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First thing's first: The Conjuring 2 is often very scary.
The story of a downtrodden British family in Enfield tormented by the vengeful spirit of an old cockney man (and a demonic nun) ups the voltage slowly but steadily, peppering in gotcha scares generously and expertly thickening its atmosphere with impending dread. Nevermind that the true story is reportedly a hoax, similar to paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren's (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) experiences in Amityville… scary's scary, and for at least its first hour, C2 delivers an old-school haunted-house experience of the Poltergeist variety.
Thing is, we've seen this before. In between creating the Saw series and launching Vin Diesel off a skyscraper in Furious 7, director James Wan's more or less been revisiting the same funhouse over the course of the Insidious and Conjuring films, which are essentially interchangeable except for Conjuring's '70s setting. The beats are always the same. Haunting amplifies, somebody (probably Wilson) is sucked into the spirit realm, mystery is solved…but is it? That means the jolts are pretty easy to anticipate, though effective. So effective at the beginning, in fact, that it makes the second-half skid-out all the more frustrating.
Still, Wan seems content painting over the same canvas, adding flourishes that are richer and scarier with each pass. If he wants to keep tinkering, we'll keep coming, because when Conjuring 2 is scary, it's in a class its own.
Critic's Grade: B-
Rating: R
Willamette Week
