tek's rating: ¼

The Conjuring 2 (R)
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This is the third movie movie in the "Conjuring" franchise, and the first direct sequel to the original movie. (There was a prequel to "The Conjuring" a couple of years before this movie came out.) "The Conjuring 2" was released in 2016, but I didn't see it until 2019. And I definitely liked it more than the original, by which I mean that I found it a hell of a lost scarier.

It begins in 1976, with Ed and Lorraine Warren investigating the Lutz house, after the events of The Amityville Horror. (That movie is not part of this franchise, but both movies are based on purportedly real events.) During a seance in the house, Lorraine has a vision, part of which involves being attacked by a demonic figure in the guise of a nun, and another part involves seeing Ed impaled. So, right away, the movie is uber creepy, but despite that being the case for which the Warrens are most famous, it's actually a very minor part of the movie. But after that case, Lorraine is so traumatized that she thinks she and Ed should stop investigating para normal events, at least for awhile.

In 1977, the Hodgson family of Enfield, in London, begin experiencing some very disturbing events in their house. Ed and Lorraine are eventually called in by the church to investigate, though for quite awhile we just see what the Hodgsons themselves are going through. Peggy Hodgson is a divorced mother of four children: 14-year-old Margaret, 11-year-old Janet, and two younger sons named Billy and Johnny. (I think Billy was the one with a stutter, and I don't think there's anything at all to say about Johnny, though I might have that backwards.) Janet and one of the boys (again, I think it was Billy but I'm not sure) each experienced some scary stuff, and eventually the whole family starts experiencing it, which leads them to spend some time living with their neighbors across the street. And then for some reason they go back to living in their own house, despite the continuation of the scary shit that goes on there. (Also I have no idea why they'd bother putting up a Christmas tree. They couldn't really have expected to have a happy Christmas, could they?)

Um... so, I suppose I should mention that in the Amityville scene, the Warrens had been investigating whether the murders that had happened there before the Lutzes even moved in had been caused by demonic possession or whatever, and I think the Nun that Lorraine saw in her vision was proof of that. (Well, not objective proof, because of course no one else saw it, but proof enough for the Warrens and for movie viewers.) And she later saw the Nun again in the Warrens' own house. Meanwhile, the entity haunting the Hodgsons' house was an old man who had once lived and died there, who often speaks through Janet in a very creepy way (which you might say made Janet seem like a creepy kid, though mostly you can't help but feel sorry for her, because she goes through some really terrifying shit, more so than any of the other Hodgsons). But the movie invents a connection between the Amityville and Enfield cases, which didn't exist in real life. And aside from the Warrens, there were a couple other paranormal investigators involved in the Enfield case; a believer named Maurice Grosse and a skeptic named Anita Gregory (Franka Potente, whom I know from Run Lola Run, but completely failed to recognize here). And, um... what else? The Nun showed up, and there was some creepy entity called the Crooked Man. And lots of other stuff happens, which I don't want to go into detail about. And... I hope I'm not forgetting anything I wanted to mention, but anyway, it's definitely a really scary movie.


supernatural horror index

The Conjuring Universe
TV Tropes; Wikia; Wikipedia

The Conjuring * The Conjuring 2 * The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It
Annabelle * Annabelle: Creation * Annabelle Comes Home
The Nun * The Nun II
unofficial tie-ins: Wolves at the Door * The Curse of La Llorona