Review: Insidious Chapter 2

Insidious Chapter 2 proves to be a pleasant surprise.

Picking up where the previous film left off, we are again presented with a family in turmoil. The Lamberts are a complete unit again, with father Josh (Patrick Wilson, in his third horror colaboration with The Conjuring director James Wan) having travelled the afterlife to reclaim the soul of his son Dalton from the demon that was menacing the family. But wife Renai (Rose Byrne) and mother Lorraine (Barbara Hershey) can't relax yet. It seems that Josh has brought back something even more evil with him (or, more to the point, within him), and their only guide to the supernatural, Elise (Lin Shaye) is dead...

The most immediately apparent aspect of this film is the manner in which it confidently and assuredly addresses every complaint about its predecessor.

The general consensus of the first movie was that it spectacularly lost its shit when Wilson's Josh travelled to "The Further", the film's ethereal version of the afterlife. It came right out of left field and felt like a firm kick to the balls of credibility that the movie had beeen working so hard to protect with the... cup.. of... good writing? Got lost a bit in the metaphor there, sorry.

The groin is the cinematic experience. The plastic bit is the script.

I think the airholes are the popcorn...

In Chapter 2, though, the scenes in The Further are far better intergrated into the main action, and actually feel very natural and vital to the plot. Indeed, they are woven in from practically the first scene, although to what extent remains to be revealed later on in the movie.

There is also a very welcome change in antagonist. The fact that the previous baddie looked just like Darth Maul is a really cliched observation by this point, but that doesn't make it any less true, or make the demon any less hard to buy.

This is not the face of terror

This time, though, we have a Big Bad Duo in the form of the ghost of cross-dressing serial killer Parker Crane in our world, and the even more deranged "Mother Of Death" in The Further. Mother forced her son to dress in a black wedding frock and murder women when they were alive, and now that Parker has made it back into our world she's intent on him continuing his work. It's a far more compelling sell that the previous film's baddie.

You may now kiss the bride

And finally the biggest complaint about the first film - the bumbling comic relief duo Specs and Tucker (co-writer Leigh Whannell and Angus Sampson) - have been mercifully toned down. While their incessant joking and larger-than-life silliness brought down the scares in every one of their scenes last time around, here they are presented in a far more sedate manner. It's almost as if they behave like real people. In fact, aside from one ill-timed transgression - a slapstick joke right in the middle of the otherwise-tense finale - they are actually quite likable characters now.

You try staying mad at those faces for two whole movies...

The film also very effectively returns to scenes from the previous movie, showing them from a different perspective and sewing up plot holes that you never knew were there. This really does feel like a second chapter of one story, as opposed to a standard sequel. Not since Paranormal Activity 2 weaved its narrative around the first has a horror sequel felt so... relevant (and it must be said that Insidious acheives this to far greater effect).

The cast remains - mostly - as competent as they were in the previous film. The always-likable Patrick Wilson is sadly sidelined for much of the first half, by necessity since his mental state is supposed to be a mystery. And with Rose Byrne uncharacteristically phoning it in a little as Renai (in fact, she becomes the sole weak link, after proving to be the standout in the last film), Barbara Hershey surprisingly takes up the majority of the screentime as Lorraine. A minor character in the first flick, Hershey this time becomes the main protagonist, very ably driving the plot as she teams up with Specs, Tucker, and series-newcomer Steve Coulter as Elise-replacement Carl to investigate old murder scenes, spooky abandoned hospitals and terrifying boarded-up houses - all of which look great, and are really quite imposing thanks to some clever camera work. Hershey carries most of this film, and makes for a very refreshing alternative to the usual pretty young strumpet that tends to lead the horror genre.

While Chapter 2 has neatly addressed the flaws of the original, though, it sadly manages to develop new flaws all of its own. While replacing the terrible Darth Maul rip-off antagonist was without question a welcome move, that's not to say that the spooky Parker Crane is any more of an original creation. In fact, the "ghost of a bald, elderly, cross-dressing murderer influenced by an even more malevolent ghostly woman" scenario is a weirdly specific carbon-copy of the far more terrifying Pipes, the spectral enemy in Ghostwatch.

Goodbye sleep, hello repressed terror

Then there's the spectacular leaps of logic - both those from the characters themselves and those that the writers ask their audience to make. Too often characters jump to (accurate) conclusions that make very little sense, or find themselves in possession (no pun intended) of knowledge that they just shouldn't have. And twists are set up (early on we discover that it wasn't, in fact, a possessed Josh that murdered Elise) with no pay-off. Sure, we can fill in some blanks ourselves, but there just isn't enough information presented to allow us to do so without raising even more questions.

There is also the rather big issue of the villain's motivation. Wan and Whannell had the oportunity to present a very interesting look at gender issues, parental abuse and identity with the spooky pairing of Parker Crane and The Mother Of Death. But instead, we just get the bare-bones "dress up as a girl and kill people because Mother says so and Mother knows best" explanation. Even a stock and predictable motivation would have been more welcome than the... well... nothing that we get here.

"Because Mother. Fucking. SAYS SO!!"

The biggest problem, though, is that it just plain isn't scary. On paper it has all the right ingredients: a genuinely disturbing antagonist, all the classic, if cliched, spooky locales and a horrifying notion of a beloved father becoming a potential threat to his children. But the film spectacularly fails to bring to the screen the terrors that exist on paper. The first half of the previous Insidious movie (and the entirety of The Conjuring) manages to instill a sense of oncoming dread and paranoia that creeps into every bone of your body and leaves you genuinely nervous about what may come next - you don't want our heroes to investigate the spooky closet, or the creepy basement for fear of what may be there, but you just can't look away.

There's none of that here.

Wan is clearly capable of producing this effect, so its sad that he misses the mark with this, his last (if rumours are to be believed) foray into the horror genre. Instead, the movie falls flatly into that terrible trap of mistaking brief jumps and sudden musical crescendos for genuine scares. Horror doesn't come from the moments when they unexpected appears on screen without warning, horror comes solely from the spaces in between the jumps. It is atmosphere. It is build-up. It is anticipation. It is entirely absent from Insidious Chapter 2.

Still, the movie proves to be a vast improvement on its predecessor, and a very satisfying companion-piece to the first film. And - given that a third has already been announced - its no surprise that the film ends with a (painfully out-of-place and unrelated) sequel hook/cliffhanger, so who knows?

 Maybe the third time will be the charm

Geekin' Out Verdict: 7/10

Currently topping both the US and UK Box Offices, Insidious Chapter 2 is in cinemas now