haunts me...

(There will be major spoilers so skip if you don't want to be spoiled)

Ed and Lorraine are back ya'll!

Alright, so the sequel picks up with Ed and Lorraine investigating the Amityville horror house in 1976. In real life the Warrens were called to investigate this house by the owners themselves who were too scared to even enter the home anymore. The Warrens went to the house and conducted an investigation along with an anchorman from the Channel 5 news, a professor from Duke University and the president of the American Society of Psychic Research. Lorraine was mentally attacked the whole time by horrific images and messages while Ed, who did not consider himself clairvoyant in any way, experienced something himself in the basement of the house.

During the investigation this controversial photo was caught of a little ghost boy:

In the Conjuring 2 they don't mention this part but they do pay homage to the ghost boy when Lorraine is having a psychic vision and this little ghost boy leads her into the basement where she witnesses what she believes to be a premonition of Eds death. In this vision she also encounters a terrifying nun. The Warrens leave the house and Lorraine says she needs a break from all of this.

Over in Enfield, England though, the Enfield haunting has begun. Four children; Margaret, Johnny, Janet and Billy live with their Mom in a small, rundown house and after one day when Janet brings home a home made Ouija board, the haunting begins to happen.

It starts with Janet sleep walking and talking, then progresses to Janet seeing one of the chairs in the living room move on its own and the remote control for the TV moving. She also witnesses a spirit of an old man appear in her blank TV set. One night Janet and her sister awake to their beds shaking and their Mom runs in only to witness a heavy dresser go flying across the room. They run across the street to the neighbors who call the police to investigate. The police, the neighbor and the mom all witness a chair move completely on its own. This leads the haunting to become public news. Maurice Grosse gets involved and witnesses Janet speak as if she's another person. This person is a 72 year old man named Bill who claims he died in the house.

The Warrens are brought in to investigate at the pushing of the church. Lorraine is hesitant of course but Ed convinces her that there's a family out there that needs help. But when they arrive, the two of them are skeptical. And when they see Janet caught on tape faking an incident, their beliefs are questioned.

Alright....so what did I love about this movie?

• I'm obsessed with the Warrens and with the Enfield haunting case so I loved seeing it all come to life. Of course, the facts were blurred quite heavily in the making of this film - the Warrens didn't have a lot to do with this case in real life and of course the ghost of Bill wasn't actually a nun/demon thing. But I liked watching it all play out.
• The sets were so incredibly accurate and the casting was spot on too.
• There were some TERRIFYING sequences in this movie - the crucifix scene where Janet finds herself in a locked room with Bill tormenting her is nightmare fuel. The nun is horrifying and the scene where her shadow moves into the painting had me SHOOK. The crooked man scene was also nightmare fuel, though near the end it got a little cheesey with him. 
• I like that the cops and the neighbor saw the proof too. That's one of the things that drives me nuts in horror movies when its just one person witnessing everything and everyone else just thinks their nuts. It was super satisfying when the cops were basically like...fuckkkkkk that's a ghost ya'll. That's way beyond our pay grade.

What I didn't love?

• WHY THE FUCK WAS THIS MOVIE OVER 2 HOURS LONG? Horror movies have NO business being this long. My attention was lost so many times and it didn't need to be this long. WHY? Horror movies are fast moving thrill rides, not 2 hour long dramas with scary nuns.
• Oh! And speaking of nuns! That entire scene where Ed sang to the children? What was that all about? Was that really needed? I thought I'd fallen asleep and was having one of my Sound of Music dreams where I'm a nun singing and running from the nazis.

Overall?
I didn't like it nearly as much as the first. Honestly....the length of it really ruined the entire thing for me. Which seems dramatic. But my face is swollen and I'm going to go get antibiotics tomorrow morning so frankly I'm not in the mood nor have the patience. It wasn't as scary as the first simply because there was too much dialogue and story building in between the scary moments. The first was so terrifying because you were constantly on edge. This movie gave you a chance to relax between scares and then you'd be able to predict when a scare was coming.

There was some terrifying scenes and some beautiful shots and I loved watching my beloved Warrens on a new scooby adventure. But other than that I was not impressed. I'm actually pretty let down.

I'll see how I feel in the morning when my body is filled with antibiotics and I've slept on the film a bit.

5/10

Stay spooky! (and swollen! hahahahahaha....akljgklajsgmas....kill me....i'm in so much pain....I need to go castaway on this tooth, hand me a skate.)